Hoboken residents can challenge themselves to a game whenever they visit Peter Ziebel's daily photo blog King Nopa. They can look at the over 1,000 images of nondescript buildings on the site and guess where they are located in the city.

Ziebel spoke about his photo project last week at the Hudson School as part of the school's monthly film and lecture series for adults entitled Think Thursdays. A professional photographer and author, Ziebel is also the photography teacher at the Hudson School.

Wanting to examine urban landscapes, Ziebel has taken and published a new photo to the website every day since the first on April 7, 2009, with the only exception of missing five days while being sick with pneumonia.

He said the project involves lots of discipline. “I wanted to force myself to take more pictures,” he said.

The homepage of the King Nopa site features the photo of the day, which Ziebel loads at midnight. By clicking the previous button underneath visitors can see yesterday's photo and keep going backwards until the first. The photos are titled only by their date. Visitors also have the option to view each of the photos by month, or to see one at random.

A resident of Hoboken for 30 years, Ziebel started the daily blog with images of Hoboken, though he has begun to mix the new ones he still takes in the Mile Square with others he's added since recently moving to North Bergen.

Though most of the photos are of Hoboken, Ziebel said he is less concerned with documenting any particular city and is most focused on capturing impressions within a larger urban landscape. For example, he doesn't want the photos to look dated in terms of people recognizing that a business shown in the background is no longer running. The collection isn't meant to show how Hoboken has changed since 2009 and beyond, but to be timeless.

“It's more like poetry,” he said. “It's my impression of the moment, not a documentary.”

Ziebel goes walking until he finds something that inspires him. He could walk several blocks or only a few feet before he finds his image.

He compares his style to Cubism in that he is interested in shapes, colors, light and texture. Most commonly he photographs the sides or fronts of buildings, or through buildings like corner shops with full window fronts. He often likes juxtaposing the rare tree or plant propped before brick or concrete. He is fascinated by shadows, by capturing reflection through glass and also by taking pictures with pictures, such as advertisements, already in the setting. Though those secondary photos might show people, Ziebel avoids adding images to the site that include live passerby.

The name King Nopa follows Ziebel's intent for using something nonsensical sounding, and also cryptically refers to a prevailing theme in Hoboken – read as No Pa the letters form the beginning of the ubiquitous phrase no parking.

Ziebel uses basic equipment. “It's just a point and shoot,” he said of his camera. He does only minimal editing with the digital program Photoshop, mostly to enhance certain colors that don't show in the photo as they did live, or to reduce his own presence if say his shadow gets in the shot.

Though he has plenty of expertise about the craft of photography, Ziebel keeps the King Nopa project simple. It's about pointing and shooting, and avoiding all the rest that gets in the way.

“It's noticing and seeing what's around you,” he said. “In some respects that's gotten lost with modern photography, where it's about photography rather than seeing.”