Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Plaza Photo Project

After several rainy weekends in a row, I finally got around to trying the "abandoned camera" photo project this past sunny Saturday. Like the website where my inspiration came from, I wrote a simple note and tied a disposable camera to a bench in a high-traffic area. The note said simply, "Hello, I attached this camera to the bench so you could take pictures. Seriously. So have fun. I'll be back later this evening to pick it up. Love, Jessie."

G and I picked a bench in front of a coffee shop on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, and we scootered ourselves over on Saturday morning to set it up. After tying the note and the camera to the bench with some embroidery thread, we went about our days as usual.

We swung by late Saturday night on our way home from a friends house, and all the exposures had been used, Yay!!! Below are the highlights of the roll of film. The photos that I left out were duplicates (there were a surprising amount of shots of the street and the lampposts).

Enjoy!













Overall, an interesting social experiment... I'd love to do this another time in a different location to see what happens.

If any of you lovelies decide to try this in your own hometown, please let us know about the results!

6 comments:

Regardez Moi said...

The fact that you did this is just so....cool. I'd love to do it - I'm afraid, though, that leaving a camera on a bench in West Philly would mean that it'd be gone forever. Maybe I'll try anyway.

My favorite is the guy who looks to be shouting into the camera! Great.

Anonymous said...

such a great idea and loved seeing all of the people's different pictures.

Anonymous said...

This is SO cool!! I want to try it!

Petunia Face said...

What a brilliant idea. I think I'm going to have to try that!

Jessie said...

Jennifer - Thanks! Totally not my idea... but thanks!

Jozettey - I was a little nervous about that, too, but I think we'd be surprised! The camera I used even became untied from the bench and people still made sure to put it right back on the bench when they finished!

C+C - I agree! It was neat to look at what people decided to photograph!

Mary & PF - You gals should definitely try it! I'd love to see how people reacted in SF and Boston! Could turn into a really fun social experiment!

dee said...

I love that you did this...it was such a great experiment and I would love to stumble upon something like that. My husband has wanted to do that here since reading about it online, but I'm not sure how something tied to a bench with a note would go in NYC. Might try it anyway and hope for the best...I'll let you know!