Downtown Now Photography Project - Watch the video above to see additional images and hear directly from the photographers.

The Heinz Endowments invited nine photographers to participate in a three-year project to document the changing culture and sites of Downtown Pittsburgh. Of the thousands of photographs that they submitted during this time frame, more than 400 were chosen to be included in a permanent archive. We view this body of work as one of lasting historical and artistic significance and intend to make it available to the public as appropriate.

The inspiration for the project is the Pittsburgh Photographic Library, an archive both artful and documental, coordinated by Roy Stryker during the first Pittsburgh Renaissance of the 1950s. As Downtown Pittsburgh undergoes a new series of dramatic changes, this project was envisioned to chronicle the evolution of the city’s core over a number of years and, ultimately, to make the work widely available through exhibitions, loans and other means. As time goes on, we believe the archive will become even more remarkable as a record of this important time in the development of Pittsburgh.

Read “Downtown Now,” an h magazine photo essay about this project, (PDF or Flipbook), and see a sampling of each photographer’s images below.

Melissa Farlow

    

                      Pittsburgh Diversity                                                           Backstage at the Dance Recital

Jim Judkis

    

  

                   Union Crew, Fifth at Market                                                       One Piece at a Time                              

Richard Kelly

    

     Looking Across Liberty on a December Night                       Young Woman Running in the Cultural District

Kenneth Neely

    
                      Gateway at Night                                                                        Art for August

 

Annie O'Neill

    

                       Superbowl Win                                                                 Dog Walk

 
Mark Perrott 

    

   Downtown, PNC Park and North Shore at Twilight                             Pedestrians and Messenger         

Martha Rial 

    

          Venture Outdoors Skyblast Paddle                                                  Elephant Work

Renee Rosensteel

    

              Rappelling from Mt. Washington                                                        Hipsters

Dylan Vitone 

 

                                                                 Man Waiting for Bus

                                                                    Bikini Model in Fountain

         


Dylan Vitone, shooting for the project at the opening of the Rivers Casino - Photo by Mark Perrott

The following Pittsburgh photographers contributed to the project:

 

Melissa Farlow, a staff photographer for National Geographic. Prior to this, she was on staff at The Pittsburgh Press.

Jim Judkis, an independent freelance documentary photographer.

Richard Kelly, an independent freelance photographer.

Kenneth Neely, an independent freelance photographer who also has done work for the New Pittsburgh Courier.

Annie O'Neill, an independent freelance photographer formerly on staff at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Mark Perrott, an independent freelance photographer and an instructor at Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

Martha Rial, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who also is a former Post-Gazette staffer.

Renee Rosensteel, an independent freelance photographer.

Dylan Vitone, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

 

 

You can see more than 80 of these amazing images in the exhibit “Picturing the City: Downtown Pittsburgh, 2007–2010” in Gallery One at the Carnegie Museum of Art.
Picturing the City: Downtown Pittsburgh, 2007-2010
Picturing Pittsburgh, Carnegie Magazine, Fall 2011
©2013 The Heinz Endowments