AMP

Last week’s chatter about photographers using Google Earth got me thinking about a project that I had almost forgotten. Instead of using Google Earth to annotate existing photographs, I suggest we use it to make images that stand on their own. And so, I give you my take on Ed Ruscha’s excellent book, 34 Parking Lots, courtesy of Google Maps.

View full set here.

All the parking lots are from LA and were found in about 2 hours–roughly the same time Ruscha spent in a helicopter above the city. I didn’t revisit the same spots as Ruscha for two reasons–many have changed (save for the stadium) and I didn’t have the addresses for all the sites. Also, my group includes 34 images (Ruscha’s had 31), mine are in color, and finally, I chose to ‘photograph’ more populated parking lots. Let me know what you think.

The great thing about Google Maps/Earth is that in a way, it’s carrying out Ruscha’s ‘Every Building on the Sunset Strip’ to its logical end. We might as well refer to Google Earth as ‘Every Building on the Planet Earth’.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 at 8:22 am and is filed under Art, Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.