Photography

Hello World: I’ve Graduated

June 15, 2015 by michellechandra in Data Visualization, Photography

Two years ago, I packed my bags and left California for New York. Graduate school ended up being a tough haul, especially attending a challenging technical school when I had very little background in my new subject.

I hesitate to recommend such an endeavor to, well, anyone.

The good news is, I made it! Just a few weeks ago, I published my thesis and graduated to the words of Robert De Niro.

The even better news is that my thesis has resonated with people around the world. “All Our Yesterdays” has received great press. It’s been wonderful to hear from people from all over who have enjoyed the project. It was especially exciting this past weekend to see a writeup from the Daily Mail, which made my parents (who met in England and to this day watch the BBC) super proud.

Here’s a round up of press the project has received in the past few weeks:
Daily Mail – UK, From Dawn to Dusk
Engadget, Mapping project catalogs Instagram sunrises from around the world
Gizmodo, Travel the World Through Sunsets and Sunrises on this Map
PetaPixel, A Visualization of Sunrise and Sunset Photos Being Snapped Around the World
PSFK, See the World’s (Instagram) Sunrises and Sunsets as they Happen
The Creator’s Project, Instagram Viz Project Lets You Catch the Sunrise All Over the World
Design Taxi, You Can Now Watch The Sun Rise And Set Around The World Via Instagram

It’s strange to be let loose back on the world. That is to say, I think it’s time to start new projects!

My San Francisco Photodata

March 29, 2015 by michellechandra in Data Visualization, Photography

I moved to New York City in July of 2013 from San Francisco where I had lived on and off since 2007. In the six months leading up to my departure, I worked two temp gigs in downtown San Francisco and commuted from where I lived in the Outer Richmond. Just prior to these jobs, I caved and bought a smart phone.

I spent my last 6 months in SF photographing the city as a way to alleviate the boredom of my temp gigs and explore. These choropleth maps are abstracted to only show the neighborhoods and blocks where I photographed in SF from January 2013 – July 2013. The maps reveal the neighborhoods I spent most of my time and the locations I found visually interesting.

I ended up traveling a good deal before moving to New York City as I realized once I was in graduate school, I would have less opportunity to travel. This choropleth map shows the photos I took by state in the same timeframe.

I created the maps in CartoDB using geospatial aggregation to group the photos by administrative regions. I was hoping to also include the SF bus routes I took frequently, but I was unable to find a dataset that I could bring into CartoDB.

Collapsing Time and Memory with Instacollage

March 14, 2014 by michellechandra in Creative Process, Photography, Processing

For Recurring Concepts in Art, Joelle and I are taking my Instacollages and remaking them without technology. The process of deconstructing my original project has forced me several times over to reflect on the motivations and process that led to Instacollage.

Joelle found this great quote which sums up collage and juxtaposition quite nicely:

“In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it, and over it.” Johann Goethe

Instacollage

One of the things you learn as photographer is that there is a process that happens by which we become familiar with our surroundings to the point we stop “seeing.”

→ Read more

Processing: Meta-Instacollage

November 17, 2013 by michellechandra in Photography, Processing

Last night, I ran my collages through my collage machine 4-5 times. The results become far removed from the original images.

The collages are harder to look at to some extent, and have a painterly quality to them. → Read more

Processing: Instacollage and the Instagram API

November 13, 2013 by michellechandra in Photography, Processing

Today, I learned how to access the Instagram API and ran my Instacollage sketch using Instagram photos pulled from the web. (Many thanks to Uttam who helped me figure out how to work with the Instagram API!)

Less talk, more collage!

First up, “Instacool collages” which combine recent “popular” images (photos with thousands of likes).

Many of the Instacool collages have at least one or more of the following: sports, scantily clad women/cheerleaders and expensive cars/bling. Perhaps not surprising? → Read more

Processing: Instacollage – New and Improved!

November 12, 2013 by michellechandra in Photography, Processing

Feeling super excited about my Instacollage idea, especially now that I have a basic sketch up and running.

The collage permutations that are generated are endless (and beautiful!) → Read more

When in Doubt, Photograph

October 12, 2013 by michellechandra in Photography

After 6 weeks of dragging my feet, I finally borrowed a Canon 5D from ITP. Luckily for me, the lighting conditions were exactly the kind to cause fireworks in my brain. Serendipity!