Street Lens
About
What happens when we slow down and try to see? Google captured these places indifferently, as data. This project drops people into these scenes at random and asks them to find what's worth looking at. The act of choosing something to photograph out of a view that wasn't composed for people brings the human element into robotically captured images. It's almost the opposite of how we usually engage with images online, where everything has already been curated for maximum attention.
01
An Exercise In Seeing
You are dropped somewhere you'd probably never visit, and have to decide what, if anything, warrants a frame.
02
See Through Someone Else's Eyes
When you click ‘explore location’ on a photo someone took you get to see what caught their attention out of everything in the scene. Not just seeing what they saw. You get a peek into their artistic eye and process.
03
Collective Eye
If many people participate in this project, what will emerge? Is there a bias towards one location over another? I am very curious what people will find beautiful.
04
Anonymity Changes How People Act
When there's no name attached, no follower count, no profile to maintain, what people choose to photograph changes. They're not performing for an audience.
05
Giving Up Modern Conveniences
In 2026 everyone has a rectangle in their pocket that can capture almost flawless images with the push of a button. Modern phone cameras have optimized photography into near-automation. Street Lens is not so easy to use. Like more traditional photography, you need to adjust quite a few settings to get a good image from the Street View source. And due to the differences in each scene, rarely will the same settings get you the same good results. The project asks: have we lost something with the convenience of smartphone photography? What do we get when we have to work for a frame?