This project originally started out as a white balance test for our Canon camera. There were fires during the previous fall, in October 2003, which ripped through the hills of Moorpark Ca. These photos have had NO retouching or color corrections. They are as they were shot.
The following spring the same hills were green and full of fresh growth. I came across this hillside and it immediately reminded me of the default Windows XP wallpaper.
The following year in on February 14th I traveled back to the location to see how my pretty hill was doing. Much to my surprise the hill was in the process of being grated and prepared for new construction. I took another photo thinking it would be nice one day to show the new owner s of the property what their land looked like before.
Another year has passed, it’s May 22nd 2007, and I went back to the hillside construction site and found an enormous house and what looks like a guard house on my formerly pretty little green hill.
The lyrics ‘They paved paradise and put up a parking lot’ has never rang more true.
I have very high resolution images of all 3 versions of this project. Contact me if you want copies.
Here is a slideshow of the progression of the construction.
Tom McGuire is a web designer, developer and educator specializing in learning everything there is to learn about everything. He also firmly believes in ‘Touch, not Tech.” He co-runs a boutique style digital media company called Visual Moxie and he spends a lot of his time thinking about and sharing his knowledge of the internet, information philosophy and web design and development.
