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How to do a Themed Photo Walk to Break out of a Photography Rut

19 Sep

In simple terms, the more photographs you take, the more experience you gain. As they say, “the more the clicks, the better the pics”. It seems like an inevitable formula, right? But like many things, it’s easier said than done. Maintaining a constant flow of photographic material, let alone inspiration is hard work.

The dreaded photographer’s block means you can find yourself shooting one minute and stuck in a creative lull the next. Fortunately, there are plenty of small tasks you can set for yourself to break out of a rut. Doing a themed photo walk is a great way to get those creative juices flowing, with the added bonus of getting your daily step-count up in the process as well.

What is a themed photo walk?

A themed walk is just that. First, you select a theme. Then, armed with a camera, allow yourself to be guided by wherever your photography legs may take you. When you see a subject that fits your theme, take a quick snap and move on. The goal is to accumulate a body of photographs pertaining to the theme you preselected before you set off.

While taking a few random shots to shrug off a creative lull works well. But pot-shots make it hard to build up a series to revisit later. By taking on a themed photography outing, you’ll quickly fall back into the habit of actively seeking details and subjects, focusing your creative energies into a body of work with greater substance.

How to do Themed Photo Walks to Break out of a Photography Rut

Themed projects are a great excuse to document the world around you. Under the theme “desire paths” I photographed this series of pebbles – unearthed on a well-worn trail I take home.

Choosing a theme

The first step in this exercise can prove to be the hardest. Selecting a theme will define what you’ll be photographing on your walk. There are so many options to choose from, it can be hard to settle on a single one. Good themes are built on a strong idea of the target subject. A single color, shape, or pattern are simple yet effective choices, as are subjects that you’ll encounter frequently on your walk.

You may be tempted to choose a few themes at once, but focusing on a single idea will help construct your series with much greater detail. Plus, this project is about easing back into photography, not racing around madly trying to photograph as much as you can in a day.

Themes I’ve chosen in the past include dumpsters, traffic lines on roads (look out for traffic if you choose this one), spent cigarette packets, and squashed aluminum cans. As long as you don’t choose subjects like rain on a sunny day, you can’t go wrong. Once you make your selection and set off, you’ll be amazed how quickly you develop a discerning eye for your topic.

How to do Themed Photo Walks to Break out of a Photography Rut

For this photo walk I initially planned to photograph trees, though I let the theme evolve into a study of tree trunks instead. To draw greater attention to the form in each unique profile, I converted the images to black and white. Having the images arranged in a grid highlights the subtle differences in the subjects photographed.

Setting Off

Once you’ve settled on a theme, you’re ready to go. Start by having a good look at your surroundings. Depending on your theme, you may encounter photographic subjects as soon as you step out the door. Others may take a little more searching. Take your time and enjoy the process.

There are no hard and fast rules here. If you realize you’ve chosen a difficult subject, select a different one and start on that instead. This process is for easing creativity-fatigue and taking the time to see detail in your environment. Although this exercise is rewarding when used to create a series, the action of taking some downtime to work on your personal photography is what matters most.

How to do Themed Photo Walks to Break out of a Photography Rut

If, like me, you often find yourself time-short, try taking just a few snaps over the course of the day. I put this brief “yellow” themed series together while getting some fresh air on a lunch break. Once I had decided on my theme, it was a lot easier to pick out subjects to photograph.

Pulling it together

After you feel satisfied you’ve taken a solid amount of photographs, you’re ready to head home. Once you get back to your computer, it’s time to check out your handy work. So far, this project may have seemed a little sporadic, especially if you’ve chosen a broad theme. But this part of the project involves pulling all the images together to form a cohesive body of work.

Upload your images to the computer as you would normally and have a look over them with your preferred viewing software. Open a new document in Photoshop, select a few of your favorite images from your themed photo walk and drag them onto your canvas. Carefully resize each image so that they fit together in a neat grid. Make sure you hold down the Shift key while resizing images to maintain the aspect ratio of your photograph.

How to do Themed Photo Walks to Break out of a Photography Rut

Select your favorite images from your themed photo walk and drag them onto a new document in Photoshop. Remember to hold the Shift key down to maintain the image’s proportions.

As you build up the images in your grid you’ll start to see how easily your hard work comes together in a series. Although you may want to experiment with the order of your photographs, your overreaching theme will make a big difference in tying your series together. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and you don’t have to use every image you took on your walk. Just pick whatever you feel works. Once you have your images sorted into the one canvas, you are ready to share and can post the results in the comments below for us to see.

How to do Themed Photo Walks to Break out of a Photography Rut

Experimenting with the order that your images are arranged highlights the subtlety involved in creating a successful series of images. Working on a particular theme simplifies this process, leaving you to focus on the details that make the layout work.

How to do Themed Photo Walks to Break out of a Photography Rut

Another variation of my road signage themed walk. Don’t be afraid to change up your layout and experiment until it feels right.

The benefits

Aside from the exercise, themed photo walks help channel your photographic energy into a body of work. No matter how broad or focused, taking photographs within a specific theme widens your photographic experience and enhances your eye for detail. Hunting down subjects within a deliberately selected theme will help you create images you might never have considered before.

This will also help you to visualize future projects and help you pick out elements in photographs that work cohesively in a series. It’s a great way to improve your practice and get your head back into the photography zone.

How to do Themed Photo Walks to Break out of a Photography Rut

I took these images under the theme “looking down”. I plodded around with my camera pointed toward the ground for a few hours just to see what I could find. The results made a unique series built upon an unusual perspective.

How to do Themed Photo Walks to Break out of a Photography Rut

Another themed walk collage.

The post How to do a Themed Photo Walk to Break out of a Photography Rut by Megan Kennedy appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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How to Use the Star Walk 2 App for Milky Way Photography

28 Jun

Photographing the Milky Way is unlike any other kind of photography. The camera settings are completely different, as are the post-processing techniques, and there’s a lot more planning that goes into a successful outing than people (who haven’t done it before) realize.

How to Use the Star Walk 2 App for Milky Way Photography

The Milky Way over Half Dome in Yosemite NP, shot from Glacier Point.

The trick is how to find the Milky Way

You see, finding the location of the Milky Way in our sky is always changing. In the northern hemisphere the best time to photograph the Milky Way is in the late spring to early fall. It isn’t even visible during most of winter because it’s only above the horizon during the day when we can’t see the stars. And of course in the southern hemisphere, everything above is reversed.

How to Use the Star Walk 2 App for Milky Way Photography

The Milky Way over a group of oak trees in San Luis Obispo, California.

When the Milky Way is visible, it’s hard to know when it will be in peak position and in which direction (north, south, east, or west) it will be visible. Then there’s the question of whether or not it will be rising straight up from a certain direction or appear as an arc across the sky.

Plan your trip accordingly

All of the answers to these questions will, of course, determine what foreground subjects you can use at any given time of the year. For example, if you’re trying to shoot Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, you’ll need the Milky Way to be visible in the northeast sky. Plus, you need it there at a time of night when the moon is either beneath the horizon or during a moon phase where the light from the moon will be minimal. If it’s a full moon for example, the Milky Way and night sky will be considerably dimmer than say during a new or crescent moon.

How to Use the Star Walk 2 App for Milky Way Photography

The Milky Way over Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Utah.

As you can see, there are a lot of variables. That’s where the app Star Walk 2 comes in.

I found this app years ago when it was in its first incarnation, and still use it today for most of my night sky photography planning. This app is beautifully designed and will let you know exactly when and where the Milky Way will be at any given time, along with every other star and constellation in the sky. It’s an incredible resource for photographers. I created a video showing how I use it.

Have a look below and let me know what you think.

Conclusion

I know there are other options and apps that do similar things available as well, so comment below and tell us what you use. I’m always open to trying new things and would love to hear them.

You can find the Star Walk 2 app in the Google Play Store for Android and on iTunes for Apple devices.

The post How to Use the Star Walk 2 App for Milky Way Photography by James Brandon appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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7 Tips for Attending a Photo Walk

26 Oct

As a photographer, you might have noticed that photo walks are all the rage these days. Whether it’s an event run through meetup.com or eventbrite.com, or a more involved workshop from a teacher that you follow, photo walks are one of the best ways to see a place and to improve your photography.

nyc-photowalk-750px-14

NYC photo walk featuring dPS Managing Editor Darlene as my guest (I’m in the front row with the hat, she’s in blue with a hat on my right).

Classroom and reading time are very important for improving, but nothing can replace the act of learning while you are out there photographing. This is where all the things you’ve learned come together and finally stick in your head. It is also the most fun way to learn.

So if you haven’t already, I suggest that you start seeking photo walks out, and here are some tips to help when you do.

1. Use them as an excuse to meet other photographers

Photo Walk

One of the main advantages to photo walks is that you are surrounded by like-minded people with similar passions. I don’t know about you, but most of my family and friends from growing up are not very into photography. So I try to find new photography friends whenever I can, but it can be tough to do that. Photo walks solve this problem.

Introduce yourself, exchange information, and talk about possibly going out to shoot again. You can take your favorite few people from each walk and start building an awesome network of photographers to go out shooting with in the future.

If you have questions, by all means, ask the organizers of the walk, but also see what the other people attending think. This is a chance to learn from many unique perspectives. Photography is a subject where there can be many correct, but differing answers to a question or problem, and it’s good to hear multiple opinions.

2. Watch what other people are photographing

Photo Walk

You are there to have fun and learn, and sometimes a great way to learn in this environment is to watch the other photographers and see what they are attracted to. Just from teaching on photo walks for the last five years, I have found so many new interesting ways to capture the city by watching my students. I have walked down certain blocks hundreds of times and then suddenly someone will capture it in a way that I had never thought of. It is an incredible way to learn.

3. Shoot on your own occasionally

New York Photo Walk

That being said, mix it up and take some time to break off and shoot on your own. You have the advantage here to learn from so many others, but at the same time you want to capture your own, unique photographs, and you need some quiet to do that. Step away a handful of times during the walk, but make sure not to get lost or slow down the group. After that, you can reengage with everyone else.

4. Get out of your comfort zone

New York Photo Walk

This is a chance to do something you are not used to doing. If you are a street photographer and are on a street photography meet up, of course, that is what you will be focusing on. But if you are a landscape photographer, consider doing some street photography, and if you are a street photographer, consider trying more landscapes. Do some portraiture. Improve your lighting. There are photo walks for nearly everything.

Seek out photo walks that will cover your interests and others that will challenge them. Everyone has their likes and dislikes, but this is a great chance to seek new perspectives and to round out your abilities.

5. Learn about the area beforehand

Photo Walk, New York City

Some photo walk leaders will talk about the history of the neighborhood, while others will strictly focus on the photography. Both are great ways of running workshops, but history is very important to photography. It helps to inform what you are shooting and to improve your awareness of the place.

Take some time on your own to read up about the area. Learn about the history, and explore the work of photographers that frequent those areas. Come prepared with this knowledge and it will make your day even that much more successful. This knowledge is not only inspiring but it will improve your ability to notice those special moments that create a magnificent photograph. In addition, some of the other walk attendees may find this knowledge fascinating as well.

6. Organize one yourself

Photo Walk

As you continue to attend photo walks, build your network of local photographer friends and start shooting with them regularly. Once you all get to know each other this could become a very close group of friends. Keep in touch, build friendships, attend gallery events together, and share your work and ideas.

Having a close group that all know you and your work is the best way to get a proper critique. If you just ask anybody or share your work on the web, you never know what the person’s perspective is who is giving you the critique. Usually, they just say “beautiful!” With a close group, that perspective will grow between all of you and these friends will not be afraid to tell you when they do not like something.

7. Do not get run over by cars or bikes

Photo Walk, New York City

This is the hardest part of my job, so please help me and the other photo walk leaders out. When you are in a new place, photographing in a new way, or surrounded by competing stimuli and photographers walking around, your situational awareness can become distracted. People with their lens to their eye can suddenly walk backward into the street trying to get the correct perspective, but with no awareness of where they are and the dangers that could hurt them.

Always be careful and look before you make a sudden stop or a move sideways or backward. If you are using a tripod on the sidewalk or street, be careful about the tripod legs. Make sure they are no wider than the width of your body so that bikers won’t trip on them riding by you.

With a one-on-one workshop, I can do a good job at making sure people don’t make unwelcomed moves on the street, but with a large group it is out of my ability, so please watch out for both yourself and your fellow photo walkers.

Conclusion

Have you participated in any photo walks? Please share your experience and tips for them below.

Now go out and find some photo walks!

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Beast of a Bicycle! Mechanical Modification With a Spider-Like Walk

30 Jun

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

strandbeest bike 1

This bizarre new take on the Strandbeest bicycle isn’t going to get you from point A to point B much faster than a casual stroll, but it’s fun to watch, with the rear mechanical mechanism ‘walking’ in spider-like motions. Borrowing from the wind-powered kinetic sculptures pioneered by Dutch artist and engineer Theo Jansen, this new creation by Californian collective Carv is half bike, half beast with a front wheel, three functional legs and over 450 handmade components. The designers started with a simple blueprint of Theo Jansen’s rod-linking technique, which he describes as “skeletons which are able to walk on the wind.”

strandbeest bike 2

strandbeest bike 4

It took Carv a whole seven months to develop and build the bike, with the assembly of the rods alone taking three days. Whereas Jansen’s walking sculptures use sails and wind to generate movement, the bike uses pedal power. The designers used a single-speed bike from Walmart as the base and added the rear linkage. Get the technical details here.

An earlier version of the ‘walking bicycle’ by Hanno Smits also uses pedal power, but takes out both wheels, opting for a full walking mechanism that seems to navigate a little more smoothly. The Panterragaffe, a third version, is a two-person pedal-powered walking machine conceived as a public performance piece.

strandbeest opt

It’s hard to deny that Jansen’s original sculptures are just plain cooler and more interesting, though, no matter how many hybrid knock-offs people try to make. Still tempted to try it, or just want to know more about how they work? Jansen sells a few books as well as DVDs and miniature ‘beasts’ on the Strandbeest website.

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Diagonal Crosswalk: Walk Any Way in LA’s Safe Scramble Intersection

26 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

scramble intersection

When visitors approach the intersection in front of Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market in the heart of downtown, the surprise is palpable when they realize that a ‘go’ for pedestrians lets people walk any way they want. Los Angeles recently followed suit, introducing its own omnidirectional ‘scramble intersection’ at a notoriously dangerous crossroads, making it much safer.

At Hollywood and Highland, designers have taken things a step further, adding an X-shaped layer of walking indicators (zebra stripes and white-framed boxes) to make it clear how people are permitted (and encouraged) to cross the streets diagonally through the center.

scramble diagnoal crosswalks

Popularized in the 1950s by Henry Barnes, the concept is quite simple: when pedestrians get their green light, anyone can cross anywhere during the limited window, then the lanes are given back over to cars and the process repeats. In the months since this latest scrambler was introduced, there has been only a single accident.

Scramble intersections can be found around the world, but are still limited in quantity, focused in areas where the safety gains are greatest. In dense cities like Tokyo, Japan, they can be marvelously busy at times (as shown above). In Seattle, meanwhile, the success of the Pike Street and First Avenue scrambler has led to others being introduced around the city; perhaps LA will continue to follow its lead.

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23 Quick Tips for Street Photography or Your Next Photo Walk

26 Jun

The guys over at the Cooperative for Photography (COOPH) have some good quick tips from Thomas Leuthard for you. If you are planning on doing some street photography this summer, joining a photo walk, or even doing travel photography – apply this tips to those genres and have some fun. Let’s see the tips:

My faves are:

  • #2 control your camera remotely: I never even thought of that but will work great with my Fuji X-T1
  • #10 get down low: another thing cameras like the Fuji X-T1 do well with a tilting screen.
  • #13 shoot water as a slow shutter speed: this is starting to sound like an ad for the Fuji X-T1, but I love the fact my camera is weather resistant (WR) and I’ve stood in the rain, and taken a direct hit from an ocean wave and it withstands it and keeps going! Read more on this camera here.
  • #17 shadows make great photos: see How to Use Shadow and Contrast to Create Dramatic Images for more on that

Thomas Leuthard, “Street photography is like fishing, catching the fish is more exciting than eating it.”

Which of those quick tips did you like best?

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Walk on Water: Christo Unfurls 1 Million Square Feet of Golden Cloth

20 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

christo island view

Known for his work on large-scale art projects, including the world’s biggest interior art installation, artist’s latest piece features over 1,000,000 square feet (100,000 square meters) of shimmering yellow fabric, wrapped around floating docks that span for miles up to and across Lake Iseo in Italy.

floating lake art

christo aerial view

Undulating with the waves, the Floating Piers project lets visitors walk between Sulzano, Monte Isola and to the island of San Paolo; the floating platforms are visible from surrounding mountains as well.

christo golden path fabric

christo streets alleys

Christo conceived of the idea with his Jeanne-Claude as far back as the 1970s, exploring different potential venues for its installation. While Jeanne-Claude passed away in 2009, Christo has carried on the idea, and finally found a place for the temporary work in Northern Italy.

christo unveiling

christo day of

Many works by this long-standing pair of ambitious artists were self-funded, in part through the sales of concept drawings and models in advance.

christo floating path

christo close up

christo lake view

“like all of our projects,” says Christo, “The Floating Piers absolutely free and accessible 24 hours a day, weather permitting. There are no tickets, no openings, no reservations and no owners. The Floating Piers are an extension of the street and belong to everyone.” The project opened this weekend and will run for just 16 days. Images by Wolfgang Volz.

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Walk on Water: 13 Interactive Aquatic Art Installations

14 Jun

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

infinite bridge main

Vital yet dangerous, shifting its shape and obscuring what lies beneath, water is an ideal conduit for illusion, and artists take advantage of these qualities to produce works that confuse our senses and seem to give us superpowers. These aquatic art installations allow people to walk on water and breathe beneath its surface, and ask us to confront its mysteries, navigating flooded spaces in pitch blackness or edging dangerous whirlpools.

Floating Piers on Italy’s Lake Iseo by Christo and Jeanne Claude

water art floating piers 1

water art floating piers 2

water art floating piers 3

water art floating piers 4

A modular floating dock system comprised of 220,000 polyethylene cubes will allow visitors to walk all the way to an island from the shore of Italy’s Lake Iseo. The first work by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in Italy in over 40 years, ‘The Floating Piers’ are still under construction and will ultimately be covered in a shimmering yellow fabric that will continue for a mile on land through the pedestrian streets. In the works for decades, it’s Christo’s first piece to be completed since the death of his partner Jeanne-Claude in 2005. The exhibition will be in place for 16 days and then all components will be industrially recycled. “Like all of our projects, ‘The Floating Piers’ is absolutely free and accessible 24 hours a day, weather permitting,” says Christo. “There are no tickets, no openings, no reservations and no owners. The Floating Piers are an extension of the street and belong to everyone.”

Intentionally Unstable Floating Pavilion

water art unstable pavilion 1

water art unstable pavilion 2

water art unstable pavilion 4

Just barely peeking above the surface of the sea in a few strategic places, this sunken pavilion lets you walk right out onto the water, with dry paths appearing and disappearing according to the movement of the waves. ‘Thematic Pavilion’ gently rocks back and forth as visitors move from the top level to the nautical exhibition space below the surface. Hydraulics of the same sort used for submarines keep the structure from sinking to the bottom, and raise it all the way up after the exhibition so it can be used like an ordinary boat.

Glass Topped Swimming Pool by Leandro Erlich

water art swimming pool 1

water art swimming pool erlich 2

Glimpsed through the surface of a swimming pool, groups of people standing on the bottom seem irrationally calm – not to mention dry. That’s because a thin sheet of glass actually separates them from the extremely shallow water, creating the illusion that they’re submerged. Artist Leandro Erlich uses perspective, mirrors and glass to create optical illusions that shake our sense of what’s up and what’s down.

Boat Tour Through a Flooded Art Museum

water art flooded museum 1

water art flooded museum 2

water art flooded musem 3

Visitors to the Palais de Tokyo have to navigate dark waters inside the museum itself, as if in a post-apocalyptic scenario, for this installation by Celeste Boursier-Mougenot. ACQUAALTA takes its name from the annual flooding event in Venice, imagining what would happen if this same flooding were to affect Paris. Standing or sitting in their boats, visitors row through the nearly pitch-black space before disembarking onto jagged foam landscapes.

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Walk On Water 13 Interactive Aquatic Art Installations

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Walk on the Wild Side: 13 Crosswalk Illusions & Interventions

27 Apr

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

crosswalk dance

Optical illusions that seem to produce real 3D speed bumps on a flat street may enhance safety by encouraging drivers to slow down, but such colorful crosswalk paintings could soon become extinct in the United States. Now that the Federal Highway Administration started cracking down on anything that distracts from the contrast of bright white crosswalk lines, citing concerns that drivers will get confused, attempts to make intersections more interesting could come to a screeching halt. Bright patterns on asphalt may fade, but other crosswalk interventions will live on, like interactive dancing signals, fist-bump buttons and roll-out guerrilla-style crosswalks for busy areas.

Colorful Crosswalks by Carlos Cruz-Diez
Screen Shot 2016-04-27 at 9.04.17 AM

Screen Shot 2016-04-27 at 9.04.35 AM

crosswalk cruz diez

Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez has been painting crosswalk interventions since the 1970s, creating potentially disorienting effects for the pedestrians who walk along them. Some of the street paintings seem to morph in color and shape, taking on movements of their own, as you cross. “The daily journey through urban spaces changes our personality and makes us into habitual beings who obey rules that nobody questions,” says Cruz-Diez. “The artist can create ephemeral expressions that, by generating completely new events, transform urban ‘linearity’ and at the same time inject an element of surprise into urban routine. These ephemeral works are a way of producing different readings of urban spaces and of deconsecrating the utilitarian objects of urban furniture.”

Faux Roadblocks Encourage Drivers to Stop
crosswalk 3D safety

crosswalk roadblock 2

Drivers might actually slow down for pedestrians trying to cross the street if they think their car could get damaged by barreling forward – or at least, so hope two women in India who created this illusion. As you approach the intersection, it looks like there’s a roadblock, but it’s an anamorphic effect. As seen in the second photo, the technique has also been used in China.

Interactive Dancing Crosswalk Signal
crosswalk dance

crosswalk dance 2

Tiny car manufacturer Smart hopes pedestrians will be so mesmerized by their animated dancing crosswalks signal, they’ll forget to jaywalk. A nearby dancing booth translates the dance moves of passersby into the ‘don’t walk’ silhouette, adding an element of interactivity and making the performance entirely unpredictable. Smart says 81% more people stopped at the light instead of walking out into the street while it was installed.

Virtual Speed Bumps

The idea with faux speed bumps like these is to catch drivers’ attention just briefly enough to get them to slow down, but not so much that they cause a traffic disruption. Philadelphia hoped to boost safety in the streets with these triangular 3D markings, which cost a fraction of real speed bumps and require very little maintenance.

Virtual Wall Crosswalk
virtual wall crosswalk

virtual wall crosswalk 2

If the illusion of road bumps isn’t enough for you, maybe a virtual wall projected right in front of your car will get you to hit the brakes when approaching a pedestrian crossing. This concept by designer Hanyoung Lee uses plasma laser beams to project oversized pedestrians in front of vehicles, making it very clear that they need to wait a minute before continuing.

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Walk On The Wild Side 13 Crosswalk Illusions Interventions

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Marine Miracle: Walk on Water at This Sunken Seaside Pavilion

29 Mar

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

walk on water pavilion 3

Walk right out onto the surface of the sea or follow a path that takes you into a tranquil space beneath the waves at the ‘Thematic Pavilion,’ a mostly-submerged nautical exhibition space envisioned for South Korea. Daniel Valle Architects intentionally give the structure an uneasy, delicate sense of equilibrium with the water, drawing parallels to the realities many coastal communities could face in the not-so-distant future as sea levels rise. A visitor’s experience changes depending on the state of the water, with paths appearing and disappearing.

walk on water pavilion

walk on water pavilion 2

The pavilion features subtle raised areas offering clear paths that remain above the surface even when water levels are high and, presumably, when rocked by the wake of a nearby ship. In much the same fashion as a submarine, a water tank keeps the ship-like structure submerged for exhibitions featuring water-based technologies, and raises it above the surface afterward so it can be used like an ordinary boat.

walk on water pavilion 4

walk on water pavilion 5

The exhibitions themselves range from the dazzlingly visual, like water shows, to the technical, like hydraulics and cooling systems. “The design aims to raise people’s attention on the ocean and coastal environmental crisis,” say the architects. “The design hopes to provoke the deepest impression to the visitors and prepare them for information and critique on all issues related to the oceans and coastlines. The beauty of scene after visiting the exhibition space and returning to the top plaza will contribute to develop an optimistic conclusion.”

walk on water pavilion 7

walk on water pavilion 8

walk on water pavilion 6

While it seems like a lack of railings could lead some people to walk right off the edge, people in other areas of the world don’t seem to require the same kind of safety hand-holding as Americans, so maybe they’d be fine. The renderings look especially cool after dark, with illuminated water spouts shooting up into the sky. Though the proposal wasn’t chosen for the Expo 2012 in Yeosu, it’s an interesting idea that could provide inspiration to other structures blurring the lines between architecture and ship building.

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[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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