Apr
13
Twilight in New Orleans by Jim Lo Scalzo
April 13, 2011 | Photos & Field Notes, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Jim Lo Scalzo has a nice piece in the Times today about the Salton Sea that uses historical and contemporary photographs to show change over time. It’s worth looking at, but what I wanted to point you to is his piece on New Orleans that is mentioned in the Times article. This reminded me of our discussion of how the ordinary sounds of a neighborhood could factor into a photo essay: http://vimeo.com/5945963
Apr
12
Today’s class notes
April 12, 2011 | Design: From paper to website, Mapping the City, Photos & Field Notes, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Hi all:
Just to have these:
7 Landmark groups (2 people per group, people were assigned to groups today)
Each group will:
-revisit their site
-begin writing up text (4 paragraphs for webpage) Some students volunteered to write up a “writing assignment” (who is doing this? please post it on facebook asap.)
-take photos appropriate to their site (as field notes or “professional” photos. See Tyler for assistance here.)
-create some sort of interview (could be video, photo w/ voice over, just audio, or can be transcribed.) Both informal and formal interviews need releases. Please contact Prof. Gardner. Interview questions should also be scripted in advance. Please consider the nature of your interviews methods carefully. All participants must give their consent to be interviewed. They must also give express consent for you to use their image and audio on a public website. If they don’t give this consent, the interview can still be used, but you will have to change the names to “anonymous” and transcribe the interview for use on the site.
-also create a google map for your location
I am thinking that we will use www.wix.com to build the site. This flash site will allow each group to create a page that really works for their content (as well as keep the design consistent across pages.) It will also let us easily insert google maps (as a widget.) If you are curious start playing with the site. We will probably build pages from scratch, but this is pretty easy.
Other ideas to consider: perhaps you want an additional photo gallery? if so, we can create its own page. Wix, however, let’s you embed photos (galleries, take a look) that look pretty nice, so perhaps some pages have a few photos, but if someone does do a cool photo essay, we can accommodate that too.
Apr
11
Wix
April 11, 2011 | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
http://www.wix.com/sample/website
Apr
11
iMap Flickr
April 11, 2011 | Mapping the City, Photos & Field Notes | Leave a Comment
http://imapflickr.com/default.aspx
Create custom Google Maps from your geotagged Flickr Photos to embed in your website or blog, or for sending to Facebook, Twitter or your favourite website. Its quick, non-technical and free.
Mar
29
WordPress Themes
March 29, 2011 | Design: From paper to website | 2 Comments
Those of you who are drawn to the design end of things, please start looking through the WordPress themes. Each theme has different capacities and while we can adapt them (a bit), it will also be best to start with something that really works for our project.
I want to suggest this one as a starting place: Arras 1.5.0.1 by Melvin Lee
Mar
29
Voicethread
March 29, 2011 | Data Visualization, Photos & Field Notes, Working with Video | Leave a Comment
We didn’t get to play with Voicethread in our initial applications workshop, but the more I think about our conversation today, the more I would like you to take a look at it: https://voicethread.com/#
It will allow you to import photos, pdf’s, slides, websites, videos, from facebook (even) and then create a conversation around these documents. It might be an interesting way to report on a particular aspect of East Harlem. The final Voicethread product can be embedded on the website.
Mar
29
Using the Flickr site
March 29, 2011 | Photos & Field Notes | Leave a Comment
Also, just wanted to say that I am going through your Flickr photos and leaving comments. Prof. Gardner is going to take a look too. You should be doing the same. You may start to see story ideas here.
Best,
K.
Okay, edit that: I have to access Flickr through another computer. Will be commenting throughout the week.
Mar
29
Thinking about how a map can work
March 29, 2011 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
We also talked about a map as a navigation device. Take a look at this online documentary and imagine how something like this– a map that allows for navigating case stories, data, etc.– might work: http://www.doclab.org/2010/new-york-minute/?visit
Mar
29
More NYTimes Mapping data
March 29, 2011 | Mapping the City | Leave a Comment
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/23/nyregion/20110123-nyc-ethnic-neighborhoods-map.html
Ideally, as you begin to research your theme projects, you will think about connections between the history of the neighborhood, changing demographics, and public policies that have played out in East Harlem.
Mar
29
Notes from today’s class
March 29, 2011 | Design: From paper to website | Leave a Comment
Hi all:
I know you are typing up your notes from today, but here are my notes too.
Class projects are emerging around different topics. We discussed:
Religion: The architecture of religion, the practices that are present, the way religion is woven into the neighborhood, botanicas as a photo essay (see other post from Portraits of Place)
Food: Not just looking at restaurants, but also bodegas and supermarkets. What food is available, what is not? I like the street vendor idea too. Who are they, where are they, what are they selling? Here is a link to The Street Vendor Project and to the type of interviews they are doing: http://streetvendor.org/about/tesfalum-kiflu This could potentially be a great project. If you are interested, I would also recommend “Sidewalk” by Mitch Duneier.
Art: We talked about murals, wall art, memorials, and graffiti. Again, there is a lot to talk about here and would be a lovely photo essay. We also talked about interviewing De La Vega and this sounds really interesting. I would be happy to help you set up an interview– again, research is needed here for interview (as well to collect photos of his work in E. Harlem.)
Music: Collecting “ethnomusical” samples of music from the neighborhood. Or, even just sounds of the neighborhood. This could be a really great element to your map of the neighborhood. Sound is often an overlooked part of the urban environment: http://www.tenement.org/folksongs/client/
Fashion: Thinking along the lines of Bill Cunningham (look him up on The Times), you could collect photos/voiceover of styles. We need to talk about this more. How could this connect to ideas about gentrification?
Public Space and the Built Environment: We talked about gentrification, housing, and greenspace.
All students will work on content, as well as on website development. We’ll need a design team, a group devoted to text, as well as the visual editors responsible for cleaning up images and making sure they are of appropriate quality.
