Throwing our support behind the Retake Melbourne crowdfunding campaign

Deakin University Associate Professor and Photographer James McArdle is currently running a crowdfunding project on Pozible to raise funds to develop a smart phone app titled Retake Melbourne and we're more than happy to join in promoting the cause.

Users will be able to shoot their own images via smartphones where Australian photographer Mark Strizic once shot many of his renowned images in and around Melbourne. Strizic's photos reside in a State Library of Victoria collection and the app will download an image, navigate the user to within metres of where the original photo was taken and then allow the user to take their own photograph and compare the original with their own photograph.

We at UrbanMelbourne.info love the app's concept as Mark Strizic saw and photographed what we currently do today: Melbourne's changing urbanity.

“Rather than being slavish copies of old photos, theirs will be interpretations of Strizic’s originals. Their image will then be uploaded to the State Library as a free resource for photographers, historians and other interested people to use" says McArdle.

Passionate Melburnians who donate via Pozible will get a copy of the beta version of the app while photographers will be able to compare their own photo with that of Strizic’s and see for themselves the changes which have taken place.

Associate Professor McArdle continues: “Strizic was significant because there were not a lot of photographers who had documented Melbourne in the 1950s”.  Much of the app's concept fits with the ideals of UrbanMelbourne.info - we too encourage users to photograph the rapid change occurring around the city and share it with the wider community.

Alamar AV Communications Pty Ltd (owner of UrbanMelbourne.info) director Mark Baljak has for over a decade captured new development right across the metropolitan area and we're happy to announce that Mark will undertake a long-term project of publishing images from his own extensive library on Urban.com.au, whilst also exploring possible synergies with Retake Melbourne.  We're also happy to announce UrbanMelbourne.info will provide in-kind marketing of the app once it's live.

Alamar AV Commuinications Pty Ltd will be pledging via pozible to this worthwhile crowdfunding project because getting more Melburnians involved with our past and our current state is an extremely worthwhile goal.  Documenting our change in prior decades and engaging every day Melburnians with the development of our city allows us to project an image of how we should develop in future.

The Retake Melbourne campaign on pozible has met its initial goal of raising $6000AUD and if we all push that figure above $10,000AUD, many more locations and original images will be added to the app.  If you are keen to pledge to the project, be quick as the campaign ends Saturday 22nd June 2013 at midday AEST.

To see the detail of the campaign and to make a pledge, visit pozible: http://www.pozible.com/project/22875.  

Further background information:

ABC Art's presentation on Mark Strizic in 2011: http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s3324845.htm

Associate Professor McArdle's site: http://drjamesmcardle.com/2013/01/09/mark-strizic-biography/