Cushman 1951 – Photography Web Mapping

Introduction

This project introduces data from the Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection that focuses on the web mapping of photographs from 1951-1952. I aimed to create an interactive web map that could geolocate each photograph’s origin and display a pop-up image of the photograph.

Sources

To begin the project, I needed to clean the data and decide what I wanted to include in my final map. I found that there were many columns in this data set, yet some of them were mostly blank due to a lack of data, so I decided to eliminate these columns. This ended up being a very helpful decision because I could display the most important information without distracting blanks. I also noticed that some information was more pertinent to the photographs than others, like the description or author. Columns like ‘End Date’ or ‘Month Unknown’ were cluttering my data because they took up a whole column even though it did not give important information about the piece, so I decided to hide that data.

Processes

Next, I imported my data into ArcGIS to see what it would look like, and I found that it easily geolocated my data and marked their location with a pin. Each of these points could be clicked on to pop-up and show the metadata for that photograph. Next, I needed to shift around how my data was presented in these pop-ups, so I shifted the presentation around to display the photograph at the top of the pop-up and string/integer information below. Although the original data came with URLs that linked to the collection’s page on the photographs, I wanted the image to be displayed on my pop-up, so I needed it in IIIF format. To do this I went through each datapoint and changed its format by downloading the photos through the website, which unfortunately left some blanks in my data because some images could not be downloaded.

Presentation

To present my data I decided I wanted the aesthetics of the presentation to match the data I was showcasing, so I chose the ‘Modern Antique Map’ because it reminds the user that the data is from an older time. My points were originally blue, but this map has blue waters that could be easily contrasted with red, so I decided to switch my points to a deep red. Finally, I decided to make the size of my points smaller than the default because I did not want points that were in similar locations to overlap too much.

Significance

I found that this project gave a lot of character and detail to the information I was given. I personally loved sifting through all of the art on the website and found it very accessible to connect with once it was mapped. It specifically reminded me of when Lin Winton said that we can take in visual information a lot quicker than text, as the web mapping quickly and simply shows where a photograph was taken, and our brains can easily link it to that place. I think the digital arts and humanities approach of web mapping these photographs add more humanity into what is being presented and is designed to highlight the art through visual tools. Compared to data science I find this much more focused on presenting each individual photograph’s characteristics rather than trying to find trends or links between them.