It’s interesting that we associate historical things with beauty. A longing to go back to the past, when life was more beautiful or more simplified or maybe even romanticized, and yet, we don’t acknowledge the beauty that is the now, the beauty that is living in the present.

This beauty, the intersection between now and then, can be seen in 6x6 compositions of photos scattered across the walls of Corridoio Fiorentino in a spotty array. The miniature photographs invite viewers to lean in and maybe — just maybe — even squint their eyes a little.

Tiny Florence is a reflection of observing the microscopic details that make up beauty. Photographers are given instructions to take photos of historical sites around Florence, the outcomes of which are unique perspectives highlighting each photographer's selective eye of beauty.

“It’s fun to appreciate the little things in Florence,” student photographer Addison Wallenkamp said. “Look at the little details of things, because sometimes, you can get lost in the big picture.”

In photography, and even in life, you’re trained to look at the bigger picture. At Tiny Florence, however, we as viewers are stripped of that ability. Normally, in photography, the frame is not what is taking up most of the space; the photo is typically what is emphasized. At Tiny Florence, the choice to frame the photos with a large, white background makes the already small black and white images feel even smaller — a playful illusion of size.

Looking out of the arrangement of floating photos, viewers are challenged by a busy display of smaller pictures making up a larger whole. In each frame there are details of bigger pictures framed in abstract ways — some zoomed in, some from afar, some rotated ever-so-slightly. At first glance, these mosaic collages can be daunting and disorienting to look at. Despite this, viewers taking a longer gaze at the organized chaos making up famous frames of Florence might make sense of it, even finding aspects that they can personally connect with.

“You had to have a head on perspective of it,” Mackenzie Housler, another student photographer said. “So you're moving like a foot, a foot, a foot to get the whole structure in [the frame].”

“And then you go through all your photos and choose which ones you actually like, and you can put them together in a cool way,” Wallenkamp added.

We thought this served as a reflection of beauty or noticing the smaller things in life. Too often in American culture do we get caught up waiting for the next thing. Being oriented toward goals, toward the bigger picture — waiting to graduate highschool, to graduate college, our first big job, moving out of our parents home, finding love, starting a family, growing old and retiring — it’s all just so easy to get caught up in.

Life gets busy. We don't slow down. In a way, we can’t slow down.

The beauty that is daily routines, the people we interact with, and who we are as individuals are, in ways, parallel to these miniature mosaics. They are all part of a bigger picture, they are disorganized, things get cut off, but still, they are parts of a whole. We are parts of a whole.

We choose to prioritize different things, we find beauty in different things, we are different things.

So, as the age-old cliche goes, maybe beauty is in the eye of the beholder.