Lake Fong "1,000 Dead," taken by Lake Fong at a war protest in Regent Square last year, is among seven images by the Post-Gazette photographer in the exhibition "Pittsburgh NOW." Click photo for larger image. Related article 'Pittsburgh NOW' events

"Pittsburgh NOW," an up-close-and-personal look at the city inspired by the great photographic surveys of the past century, opens Wednesday at Silver Eye Center for Photography on the South Side.

From a flowing golden stream of Terrible Towels set in motion by Steelers fans to the Allegheny River coursing past the sleek lines of the new David L. Lawrence Convention Center, 63 prints by nine photographers take the pulse of Pittsburgh, its people and its neighborhoods, in the 21st century.

The exhibition was the brainchild of co-curators Linda Benedict-Jones, Silver Eye executive director, who is steeped in the history and currency of photography, and Henry J. Simonds, film producer and president/founder of Headwater Films, an organization that finances and develops feature and documentary film projects.

Benedict-Jones also was co-curator of the highly popular 1997 exhibition "Pittsburgh Revealed: Photographs Since 1850" at Carnegie Museum of Art. Simonds is a Pittsburgh native who returned in 1998 to work on a documentary about the life of the late Charles "Teenie" Harris, a photographer who is acclaimed for his depiction of life in the predominantly black Hill District.

This is the first of a number of local exhibitions that photography enthusiasts may look forward to, including Walker Evans and James Agee at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg (opening May 8), and Margaret Bourke-White at The Frick Art & Historical Center (June 25).

Carnegie Museum of Art launches the second phase of the Teenie Harris Archive Project on Aug. 6 and presents Luke Swank on Nov. 5.

Pittsburgh's industrial might, decline and renaissance have provided fodder for photographers throughout the past century, Benedict-Jones says. She cites in particular "The Pittsburgh Survey" of 1907, which she calls a "pioneering study" of working and living conditions in the nation's most highly industrialized city, and the 1950-53 "Pittsburgh Photographic Library" project directed by Roy Stryker.

Steven Adams Wildlife is as close as the North Shore in this 2004 image, "Flocking to Pittsburgh," by Pittsburgh Tribune-Review photographer Steven Adams, which appears in "Pittsburgh NOW." Click photo for larger image.

When Lewis Hine photographed for the Survey, he was relatively unknown, Benedict-Jones says. "He is now regarded as the giant in the field of social documentary photography."

Stryker's team comprised established as well as unknown photographers who produced thousands of negatives and prints that "remain as a remarkable story of mid-century Pittsburgh," Benedict-Jones says. She adds that the PPL archive is housed at the Carnegie Library in Oakland and is open to the public who, for a nominal charge, may request a print of one of the negatives.

Other luminaries who photographed the city in mid-century included Margaret Bourke-White, sent by Life magazine to photograph from an airplane, and W. Eugene Smith, who came to produce images for Stefan Lorant's "Story of an American City" but broke away to create his own body of work.

	Annie O'Neill "The Contractor," shot on a North Side rooftop last year by Post-Gazette photographer Annie O'Neill, typifies her penchant for unpredictable or slightly off-center subjects. Click photo for larger image.

The images that resulted from such projects have informed perceptions of Pittsburgh since, and the curators felt it was time for a change. Further, they reasoned that a contemporary exploration of the city would provide a basis for discussion of its assets and deficits.

"'Pittsburgh NOW' is an attempt to update the visual identity of this city -- which has been much maligned because of its outdated and wrongfully sordid reputation -- and to explore the moments and events that define what we are today," Simonds writes in his exhibition statement.

At the same time, the curators wanted to pay tribute to "Pittsburgh's rich photographic legacy, as well as the lively photographic community that thrives here," Benedict-Jones writes.

To these ends, the curators invited nine local photojournalists and independent documentary-style photographers to create and submit work for the exhibition.

They are the Post-Gazette's Lake Fong, Annie O'Neill and William D. Wade; Steven Adams, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review; Ken Neely, The New Pittsburgh Courier; Heather Mull, Pittsburgh City Paper; and freelance photographers Rob Long, Carrie Schneider and Dylan Vitone.

The photographers had a year to produce images for the show. While a few archival images are included, most photographs were made in 2004-05 specifically for the exhibition. Benedict-Jones and Simonds culled the 63 prints exhibited from the hundreds submitted by the photographers. Silver Eye engineered the show's production, including arranging for and paying for printing and framing the photographs, which will be for sale. A small illustrated catalog also has been produced.

Bill Wade Bill Wade seems to be asking "Who needs Christo and Jeanne-Claude when you have PennDOT?" with "Wrapped, 16th Street Bridge" photographed last year. Wade is one of three Post-Gazette photojournalists who were invited to create work for the Silver Eye Center for Photography exhibition "Pittsburgh NOW," which was inspired by the great Pittsburgh photographic projects of the past century. Click photo for larger image.

The framed prints will be supplemented by 15 additional images by each photographer contained in a five-minute loop that will run constantly on a computer in the gallery.

Technical as well as physical, social and economic changes differentiate this survey from those of the past century. Most of the prints are color, and styles and media vary considerably and include digital works.

"Black and white was the only vocabulary at that time," Benedict-Jones says when comparing the projects, and there was "a built-in consistency because everyone was pretty much using the same tools."

People and action dominate, as might be expected from photographers who are in the main professional news documentarians, but a strong aesthetic component infuses the exhibition also. Most of the photographers present a range of subject matter, though each has stylistic coherency.

Fong finds the emotional space that surrounds his subjects and frames them within it -- joyful, for example, when jumping rope on the North Side, proud when enacting a Chinese folk dance in McCandless. A Hong Kong native, he began working at the Post-Gazette after completing graduate studies at Ohio University in 1996.

The unexpected tilts O'Neill's images out of the realm of the ordinary, from the collapsed prom couples winding down the night at The Andy Warhol Museum to culinary students taking out the trash Downtown. She's been with the PG since 1995 and has published a book of her photographs in collaboration with the Mattress Factory museum.

Wade, who exhibits his photographs regularly in juried shows, has been at the PG since 1993, having previously worked for The Pittsburgh Press and the Akron Beacon Journal. His aesthetic lean is particularly notable in a neon-illuminated night shot of the Rex on the South Side and the PennDOT-wrapped 16th Street Bridge that begs comparison with Christo projects.

	Ken Neely "MLK Book Reflections," taken in East Liberty last year by Ken Neely of The New Pittsburgh Courier, provokes contemplative pause. Click photo for larger image.

A fine arts influence also is apparent in Adams' photographs, such as that of a gaggle of geese gathered on the North Shore shot against the city skyline, or the moody image of a darkly clothed figure with pink umbrella seen through a rain-streaked, steamed deli window. His undergraduate studies were in fine art and communication, and he's been with the Trib since 1999.

Neely, who began working for the Courier in 2003, taps into his subjects' passion -- whether young men on a football field in Homewood, a row of parishioners in an East Liberty pew or protesters Downtown -- allowing the emotion to illuminate and expand the narrative.

Mull proves that hip lives in Pittsburgh, with a DJ at an East Liberty turntable or dancers at a Strip District club, but she also turns up at school board meetings, such as one in Oakland exhibited. An Allegheny College English lit grad, she studied photography at Pittsburgh Filmmakers and has been with City Paper for six years.

CMU architecture and technical theater graduate Long's expertise in lighting design and architectural photography come through in dramatic night scenes of the Smithfield Bridge and the Benedum, and a rhythmic row of Mount Oliver rooftops, among other images.

Schneider, a CMU fine arts grad, explores the effect of presenting the commonplace in series in order to reveal its individuation. Here she shows views of rooms at four elementary schools (South Side, Lincoln Place, Greenfield and Linden Academy) and Brighton Heights and Brookline swimming pools, the former filled and populated, the latter empty.

A recent arrival in Pittsburgh and recipient of the 2004 Silver Eye Fellowship, Vitone combines photographs into 360-degree black-and-white panoramas that explore relations of space and time within a set location. Subjects are as elitist as the last dinner at the University Club, Oakland, or as blue collar as a Bloomfield shoe cobbler's shop.

All together, the diversity of 21st-century Pittsburgh -- reflecting that of the nation as a whole -- comes across: Baby triplets make faces while they're being fed, and an elder Squirrel Hill resident sits alone under a beauty salon dryer beneath posters of young models; a uniformed reservist is welcomed home by his Shirley Temple-curled young daughter while the faces of war protesters are illuminated by the candles they carry; a room brims with white-gowned debutantes, and a space under a bridge is domesticated by a homeless person.

What becomes evident is that it's not so much buildings and places as people that define the vitality and integrity of a region. These photographers have created a record that speaks of the past, of the future and of NOW.