Portland Photographic Record - Places

A completely different scale from the concentrated landmarks - and perhaps the antidote to the over-documented - comes from the great Portland Grid Project a photographic essay of the city using a loose framework of grid points in which photographers are unleashed to document the 'other' places in the community. The plan, photographers are directed to a confined zone using a AAA City map: "...that was cut into it's individual grid sections and randomly picked each month."



What you get isn't the key points - but a Portland you may know, but rarely notice. Photos include the photographer, grid point, and date taken.


:: JIM CARMIN -M13 11/96 - image via Portland Grid Project


:: ANN KENDELLEN -F6 2/03 - image via Portland Grid Project


:: CHRISTOPHER RAUSCHENBERG -G4 4/00 - image via Portland Grid Project

Some background of this long-standing effort: "The photographers of the Portland Grid Project spent nine years (1996-2005) systematically documenting this city we live in. Now, with some new faces and perspectives, we continue looking at our ever-changing city in Round Two. We are using a map of Portland divided into grid squares a mile and a half on a side. Each month all of us photograph the same randomly picked square, using a variety of films and formats. At the end of the month, we meet to look at everyone's photos. We estimate that as of this date we have created a complex, detailed urban portrait, consisting of about 20,000 images of Portland, its land forms, architecture, people, residential neighborhoods, industrial sites, waterways, parks, and sometimes just a shadow or the look of fallen leaves on a newly mowed lawn."

I often return to the site to check out the latest - and now that the project has entered Round 2 it becomes an ever growing archive of the true heart and diversity of the city - at least as seen through the lens.


:: GEORGE KELLY - L12 4/08 - image via Portland Grid Project

:: NANCY BUTLER - G9 6/08 - image via Portland Grid Project

:: SHAWN RECORDS - K13 1/05 - image via Portland Grid Project