Wyview Park: Practically Crazy from the Outside In

In my experience, people who live in Wyview Park are practical. Wyview apartments are newly furnished, spacious, and in fabulous condition, and yet the rent at Wyview is cheaper than almost any off-campus housing. However, while they call Wyview Park “On-campus Housing,” by “on-campus” they mean about-as-far-away-from-campus-as-BYU-approved-housing-gets. Another huge defining factor of Wyview is the eighty-five percent freshmen to 15% upper-classmen ratio. Because Wyview-ites are either very practical or they’re freshmen (or both I suppose), and they have to have some way to get themselves to campus every day, bike racks filled with bikes can be found all over the complex even in the snowy winter. Thus, this picture tells the story of the defining factors of Wyview Park.
You may be thinking to yourself, “Wow! That’s got to be one freezing cold bike ride!” You’re right. But, part of the charm of Wyview residents is that they don’t care about a few moments discomfort as long as they have somewhere cheap to sleep at night (…somewhere cheap that isn’t about to fall down or harbor rats and cockroaches along with residents). Wyview residents are tough, like these brave bikes. They can weather the cold, the snow, and whatever else is thrown at them.
I chose to take this photo at night because I think the night mode on my camera gives the light an ethereal, super-human quality. I wanted these bikes to look super-human, because they are symbols of the all-enduring, ever-practical Wyview residents. I took the photo from this angle because I wanted to try to almost super-impose the bikes onto the building in the background. I was trying to create an effect that would suggest that the bikes belong to the buildings. Thus, I was making the statement that the Wyview-ites are an integral part of Wyview. It’s more than just buildings. Although, I purposely chose this angle because of the way the building appears to continue on in an endless diagonal. The bikes (symbolizing the people) and their buildings are solid, enduring, and continuous. I didn’t set up this picture; the subjects were already there in that exact position. However, I carefully considered the angle and lighting to create the effect I wanted.
My photo essay as a whole is supposed to communicate the practicality, and yet craziness of the Wyview world. The people who live in Wyview are undoubtedly practical (as discussed above), but I wanted to portray the unhinged side of Wyview that lies beneath the practicality as well (hence the crazy mail picture, the ninja turtle, the funny freshmen boys in their dirty room, etc.). I wanted to help viewers understand that Wyview has the crazy qualities of a freshmen year of college (the busy midnight Creamery Rush, the ever-open laundry room, the random pirate-costumed people on the random playground, etc.), but it is undeniably a practical place to live (the bikes, the sleeping person, the neat girls’ bedroom). The essay is organized so that viewers start from the outside of Wyview (notice all the available parking spots which show the practicality of not owning an expensive car couple with the crazy pirate people on the random playground) and work their way into the buildings (where crazy things like home-made Ninja Turtle Costumes are still found, but in the end, it’s just a comfortable place to sleep). Hopefully after looking through the photo essay, viewers catch the idea that Wyview-ites are inherently practical, but they know how to be crazy too.