Kalev Leetaru had never touched a camera other than a simple, disposable camera he toted around on vacations – that is, until he discovered the tiny lens attached to his cell phone. It was then that he found his flair for photography.

Leetaru, a recent engineering graduate, bought a point-and-shoot camera and began taking pictures all over campus. After realizing how big his collection had gotten, he decided to give purpose to his photography by engaging in an independent project his senior year- the Campus Photographic Preservation Project.

Leetaru drove around campus for several hours at a time for many months until he had photographed every single building on campus from different angles and in different seasons capturing the University’s most intricate architectural details. Today, he has 52,000 photos of the campus, as well as 10,000 other random photos from different parts of the world.

“It’s part of my character,” Leetaru said. “I love doing large projects and doing things that no one else has done before.”

Leetaru added a big element to his photography project by researching the historical background of each building. He worked with his adviser, Vernon Burton, a history professor, and archivists to dig up information.

William Maher, a University archivist, helped Leetaru with the history portion of his project.

“Many people go out and take pictures, but he has made a big effort to do research of the spots he photographed,” Maher said. “He has annotations about the bench and the pillars – too often photographers will just take a picture and stop there.”

Leetaru said his goal was to add purpose to his project, not just having pretty photos to look at.

“My project can act as a photographic time capsule capturing campus and showing people parts of campus they’ve never seen before,” Leetaru said. “I have created a resource to show what it was like in the early days of the 21st century on campus.”

The next step of the project was to organize the thousands of photographs. Leetaru, part of a group at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and his boss, Alan Craig, developed a Web site called Phantasm to make the photos accessible to people.

Leetaru developed a search engine so members of the University could type in a building name or campus site and come up with thousands of hits.

Leetaru said the photos are free and for non-commercial use only.

“The photos are freely available so that student groups or departments that want photos of anywhere on campus have got them,” Leetaru said.

Emily Flatt, College of Engineering assistant director of development, found Leetaru’s photographs useful for a slideshow she used for a corporate engineering event.

“I think it’s really neat that he’s doing something he enjoys and making it available for the campus and the community,” Flatt said. “His pictures offer such a thorough pictorial history of campus and the University.”

Leetaru said he likes to photograph a range of perspectives – from the front view of the Illini Union all the way down to a lampshade hanging from the ceiling.

“I have 2,000 photos of Beckman Hall, including everything from a moth hanging on the wall to the building during a thunderstorm,” Leetaru said.

Leetaru said he doesn’t limit his photos to campus sites, but also tries to attend events on campus that aren’t as popular as sporting events or other well-publicized events – such as the Molecular and Cellular Biology Open House.

“There’s going to be a million photographers at events at Assembly Hall or during the basketball games,” Leetaru said. “You wouldn’t have room to put another photographer on the floor.”

Leetaru said he is beginning the next portion of his project by photographing all of the fraternity and sorority houses on campus. He also said he is going to create desktop wallpaper out of his photographs for public use as well.

Leetaru said the project is always evolving because there are continual changes on campus – with some buildings being torn down, others being put up and renovations constantly being made.

“You never know what’s going to disappear or change tomorrow,” Leetaru said. “What I’ve learned is that you can’t just take photos of the extraordinary – you have to take photos of the ordinary because they will become the extraordinary.”