The photographs so far...
Each shot as it comes.
Cincinnati is the center of the "Tri-State." It's the urban nucleus from which a three state metropolitan area of two million residents was born. The economic, cultural and geographic center of the region is defined by its iconic Midwestern skyline.
As a major league city, Cincinnat's skyline has been featured prominently in popular culture throughout the nation. It's used to establish a sense of place during broadcasts of sporting events and its appeared on numerous television shows. While not as recognizable as New York City and Chicago on the intros of "Friends" and "Family Matters" respectively, Cincinnati did make an appearance on the title screens for "The Edge of Night" and "WKRP in Cincinnati" - two extremely popular shows in their time.
The sight of the Cincinnati skyline has been a profound landmark for over two centuries. From those traveling on steamboats down the Ohio River when Cincinnati was dubbed the "Queen City of The West," to the first glimpse of freedom that numerous runaway slaves saw before the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War. It's in the rear view mirrors of suburban commuters when they drive home for the day and a sight for sore eyes when Cincinnatians return home through the "Cut in the Hill."
It features beautiful and diverse architecture ranging from Hellenic to Art Deco to Brutalist and Modern. It's flanked by highways, the river, neighborhoods and the seven hills. For me, I grew up seeing a transitional time in the skyline's development. From the mid 90's view of a foreground dominated by old Riverfront Stadium to that stadium's implosion and the rise of "The Banks," as well as a new skyscraper that I witnessed and documented first hand. Since the invention of the earliest cameras, the skyline of Cincinnati has been photographed constantly. A search on Flickr yields 7,000 photographs alone.
So why 224 views of something that has been photographed time and time again?
For exactly the same reasons of the skyline's recognition above. Since starting Queen City Discovery in 2007, I've gone through fluctuations of photography. I shoot consistently for awhile, get really passionate and then get distracted or frustrated. I wanted to embark on something new, a fresh piece of work that would challenge me and keep me shooting regularly. One of the key focuses' of this website has been Urban Exploration: the photographic documentation of abandoned buildings. Since 2006, URBEX has been my main photographic focus. I'm not done with the subject matter by any means, but it's time to broaden my scope and try something new. How can photographing something that's been shot a thousand times over be new you ask? That's the challenge. I'm going to find new, interesting and unique ways to show Cincinnati's skyline and I'm going to do it 224 times over within the year. None of the photos featured will be one's I've already featured, although they may be updated versions of those frames. I plan to take a new look at the standard "touristy" views and show some that have possibly never been documented before. Overall, I hope for the project to show how and why the Cincinnati Skyline is such an icon in its own right.
Why exactly 224? One of the key inspirations for this project comes from work done by Matthew Albritton, a photography professor who I've studied under at NKU. His work, entitled "36 Views of Mt. Adams" is based off "36 Views of Mt. Fuji" by 19th century artist Katsushika Hokusai. Inspired by this, I wanted to create a series. With the skyline subject matter in mind, I just needed a number. After scouring the internet, I couldn't find any series similar to what I was about to do (i.e. Taking a 10 views of Chicago and making it 10 views of Cincinnati), so I needed a number to go with. 224 is the age of the city and to create a series of 224 well composed and executed photographs that I was happy with would be a challenge to do within a year. Thus, Two Hundred and Twenty Four Views of Cincinnati is born.
Awesome idea, I'm excited to see where this journey will take you. :)
ReplyDeletegreat stuff, i can't wait to see how you accomplish this.
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