Camera project captures city's beauty and blight

Volunteers take to the streets, making images of what they like and don't like about the city as part of the Vision 2020 project.

By JON WILSON

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 3, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- Here's what you get when 30 citizen photographers are turned loose with disposable cameras:

More than 600 photographs showing what regular folks like and dislike about their city.

The exercise was conducted about two weeks ago as part of the city's two-month old Vision 2020 project, which will develop ideas for the city's future. The photos are expected to help the process, Vision 2020 organizers say.

Vision 2020 ends today with presentations and an open house, 1-5 p.m. at the University of South Florida's St. Petersburg Campus Activity Center, Second Street and Sixth Avenue S.

The public is invited to the free finale.

Vision 2020 began in April. A series of public weekly forums discussed such urban issues as economics, environment, transportation, technology, history and education.

About two weeks ago, residents who volunteered were given the cameras and told to go shoot.

Their work will help determine what positive city elements might be retained and enhanced, and what frustrating elements might be made to work better, said Pete Sechler of the Orlando-based Glatting Jackson consulting firm.

Some of the themes captured on film -- waterfront beauty, crowded commercial strips, pleasant suburban neighborhoods, for example -- were discussed during the weekend at intense planning workshops preceding today's presentations.

The photo exercise stirred lots of enthusiasm, said Bob Jeffrey, a city urban design manager who is on the Vision 2020 steering committee.

The 30 volunteer photographers all returned, each having made about 25 images. "I've never seen such volunteerism," Jeffrey said.

Jannus Landing, pedestrian-scale buildings, brick streets and tree-lined thoroughfares were among the most frequently photographed "likes," while traffic, signs along 34th Street and a littered retention pond showed up as disliked elements.

If some photos were predictable, they also provided documentation of scenes that generate a response.

Photographers "actually had to think about what visually makes them upset, or what makes them excited," Jeffrey said.

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