The strange and familiar environments of everyday life

Time: 50–60 min

Tools: Smartphone or camera

Goal: Practice observing the environment and contemplate over the significance of the shooting location.

Transversal competences: L1, L2, L4

Find a photographic artist whose work you are interested in and get to know their work. Find a photograph where the environment plays an important role. You can work example use the websites of The Finnish Museum of Photography, Photo North or VB Photographic Center to find an artist. All the websites have a Previous exhibitions (“Menneet näyttelyt”) menu, with a comprehensive collection of artworks and artists.
Choose 2-3 images of artworks.

Look at the chosen images and think about the following questions:

Chose a familiar place in your local environment, somwthing you don’t normallypay close attention to.
Document the place by photographing it. See if you can get a completely new viewpoint to a familiar environment. You can look for new angles for example by looking up or down. You can try what the view looks like up-close or from a distance. What changes if you climb a bit higher or settle on the ground?
Choose a series of 2-4 photographs out of all the pictures you took.
You can edit your photos with image editing software if you like.
Share the final series in small groups. What do the places look like now?