ABSTRACT
Photographic methods are integral to design methodology and are tied to larger questions about how to decode, situate, and identify the multitude of layers and forces acting upon landscapes. The medium can be used in a deliberate manner to gather both quantitative and qualitative data from a site in the beginning of a project and, in turn, provide an ongoing source of exchange between designers and the landscape. Photography is both a means to gather scientific evidence (a systematic investigation that captures a version of reality) as well as a subjective tool, controlled entirely by us. The capacity of photography to straddle the line between fact or reality and subjective recording makes it an essential tool for critical inquiry.
This chapter demonstrates how serial photographic methods can be used as design tools through the process of re-framing an existing body of work and creating new work to expand upon our established serial methodologies. Two projects in Minneapolis serve as case studies: Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles Master Plan and the Philando Castile Peace Garden.
The focus is on the micro-scale, body/object relationships by deploying transect walking-photography methods and detail photography that is then combined with unique assembly methods to make a specific photographic practice for each project. Serial photographic techniques across various landscape types (urban, post-industrial, natural, and riparian) are implemented. This work is grounded in film, photographic, and landscape theory, while also being situated within the context of critical landscape-architectural practice.
