Creating an image of the possible: photography as a medium of placemaking

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Placemaking

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REALACE Studio

Photography as an instrument of placemaking: It is not only used for documentation, but also tells the transformation story of a place and visualizes its potential.
Create a new identity: Even during development, images create an idea of the future use and atmosphere of a place.
Integration of the Genius Loci: Good placemaking photography captures the “spirit of the place” and respects its existing and future significance.
Key criteria for good photography: Promise, recognizability, complexity and movement are decisive for the effect of images in placemaking.
Timing and coordination: Close cooperation with photographers and targeted strategic orientation of images are essential for successful communication.
Placemaking as visual storytelling: Images make it possible to make both physical and emotional qualities of a place tangible and to make its potential tangible.

Placemakers rarely find a place as a “blank page,” because even in transitional phases, it remains a symbol in a given context and is embedded in established structures. Photography based on placemaking standards tells the story of transformation of places and, during development, creates a powerful idea of their future redevelopment.

Photographs as a moment of future experience

Illustrating the vision for a place during the development process is no easy task. If you want to captivate and inspire viewers at a glance, the choice of medium and type of presentation must be made consciously. Good photography can be the key to showing the future without the current quality of the place, including what needs to be preserved, being overlooked.

In placemaking, photography can be used as an instrument to identify the potential of a place instead of just documenting the current situation. Exploring the genius loci, the “spirit of place,” is crucial, because this is the only way to perceive obvious as well as hidden peculiarities and breaks and thus reveal spaces of possibility. Photography in this sense transforms an existing image, opens up new ideas and tells of the possible future of a place.

It is therefore less about documentation and more about inspiration: A picture, a look, a feeling for what could be here. Photography becomes a trigger for a new perception of the place and its identity.

Good photography in the sense of placemaking is characterized by:

Promise: The atmosphere that the image conveys conveys an awareness/knowledge of the potential qualities of the place.
Recognizability: Both preservable and developable features are made visible.
Complexities: The location is established as a multi-dimensional space with diverse (emotional and communicative) points of contact.
Incompleteness: The motif is coherent in itself, but does not appear complete; in other words, it invites everyone to continue with their own imagination.
Immediacy: Only an image that has the power to reach its viewers within a few seconds becomes a lasting impression.

The form of briefing and trust between placemaker and photographer are essential for implementation. And, of course, it comes down to timing: In all phases of development, it is important to always be in the right place at the right time and with the placemaking standards clearly in mind. The successful media communication of a project vision can trigger decisive turning points in the development process; be an initial spark, reveal unimagined opportunities, convince of an unusual perspective.

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