Lansing is full of timeless architecture, mind-blowing murals, historical sights and striking views. It's time they are noticed and appreciated!
That's exactly what Rick Banghart did when he and his wife Stephanie put together their own Lansing photo scavenger hunt. A graduate of
Waverly High School and
Michigan State University’s College of Law, Rick Banghart is a life-long citizen of Lansing.
Surprisingly, he's not a photographer or even an avid scavenger hunt participant; he's an attorney that just realized the city has a lot to offer visually.
"I think I was inspired by some of the weird and funky things that you see around here,” Rick Banghart says. “Sometimes I'll see something and wonder if other people know about it. So I thought it would be a fun game to take pictures and then see if people recognized them or could figure out where they were."
How it WorksThe first hunt was held last fall. It was solely advertised through Facebook, so the 25 participants were mainly friends of Rick and Stephanie.
The participants were on teams, and each team was given a photo packet that contained what they were supposed to find.
There were forty photos from all over the city — things like a close-up of the
Michigan Supreme Court seal from the wall of the
Hall of Justice, a totem pole at
Fenner Nature Center and the Buddhist temple on south Washington.
Some pictures were worth more points than others and there were different ways of earning extra bonus points.
When one of the hunts is finished, everyone meets up for dinner and the winner is announced.
Sounds like an exciting way to spend a Saturday, right?
For participant Veronica Gracia-Wing, “It sounded like the perfect afternoon to spend with friends, having fun [like] we'd never had before, [going] around our town and engaging my competitive nature” she says.
“The scavenger hunts are seriously fun from start to finish," she says. "There's this electricity and anticipation before we're sent out on the road — all of these adults in one room, totally giddy. The whole day just flies by!"
Rick created the first scavenger hunt in this series, but set up the game so that the winner is obligated to set up the next scavenger hunt. Cathy Illman and her team won the first hunt and hosted the second one this past January. Those that won that scavenger hunt are planning one for August.
"I'm kind of hoping that they come up with some neat variations on the format and rules, to keep it fresh and different,” Rick says. “Actually, they don't even have to do a photo scavenger hunt if they don't want — it may end up being some other type of scavenger hunt, for all I know."
New Views of LansingVeronica is also a life-long resident of Lansing and found it amazing that some of the pictures were things she passed by everyday but never really noticed.
She recalls "hunting" in Old Town for an urban-edged metal sculpture of a lizard that she says is tucked away from most traffic.
Across the street she found an art piece made up of an assortment of hubcaps. Both are things she has glanced at before, but had never actually stopped to admire.
"I think sometimes, we can get too gestalt with our surroundings," Gracia-Wing says. "It's like touring Lansing from a completely unique and new perspective — you're forced outside of your everyday routine and really get to experience the city."
The photos ranged from buildings, views and objects, to literally anything else that caught Banghart 's eye.
"The most interesting category to me was religious places,” says participant Cathy Illman. “He tried to include a good variety of places of worship from a Jewish synagogue to a Buddhist temple. He also had a series from atop parking ramps, which was cool because it gave the city a point of view that I wasn't used to. He included a lot of government buildings with fancy sculptures and statues on them that I didn't know existed."
Helping Lansing GrowThe scavenger hunts are not only fun, but also are great for the city of Lansing in different ways. It provides a way to appreciate parts of Lansing and to be introduced to places that might have flown under your radar.
There have been three hunts so far, and the creators of each try to do them about four months apart. For future events, they’d like to come up with a way to make the events better known, and they may change from photo scavenger hunts to other kinds of "hunts."
"The Lansing Photo Scavenger Hunt gets people out in our city.” says Stephanie Banghart. “We all live here [and] we've seen a lot of what Lansing has to offer, but it's easy to miss the little details.
"Each person's personal experience is different, and the scavenger hunt is able to show a glimpse of what we each love about this town and draw our friend's attention to something that people may have never noticed," she says. "It's all about the little shops, museums, parks and restaurants that make us feel at home."
Stephanie also believes that these hunts help to develop a sense of community and communication.
"The last scavenger hunt had a photo of one of the fire stations. My team wasn't sure which station it was, so we stopped at a random firehouse and asked some fire fighters if they could direct us. They loved it!” she explains. “The scavenger hunt was a total icebreaker, and a way to say hello to someone I otherwise never would have."
Economic ImpactBeyond the community connections, the scavenger hunts have the potential to really help out Lansing's economy if they continue to grow in size.
"Scavenger hunts like this, with the proper organization, could reach epic proportions, and with those epic numbers comes serious economic benefits for the city,” Gracia-Wing says.
For example, she points out that 30 people stopping by local coffeehouses and eateries like
Decker's Coffee (which their team did twice on one hunt),
The Nuthouse Sports Grill or Pablo's “drives consumerism on a local level."
Understanding the true potential a city offers can only help the city grow and be more exciting for its residents.
"Being excited and involved in one's city has a domino effect that instills a pride and deep interest in helping Lansing grow," Gracia-Wing says.
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Clare Zammitt is a professional writing student at Michigan State University.
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of Trumpie Photography.
Photos:
Veronica Gracia-Wing with her camera and a dinosaur at Friedland Industries. A photo of the dinosaur was one of the places she needed to find during the scavenger hunt.
Photos from a recent hunt
Rich Illman with with photos of the places he found to win the first scavenger hunt
Photos of more Lansing area places
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie