This is a photography project I got the idea for and started in 2004 and finished up in 2005.  Originally this was going to have a web-based end result but I was required to actually physically make this, at great expense of time and money, show it and then because of its outrageous size throw it in the dumpster the next day (this is an extremely long story which I won't bore anyone with).  I never got around to putting it on the web and my web design skills are rudimentary so I'm looking for advice on how to put this together.  Basically what I want to do is have a feature where the mouse cursor scrolls over the city block grid and a big version of each block pops up.  Also, the block could be rotated.  The idea is for viewers to spend time with this and view each photo for as long as they like, this was a problem with the physical version.  I want the versions that pop up for each block to be pretty high resolution, these photos actually have a ton of detail in them that is lost on this post since I saved them at jpeg resolution 3.   

 

Here is a PDF intro I wrote which didn't make it into the final show, but it's a good quick synopsis:

 

 

A composite property line map I assembled from www.hamiltoncountyauditor.org in May 2005:

 

Here are all 51 lots superimposed on a simplified map of downtown:

 

The November 2005 show on the roof of the Athens City Garage in Athens, OH:

 

 

 

Here are all 51 individual photos, shown in no particular order.  Sorry about the low resolution.  These were shot with a medium format camera, the images in real life are actually extremely detailed and could easily be enlarged to 20X20 inches.  They were printed digitally for the show, this allowed precise alignment and for multiple images to be printed seamlessly on the same surface.     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BTW when I claimed I was almost witness to the shooting at the Bay Horse, I was taking the photo at the corner of 8th & Walnut (image with Sibcy Cline billboard) you see here.  Quite grizzly to think that someone was killed at virtually the instant this picture was taken, more or less directly on the other side of the photos in the frame.   

 

 

Last but not least, #51 at the corner of Court and Central Ave. (this 800X800 image gives some hint as to the detail in these scans, this is at jpeg 3, for the web version I want to do much higher res and probably 900X900):

 

Example of a block with two parking lots.  In the web version, I'm hoping that I can have the viewer rotate these in either direction at variable speeds.

 

Example of a block with three parking lots.  No blocks in downtown Cincinnati have 4 corner lots.

 

Pretty interesting project, but I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish with the viewing of the images.  Is it some visual experimentation, or is it an exercise of potential urban redevelopment?  Either way, I appreciate the information you have collected...but my web skills are also quite slim.  :|

I'm sure this is possible without as much programming/web savvy as you'd think.

 

I'd have to wait until I get home to my computer/megamainframe ;p

And see what I can come up with to help you out.

I don't know what's making me queazy: the angle or the notion of all these corner lots.*

 

Regardless, I dig.

 

*Yeah, yeah. Columbus...surface lots...Pot...Kettle.

Would you have the pop-up version be aligned vertically?  Because yeah, the alignment thing kinda screws me up...

 

>rying to accomplish with the viewing of the images.  Is it some visual experimentation, or is it an exercise of potential urban redevelopment? 

 

There is a fairly well-known movement in landscape photography called "New Topographics" which has been in a bit of a logjam (along with street photography, documentary photography, and a few other catagories) for the past 30 years.  In other words there were a handfull of people who exhausted 98% of the potential of those genres before any critic had even framed those genres and everyone who's pursued them since has been more or less repeating what's already been accomplished.  For example, now there are a lot of people out there photographing strip malls and subdivisions, however this was done (as in stick a fork in it) 35 years ago and even though the architectural styles have changed nothing's changed about what these photographers are doing.  I myself did a lot of this from 1998-2000, not knowing that people had already done it years earlier.  The trick was to come up with a new reason and new way for photographing these things, and I knew I had it with this.  Yes I could have photographed all four corners of every block, but I thought the project was actually stronger and more focuessed by just photographing the lots -- what's not there.  The problem I've always had is that very few art people have much knowledge of architectural matters, zoning, real estate, etc., and so few people are interested in this subject matter.  That is why when I get this new site together with this and a half dozen other things I've done I'm going to start contacting geography, cartography, planning, etc., writers.  Specifically what is lacking in the history of American landscape photography is any acknowledgement of the rectangle survey system, subdivision grids (such as downtown Cincinnati, Columbus, etc.), the way the idea of private land ownership was invented in England but took on a life of its own here, the way so much of Ohio was used to pay off Revolutionary War debt and the way surplus federal land today could be used to put a big dent in the national debt. 

 

The first step I took toward getting this idea was in 2003, when I noticed that the BP on 5th St. in Covington had a sign which lined up exactly with a row house on Johnson street.  If you stood in one particular spot in the gas station's parking lot, the sign obscured the 3-floor italienate building exactly.  You could still see it sort of peak out below and above, and I took a picture realizing that it sort of illustrated the supremecy of the auto landscape over the traditional row house landscape, or more specifically how the auto landscape either obliterates the traditional city or how these buildings hang on for dear life, usually ignamaniously modified to suit cars. 

 

Yes, the idea for the site is for these images to be viewed with the horizon lines level, that is why I need to do some animation, and I don't know how to go about that. 

I don't know what's making me queazy: the angle or the notion of all these corner lots.*

 

Regardless, I dig.

 

*Yeah, yeah. Columbus...surface lots...Pot...Kettle.

 

Pot...Kettle is an understatement.

 

But atleast Columbus isn't denying the parking lots ;).

And btw Columbus's downtown grid is bizarre which is why I couldn't use it for this project.  Either Philadelphia or Marietta's grid would have worked better symbolically, but they're both way too screwed up to work (Marietta has rectangular blocks, and yes I know I cheated a bit with some of Cincinnati's odd blocks but there really aren't any "perfect" downtown grids of square blocks.  I did get the idea to repeat this exact project in Anchorage, Alaska -- instead of photographing the first American grid city (Philly) or the first gridded city west of the Appalachians (Marietta), I'd be photographing the most remote spot where the rectangle survey system began in the 1780's reached.   

 

Also, if a grid is a more or less uniquely American phenomenon, then the four-way right angle intersection is as well.  The term grid emphasizes streets, not intersections or the formation of identical street corners.  It's a good example of how adaptation of existing terminology in a language shapes perception of any new phenomena a word or phrase is adapted to.  It can work in reverse too, where the new use becomes more popular and central than the original use, and so affects the vestigal use.   

 

 

 

But atleast Columbus isn't denying the parking lots ;).

 

I'm sorry but who was denying anything again.....

But atleast Columbus isn't denying the parking lots ;).

 

I'm sorry but who was denying anything again.....

 

It was part of the "pot/kettle" thing that kingfish joked about.

I'll try to get a write up of either HTML or CSS code to do the mouse-over enlarge image.

 

I was playing with Frontpage, Dreamweaver, Go Live and Publisher a bit too much. ;p

^Ahhh Dreamweaver...the idiots guide to website design  :laugh:

^I have TONS of idiot web design tools at my disposal naive! ;p

 

This might help

When in doubt ask around the net.

 

I personally prefer more of a design program for it.

The obvious commands for it would go something like "effects" or "added effects" when right clicking an image you placed in the webmaker.  Look for "effects on mouse-over" or words to that effect and the program should walk you through it.

I don't know what's making me queazy: the angle or the notion of all these corner lots.*

Regardless, I dig.

*Yeah, yeah. Columbus...surface lots...Pot...Kettle.

Pot...Kettle is an understatement.

 

Ironically, those three structures are all that's left of Columbus' once-bustling Pot and Kettle works.

Okay Jmeck!

 

Check this out.

Make up two images. 

One smallparkinggrid.gif (make this smaller so it fits on a webpage or column.)

Another largeparkinggrid.gif (make this bigger so when a mouseover occurs the enlarging effect occurs.  like one frame to another.)

 

If you are just straight up writing an HTML web document, try this script...

 

<A HREF="the.html" onmouseover="document.largerimage.src='smallparkinggrid.gif'"

onmouseout="document.largerimage.src='largeparkinggrid.gif'">

 

<IMG SRC="largeparkinggrid.gif" NAME="largerimage"

WIDTH="100" HEIGHT="100" BORDER="0" ALT="a closeup of the parking sea">

 

</A>

 

In the middle of the <BODY> part of your document.

That will tell the browser to pull up the larger image when you put the mouse over the small image.  Its just the same as buttons in Dreamweaver and Frontpage ;p. 

 

The "the.html" is just the name of the webpage so it could be whatever you need like...

[x]"parking.html"

[x]"walkaround.html"

[x]"portfolio.html"

 

The WIDTH and HEIGHT control the size of the image you are displaying.  For our purposes, keep those numbers near 100 so the effect of the enlarged image is more pronounced on a mouseover

 

In the end it should be something like this...

 

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<TITLE>JavaScript</TITLE>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT" TYPE="TEXT/JAVASCRIPT">

<!--

//-->

</SCRIPT>

</HEAD>

<BODY>

<A HREF="the.html" onmouseover="document.largerimage.src='smallparkinggrid.gif'"

onmouseout="document.largerimage.src='largeparkinggrid.gif'">

 

<IMG SRC="largeparkinggrid.gif" NAME="largerimage"

WIDTH="100" HEIGHT="100" BORDER="0" ALT="a closeup of the parking sea">

 

</A>

 

</BODY>

</HTML>