CMU Photographer Explores Campus Imagery Through Coursework

by Alexander Johnson(opens in new window)

Kevin Lorenzi has held photography as a lifelong passion. Since high school, he has used the camera not only to capture life's moments, but to experience them. His skills first took him into the workforce as a photojournalist, during which time he served as the public's eyes for papers like the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Beaver County Times and New Castle News.

Today, in his daily work as senior photographer for Carnegie Mellon University Communications and Marketing(opens in new window), he captures moments in time to be preserved years into the future. From orientation week events(opens in new window) to commencement addresses(opens in new window), faculty portraiture to scenic views of campus, Lorenzi can usually be found memorializing university life.

When he isn't working on campus, Lorenzi can be found taking courses there, too.

Having enrolled in the College of Fine Arts(opens in new window), Lorenzi has found that the Master of Arts in Design(opens in new window) program helps him view his favored medium in a different light.

As part of the Visual Communication Fundamentals course offered by the college (51611), Lorenzi took photos in various locations in Oakland and its surrounding neighborhoods over the course of 100 days. Many of them were taken directly on Carnegie Mellon's campus, viewing locations iconic to the Tartan community through an artistic, oftentimes abstract, lens.

The project involved capturing multiple exposures — opening the camera's sensor to light and recording data — and overlaying them to a single frame to create a new image.

"I made a number of exposures to match the day of the project. For example, day one was one exposure on one frame, day 98 was 98 exposures on one frame. I used the multiple exposure function in-camera to help compose the images. You can shoot up to 10 images with a ghost image of each frame overlaying in the viewfinder. I then stacked the images as individual layers in Photoshop to combine them equally."

Day 16: Ansys Hall

Traces of Tartan life are threaded throughout his work, which can appear hazy and memory-like to those familiar with his subjects. And having been both a student and an employee, Lorenzi’s work provides a uniquely holistic perspective.

For instance, the blurred numbers and overlapping lines of Day 22 can feel warmly familiar to anyone who relies on science, technology, engineering or math in one of Carnegie Mellon's seven schools and colleges. But for those who have spent a great deal of time wandering the paths of Posner Hall's Kraus Campo garden, the image takes on spatial significance as well.

Within the frame of Day 29, varying shades of green are broken off from one another in blurry, boxy segments. An athlete, recalling how the world flies by in moments of reactive movement, could quickly recognize it as the on-campus tennis court in spite of formless first impressions.

Day 29: CMU Tennis Court

In Day 83, a whirlpool of reds and yellows disguise — just as much as they evoke — the warmth and familiarity of the Fifth Avenue Neighborhood Commons, where students, staff and faculty often cross paths outside of the traditional classroom setting.

Lorenzi said that while pursuing a degree may not be for everyone, taking a class is something all staff members can benefit from, considering the wealth of experiences he has had in projects like this one.

"I wanted to push beyond the type of photography I have traditionally done and do on a daily basis in my profession — moving beyond purely capturing a single moment or representing what is in front of the camera with an image that is as close as possible to what we ‘see’ in front of us," Lorenzi wrote about the project.

Several images, after dozens of exposures were combined, left the original subjects unrecognizable. They often defied Lorenzi's own expectations, with some final versions appearing much more abstract than others. Day 61's bike racks lost their utilitarian structure and became a flurry of lines. Day 17 saw a bundle of cables and monitors in the Purnell Center for the Arts take on an almost expressionistic flair, becoming streaks of pure color.

"I was just thinking, you know, how can I keep this in the photography realm, but also kind of push beyond my comfort zone to keep it interesting and learn something new?" Lorenzi said.

Day 71: Baker Hall stairs

And while he ultimately learned to embrace the final collection over the 100-day journey, Lorenzi said that one of the most difficult parts of the project was learning to accept that the final version may have differed from his original vision.

“There was an element of surprise in this work,” Lorenzi said. “I kind of had a sense, at certain points, of what it was going to look like. But once I got up into the realm of 30 exposures in one frame, it was not always easy to predict.”

Brett Yasko(opens in new window), who runs the course, said that Lorenzi's project was perhaps his favorite to come out of this assignment.

"His day-to-day job is creating photographs," Yasko said, "but he hit on something that is different from the work that he usually does. And I think he has a new perspective now."

Day 85: the Cut

Yasko, an assistant teaching professor, has taught several staff members who enrolled at CMU, and said that in every case, they bring a unique perspective and drive to the work they do in class. "I'm all for ambition and for trying new things, and we do that in other projects," Yasko said. "But this one challenges students to take what they know and do something completely different with it. Kevin started in his wheelhouse, but then did something in a way that he never thought that he would or could."

In Lorenzi's case, decades of experience capturing the world as we regularly see it transformed into something new through his participation in the design program.

"And he found the trick to doing it well, which I never tell the students up front," Yasko said. "It's to really come from where you already are."

CMU actively promotes higher education as a pathway for professional growth through several initiatives. The Office of Human Resources highlights tuition remission and assistance(opens in new window) on its comprehensive benefits website, alongside a wealth of other benefits available to eligible employees.

OHR sponsors weekly onboarding sessions and monthly orientation sessions, introducing new employees to their benefits and providing opportunities to ask questions. Beyond higher education, OHR offers extensive resources and professional development opportunities(opens in new window) for both staff and faculty at the university.