Sun 16 Aug 2009
I’m going to start the 2009 Lincoln Land 80s CD project tomorrow.
Posted by Heart of Lincoln Land under 80s, Lincoln Land 80s, Projects, Springfield
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Each year, I like to do a special Springfield photography project to organize my growing 80s music collection called “Lincoln Land 80s”. Essentially, I create custom CDs (with only songs that I like, from my own CD collection), where each CD has a different cover showing a different photograph of something unique to Springfield. This way each CD cover becomes kind of like a postcard. In addition, each CD’s track list is completely randomized, so that the same artist does not appear more than once on a single CD, and of course, there are no repeat songs throughout the entire collection.
This year, I estimate there will be about 85 different CDs, so I will take 88 unique pictures (in case I end up with more CDs than I thought). I keep my own personal 80s music database, so I can “guesstimate” how many CDs there will be. I try to take each picture as professionally as I can. I use a 6 megapixel Fujifilm Finepix F20 camera to take the pictures, and I have since 2007 (before that, I used a crappy Radio Shack FlatFoto camera – but it was amazing what I got out of that sometimes).
Included in the list of pictures are the Lincoln sites (of course); many areas of, and places in, downtown; and areas and places in the historic neighborhoods surrounding downtown. Aside from the focus on downtown, I try to represent each side of town about equally. Of course, I carefully plan the entire list of pictures ahead of time (and keep that list with me so I can check off the ones that I’ve successfully taken already).
It’s fun to do a project like this, since it’s kind of like a treasure hunt – I love the feeling when I finally get a shot – and I get to refamiliarize myself with sections of town I haven’t been to in awhile and notice the changes that have occurred. Afterwards, I have a historical record of what certain places unique to Springfield look like that particular year. This year is special, since it’s the year of the Lincoln bicentennial. I’ve been doing this project since 2004 and I always enjoy doing it – even though sometimes, a particular shot can be difficult. I usually have my own little adventures as part of it too, but that’s part of what makes it fun. I hope to finish it before Labor Day. I’ll post updates on the project here at least every few days. (I was actually going to start the project today, but the rain made me wait until tomorrow.)
