Key Pages:

Archaeology in the 'Information Age'

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The Bristol Path
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Dead Buildings of Providence

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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology

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Dead Buildings of Providence

Second Micro-project: Dead Buildings of Providence

This was actually a good deal of fun--a good use of Zoomify, Google maps, Photoshop, and a nice SLR and tripod. There are a few other sites which have similar themed content--notably, Art in Ruins which focuses on buildings and sites in Rhode Island (especially Providence) that are no more, in decay, or being re-used for other purposes. "Art in Ruins" uses a combination of historic and modern photos to depict the sites, but the images are all a fixed resolution--about 520x350 (or thereabouts). This project, though, lets the viewer zoom in on parts of interest to a very high resolution easily--in most cases up to the critical sharpness of the lens, not the arbitrary dimensions of the website's layout. As a result, many more features can be pulled out of each photo--and more information.

I really like the basic idea of the project--its archaeological basis (the remains of buildings which aren't there), its local interest (Providence), and knowing that I'm documenting some of the features which are just now occurring (the satellite photos for a few still show the buildings--but they don't show anything of the internal structures) and others which may not be visible in a few years from now (such as the painted ad which was protected by a building but will fade with time), and the fact that it's available to anyone who wants to see the images (and searches for "dead buildings" in Google).

Hopefully this summer I will get some time to do it again (and get more buildings) with a better lens--or maybe even using a large format camera instead of an SLR--which would help eliminate the pesky problems of the lines of the building beginning to converge. Also, with a bit more time available, I hope to be able to get the best lighting possible to show the bricks (some of my shots, unfortunately, were in shadow--though not all of them can be in good daylight due to neighboring buildings).

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Posted at May 15/2007 10:07PM:
chris witmore: Another excellent project Adam. You might like to include links within the pages for ease of navigation: Dead Buildings of Providence.

It is a shame that the images are blur in the close zooms. Glad to hear you are willing to have another go at acquiring the imagery.