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atmospheric
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About this project
For this project, I used a digital camera to capture images of my immediate neighborhood, the area I often walk from our home to Lake Nokomis and back. This 3-mile path takes me past a few blocks of houses, and then along the perimeter of the lake.
The primary subject of the photographs was the natural environment, while the secondary subject was the built environment, such as street signs, manhole covers, houses, and clusters of nearby commercial establishments. My focus when looking at those subjects was on design elements, such as color, shape, line, texture, and light, and my intent was to arrange those elements in compositions that exhibited unity, balance, and variety. Emerged themes included the beauty in nature, and unexpected beauty in the built environment.
Most of the images were taken between September 2001 and April 2002. The total of images was more than 3,000. From that database, I selected a few of my favorites, found a word that connected each to one of the 26 letters of the alphabet, and wrote a few thoughts to go alongside each image.
The images throughout the site are presented in pairs: a sharp image and a related image made up of squares or pixels. This device was used to allow opportunities for the viewer to make visual discoveries--for instance, a viewer sees various tan and blue squares and then discovers that they correspond to a photograph of a telephone pole. Also, this pixelation was used to emphasize an essential attribute of digital photography: the image is recorded as a finite amount of information that can be reduced to a grid. Lastly, the pixelation makes use of a perceived limitation of digital photography and turns it into a thing of beauty.
The project was completed in partial fulfillment of the master of fine arts degree in multimedia design in the Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel at the University of Minnesota.
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About
the neighborhood
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