The Patchwork Project

One of the nice things about having a blog is that you get to ‘meet’ (internet style) some interesting folks that either write comments or e-mail you. Such was the case yesterday when Mike Bartolotta posted a comment and when we subsequently followed up with a few e-mails.

Now, “Bart”, as he apparently calls himself, has defined for himself a most interesting photographic project. He currently hails from Rochester, New York. What he has done is to…….well, never mind, why don’t I just let him explain it with a quote taken directly from The Patchwork Project website:

“The concept is quite simple. For no better reason than to take photos for the love of photography, I am setting out on a quest to capture unique and distinct images of the city of Rochester, New York. Using a map of the area, I divided the city and surrounding towns into one square mile sections. Over the next few weeks and months, I will choose a random section and go out to shoot photos, documenting the city I live in.

Initially, I am starting this project on my own. My hope is that as things start to get going, I will meet other local photographers who are interested in the project and willing to participate. Every photographer involved will photograph the same randomly picked “square” or section of the city during a designated time frame. The beauty of this concept is that, although we are all taking pictures of the same area, every photographer has a different eye and style, so no two photos will be alike.

In the end, the goal is to have a unique portrait of Rochester, its architecture, natural wonders, people, residential & commercial neighborhoods, waterways, parks, and everything else in between.

If you are interested in taking part in the endeavor, please visit the contact page and drop me a line. I welcome photographers of all skill level (I am no professional by any means), and I would love to have more people involved.

NOTE: I also feel it necessary to say that although I would like to, I cannot take credit for this idea. During one of my many Internet searches, I stumbled across the “Portland Grid Project”. Esssentially a photography group in Portland, OR has been doing this since the mid 1990's and has amassed over 20,000 photos of their city. After browsing their site for a while I realized what a great idea this was…so, I thought, "why not me and why not Rochester!"

I found this to be a fascinating and unique idea (the fact that it has been done in Portland notwithstanding); unique enough that I knew I wanted to make a blog post out of the concept so that a few more people might see what Bart is up to. Initially, I was going to wait until there were more than one or two photos up on the project site so that those who were interested could get a sense of how the project was progressing as well as getting a view of Rochester. But then I thought that it would be even more interesting to look into the project now, while it is still just a framework that is starting to come together, without knowing how things will start to move, in order to watch the project in evolution. No matter how it turns out I think the concept is fantastic.

Bart, if things go well, I would think that this is the sort of project that the local government or an area gallery might well be interested in showing to a wider audience. Good luck. I know that I, for one, will be following with interest.

Meanwhile, if anyone else out there is currently living in Rochester, why not drop Bart a line and get involved.

I think I will be checking out The Portland Grid Project website as well!.