Not Just Gothic: The Glassy Side of the University of Chicago Campus

The University of Chicago is known for its ivy-lined buildings and gothic architecture, but next to the University's iconic quads lies an expanse of glassy modern buildings. From the University of Chicago hospital to Manuseto library, the newly-developed areas surrounding the quads stand in stark contrast to the center of campus. These photos portray the lesser-seen side of the University of Chicago campus, where glass and steel replace ivy and gargoyles. Enjoy!

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Winter and Sping

I've been a bit behind posting photos because I've been busy working on my senior thesis all year. That's done now, so here is are a bunch from the last six months all together. More to come soon!

Hyde Park's Promontory Point frozen over during the depths of winter.

The University of Chicago Quadrangles plastered with snow after a storm this winter.

Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA

Wildflowers on the coast in Half Moon Bay, California.

A banana slug on the floor of a redwood forest near Half Moon Bay, California

The floor of a redwood forest near Half Moon Bay, California.

A one minute exposure of Bond Chapel on the University of Chicago campus. Used a piece of welding glass as an ND filter, which worked surprisingly well.

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Photo Mining

    I thought I'd share my final project for an art class I took last spring quarter. This is much different than a lot of my other work, but it was a fun project to work on. Watch the video below and then click "Show More" below for an explanation of the project. (Make sure to watch the video first, though, because the explanation spoils it.)

    I made this set of images for a class called Algorithm and Art - a course that covered everything from programming art in Processing to using 3D printers and laser engravers. A interesting aspect of computational art is the use of random seeds to generate different iterations of pieces that have a similar style. Working from this idea of randomization, I decided to create an Excel spreadsheet that generated everything you need to take a "random" photograph - randomized longitude and latitude, rotation, height, pitch, focal length, and time of day. I imposed constraints on location to keep things within Hyde Park and constraints on the pitch so that I didn't have tons of photos of the sky and ground. All photos were taken between noon and midnight because time doesn't really exist before noon for college students. Finally, I couldn't follow the latitude and longitude directions faithfully if they landed on private property, but I tried to get as close as possible on public property. (My professor thought I should knock on people's doors and explain to them that I needed to take a photo inside their house because my Excel spreadsheet led me there, but I wasn't ballsy enough to do that.)

Instructions for randomized photos. 

     I took the resulting images and tried to tease out themes in the photos. This part was inspired by a statistics class I took earlier in the year where I was running regressions on large data sets. One danger of doing statistical analysis on large data sets is that you can find trends that look like they represent real-life phenomenon but are actually due to chance. This project grew out of that idea of finding fake trends in random data.
     The first section of the video is "Green and Grey - Exploring the Interplay of Vegetation and Cement in Urban Environments" because there were trees and sidewalks or streets in pretty much every photo. I wanted a pretentious artsy-academic sounding title so that people though I was trying hard to be profound. I repeated this process for the second section, called "Cars and Paths - An Intimate Look at our Means of Transportation" because there were cars in nearly every shot. The final section reveals that everything is random, and hopefully it becomes obvious that the themes were fabricated. Were you fooled?

Spring 2013

A thin moon above the University of Chicago.

The Harper Center at the Booth School of Business

Rockefeller Chapel, The University of Chicago

Rockefeller Chapel, The University of Chicago

The glassy side of the University of Chicago

The top floor of a parking lot at the University of Chicago during a thunder storm.

Heavy showers at a parking lot at the University of Chicago.

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Winter White

It's 85 degrees in Chicago right now, so needless to say I'm a little late in posting this set of black and white images from the UChicago campus during winter. More comings soon!

A woman walks accross the Classics Quad at the University of Chicago during a snow storm.

The Theological Seminary at the University of Chicago. Shot from my dining room table.

The Classics Quad at the University of Chicago during a snow storm.

Rockefeller Chapel, The University of Chicago

A pedestrian near Rockefeller Chapel, The University of Chicago.

Harper Memorial Library during a snow storm.

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Winter Orange

We had a huge snow storm during winter quarter, and some friends and I decided to go out and photograph the quads when the snow was undisturbed. Of course, like any cloudy Chicago night the sky was orange, which makes for an eerie backdrop. More to come soon!

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West Campus Combined Utilities Plant

UChicago has three utility plants that provide steam and chilled water to buildings on campus.  Like a lot of the new buildings at UChicago, two of the plants have entirely glass exteriors, and from the outside you can see all sorts of colorful pipes and vats inside the building. I have been looking for an excuse to get inside one of these plants for a while to take photographs. Luckily,  The Maroon wrote an article about campus sustainability in Grey City, our quarterly magazine, so I got the change to tour one the West Campus Combined Utility Plant. It's a pretty cool structure inside and out, although I don't have any good exterior shoots to show. Enjoy!

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UChicago Fall 2012 Part II

A few more photos of campus left over from fall quarter. I'm going to release a wallpaper pack with some of these photos soon, so keep an eye out.

Unusually large waves caused by Hurricane Sandy crashed against the sea wall (or rather lake wall) at Promontory Point, Chicago.

A silhouetted figured (who I believe is UChicago's Dean Boyer) walked through Harper Quad in the rain.

The entrance to Max Palevsky East Residence Halls.

Bond Chapel and Harper Library at the University of Chicago. Taken from Cobb Hall.

Harper Memorial Library at the University of Chicago.

A bird rests on top of Harper Memorial Library.

A rainbow emerges above Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago.

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UChicago Fall 2012

Fall on the UChicago campus is gorgeous - it's hard to resist stopping between classes to capture images of the colorful leaves surrounding the gothic (and not-so-gothic) architecture. Unfortunately,  the leaves all pretty much gone now, so campus will be cold and bland until we get our first snow (when it will be really cold and really bland, but that pretty wintery sort of bland.)

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