By Joel Schalit
"We'll call it hyperlocal."
Working as the editor of a citizen journalism startup in Silicon Valley, my boss was polling me on ideas to distinguish our platform from the new oped norm of the Huffington Post.
"I'm not sure if that's a great sell," I remember responding. "We want users to help fill the void of daily and weekly newspapers, not do food and entertainment blogging."
The CEO would not be deterred. On the company's dime, the team went out for a drive and tried to inventory all the local things we could get people to write about. We didn't get very far.
The best thing about the outing was how much we used our mobiles to take pictures of the neighbourhood. From Nokia N95s to the first iPhone models, everyone was shooting and sharing.
It was a nice break from work, and, as someone who always carries a compact camera with them, I caught a funeral underway at a nearby military cemetery.
It was May 2008, and the War on Terror was at its height. I assumed this was related. We published my photos, but they disappeared, along with the platform, when it was sold in 2011.
I've been thinking about this gig lately because of how much it typified the editorial experiments being made at the time. Going out and getting quick content like that was revelatory.
Taking a break between Christmas and New Year's Eve in the nearby city of Savona reminded me of that. Italian cities can be so distinct that going somewhere else is like travelling abroad.
For the first Aperture Priorities of 2024, here are my favourite photos, plus a few shots upon returning home to Torino.
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Photographs courtesy of Joel Schalit. All rights reserved.