Vitone, Dylan

American, b. 1978

BiographyIn the Pittsburgh Project, photographer Dylan Vitone records expansive views of the city using a long panoramic format. Each photograph is created by joining multiple separate images made at a particular location. Pittsburgh was once an economic hub and a booming industrial center producing steel, coal, glass, and aluminum. Following deindustrialization in the latter half of the twentieth century, the city has suffered a massive decline. "This project," Vitone writes, "documents Pittsburgh's struggle to reconcile its history with the uncertainty of its future. Like other cities across the nation's rustbelt, Pittsburgh has been forced to reinvent itself."

Vitone's panoramic pictures provide an impression of the urban environment in Pittsburgh—what the city streets look like, and views of diverse locations—but his emphasis is primarily on the social aspects of the city rather than its architecture and geography. Most of the photographs in the series portray groups of people. In some they hang out on the street or the city's waterfront, while others depict community events, such as church services, recreational activities, or school classes. In images like Sprinkler (2006), Vitone uses the wide frame to capture a dynamic scene, with people everywhere in motion, and what amounts to a visual catalogue of interactions. Yet the photographs provide not only a sense of lateral expansion––a long image unfolding horizontally––but also unfolding depth, as figures take their places up close to the camera and farther away in the distance.

Vitone completed a BA in photocommunications at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas (2001) and an MFA in photography at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston (2003). He has been a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh since 2006.