4. The Capture and Editing: Step by Step and Image by Image

Systematic Capture: Every day I systematically capture all streets and relevant objects. On average, this results in about 100 images per day, combined with around 25,000 steps. With an area of 328 square kilometers, Dresden is the fourth largest city in Germany and impresses with its diverse geographical location. The city lies in the Elbe Valley, nestled between the Eastern Ore Mountains, the Lusatian Granite Plateau and the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. In addition to the Elbe, which flows through the city area for a length of 30 kilometers, the Weißeritz and Prießnitz rivers shape the hydrographic network.

Dresden has 7,341 hectares of forest and 676 hectares of water areas. The city is home to four nature reserves, ten landscape conservation areas, and 138 listed gardens, avenues, and parks. With a total of 178 schools, 11 hospitals, 224 playgrounds, 73 churches, 369 allotment associations, and 13 castles and palaces, Dresden presents itself as a city with a wide variety of urban and natural structures, which we documented in two production phases over 23 months. 

Prioritizing Topics: We place special emphasis on public buildings such as schools, daycare centers, and administrative buildings. At the same time, we ensure that all districts and localities are covered comprehensively. The project is structured in two clearly defined production phases: 20 months are dedicated to the urban area, followed by 3 months of intensive work in the Dresden localities.

Each of the ten districts is treated equally and documented in approximately 800 images. We set individual priorities to highlight the respective district structure and its special features. This equality ensures a comprehensive and balanced cityscape that reflects the diversity and identity of all facets of Dresden.

Consistent Image Quality: To ensure consistent image quality, we primarily document the city between April and November in sunny weather. This optimizes the usability of the images for public relations. The photos maintain a uniform style across seasons and weather conditions.

Image Editing and Anonymization: Each day of shooting is followed by a day for image import, sorting, keywording, editing, and anonymization. Our team works decentrally and cloud-based from various cities across Germany to make processing efficient. A total of 20,000 images are created, in which we manually anonymize approximately 60,000 license plates and people. Each GPS coordinate is manually checked and assigned to the nearest building. We ensure that the captured metadata reflects the exact address and geographical position to facilitate integration into digital city archives. At the same time, all image data is comprehensively tagged and exported in a tabular format to ensure its findability and usability for future projects.

Transparency Throughout the Entire Process: Both the city archive and the district offices can follow the progress of the project in real-time via cloud access to our image database. This access allows all participants to continuously view the status of the documentation and provide feedback. This ensures that the project is always aligned with the requirements of the later users over three and a half years. In addition, the Dresden City Archives organized an interim meeting every six months, in which we presented completed districts and clarified open questions.

Image gallery: Behind the scenes of cityscape photography