My readers may recall my trip to Italy a couple years ago, where I shot panoramas of a couple sites for a UCLA professor...

Well, old connections are reviving. He's now at the U. of Virginia and sends me this message out of the blue:

I write because my [Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities] has just gotten a grant to create a best practice guide for documenting historic buildings using QuickTime.

Our plan is to invite several experienced QuickTime photographers to the University of Virginia for a three-day workshop in which the attendees will show and discuss their work; we will gather input for the guide; and we will develop an outline of topics to be treated.

Once we've done that, each of the invitees will be asked to write one or more sections of the guide. We will pay the travel costs of the attendees, and we'll also pay an honorarium for the written contributions to the guide. Contributors will also be credited as co-authors of the publication.

We are thinking of holding the workshop in the period of May 12-14, 2006. I write to ask if this interests you as someone who's done excellent work in this field and whether you would be willing to attend.

How can one say "no" to that kind of offer?

Thankfully my boss, who coincidentally used to be a dean at U. Va., said "go; have fun" so now it's time to find some plane tickets!