AMD 317 Community Project Final: Social Awareness in Urban Exploration
Full Project Statement: (read paragraphs 2-3 for shorter summary)
I chose the Social Awareness in Urban Exploration prompt for my final community project. As is dictated by this version of the community project, I explored the abandoned areas around my home, but also created a story about the changes in Carlsbad, CA through the photography I shot in those areas. In the near future, these locations are going to be transformed from wild fields into cookie-cutter, residential areas. For the years and maybe even decades before this development, these plots of land have been used as parks and BMX biking areas. Families hike through handmade trails on the weekends and cut holes in their fences adjacent to the land so their kids can go play. These areas are known as safe places where the community’s youth play in the outdoors. A few years ago, the first plot of land was bulldozed, knocking down beautiful natural cliffs, and a wide road was built up the slope to the top. According to my father who has lived in Carlsbad for 30 years, this land was initially the Carlsbad City Dump and then was cleared out to be used for housing. After being bulldozed and the top flattened, the natural beauty of this place was almost lost and may be lost forever with future projects. A few weeks ago, my family was hiking in the second plot and met the owner. He informed us that he would be filling the land with condos and other residential structures in two short years. This land is even more important to the community and specifically my family because of the long days we played in the forest. My two sisters and I once teamed up and built a biking and hiking track around the whole grove as a present for our dad. Just this week when I was shooting photos for this project I noticed that several trees had been chopped down and BMX jumps flattened in an attempt to control the community’s use of this land. These areas were so important to my childhood and I thought they would be a place of fun for many kids and families in the future, but they are vanishing.
In my project, I show the natural beauty of these places and explore what they might look like in the future. Although I am sad to see these forests and fields built, they could become the homes for many happy families. Is it detrimental to the community to wipe out the natural landscapes around them that they enjoy so much? Is it worth it if housing is provided for the expanded community? These are the questions I bring out, but leave open and unanswered, in my photographs.
In order to show these current and future landscapes, I set up a physical installation in each of the locations that looked like a family eating breakfast at their kitchen table (photos 1-2) and girls studying in a bedroom (photos 4-6). My mother and I loaded up our Jeep with props and drove a short way to each location. Then we arranged our indoor scene and posed as people would if they were lounging around in their house. We dressed in pajamas first and then everyday clothes for the second scene. After I got the photos I wanted, I drew the glowing outlines of possible structures around us to show the future houses others may be living in on this land. One of the shots (photo 3) also demonstrates outdoor neighborhood scenes that may exist alongside the families eating and studying in their homes. Finally, I included a shot that shows a girl studying alongside the No Trespassing sign that attempts to ward her away from the area. She stands comfortably inside the land that she is currently not allowed to enter, but may live on in the future. The final shot shows what this girl is reading: a poem by Margo Jefferson titled An Avid Dream of Transformation. This is the title of my project, which identifies American builder’s and owner’s intense desire to see these natural places built despite the effects this may have on the community.
My 8 photographs were taken with my digital camera, edited in Lightroom, and then drawn on with Photoshop. Most of the shots are far away from the subjects so I could include a clear, large section of the drawn structure they are in. The close-up shots do not include as much context, but make the viewer feel as if they are in this future, glowing structure as well. All of the shots have a deep depth of field in order to get the whole natural scene and the subjects in focus. I took the shots with me as one of the subjects by setting up my camera on a tripod with a 10 second timer and then running into position. I chose the objects for the installations to create a natural, but attractive color palette of muted whites, beiges, and pinks. These colors help the installation and subjects, who also wear subtle coordinating colors, to stand out from the yellow and green plant life surrounding them. The bright white and blue glow of the line drawings stand out the most amid the natural, soft colors of the rest of the composition. I used Split Toning on all of the images to create a warm, comfortable overall color palette that helped the scenes look more homey.
Overall, I am quite pleased with how this project turned out. Setting up the installations, taking timed photos, and then drawing on them later took a large amount of effort, but it also allowed me to experiment with combining many mediums. Looking at them now, one of my favorite parts of these photos are the gazes constructed by the drawn windows of the structures. These windows that the subjects often are looking out of create frames of the landscape that do not physically exist, but residents may see in the future. I am really glad I got to document the fleeting state of natural areas in my community and visualize what they may look like in the future. I want to thank my mother especially for posing and helping me set up the photos. Also, I must give my dog, Murphy, credit for looking like a perfect house dog in the first and second photos.
Shelby Rossman's Digital Photo Blog 