These are 11 series of photographies I did during my exchange term in Finland and on my journeys to other countries in or next to Scandinavia. The work mostly deals with natural light conditions, artificial light, architecture, textures, colour tonalitiy, coundtryside and extreme weather conditions.
Supervisors: Michael Jacobs — University of Lapland 2015
01 Clash
As there is rarely sunlight during winter days in Finland, artificial light becomes an important companion to the people living there. But it is not only a fight against the darkness, it also seems to be kind of oppositional to the mostly natural environment it is implanted to. Concerning this matter, my personal interest was to observe how these two factors are living side-by-side.
02 Obscure
On the way to Norway we passed through an extremely deserted route. Scarce light, mist and just a few people on the road made this path up to the North so special to me. Also the country's frontiers between Norway and Finland seem not to be present there as nature becomes kind of blurred at this lonely and uninhabited area.
03 Walls
My second photographic pair about artificial light rather deals with the aspect of hide and seek. As sunlight in winter time is rare, it is necessary to use plenty of this artificial light. But of course it is unpossible to illuminate the living environment entirely. There are always objects and textures which stay hidden - others are only visible partially. To demonstrate this I used the example of illuminated walls.
04 Horizon
These series was taken at different places of Norway. I was attracted by the similarity of locations even though they are off each other. Also the surrounding by nature is one central theme to be noticed.
05 Metallic
As one assignment of my photography class I was attending, we were asked to picture a scrapyard, which is located on the outskirts of Rovaniemi. My attention was caught by the fact that all the stuff there was used by people in former times. This animated aspect of the waste was still visible for me in textures, shapes and the stories every object was telling, even though it generally seemed to be left behind by the people.
06 Mist
This series was taken at an excursion in the North of Finland. During a hike up a hill some mist was occuring instantly, which changed the appearance of the environment completely. Objects became visually flat and simple - the surrounding area suddenly was out of range and not visible anymore. It became hard to keep the orientation and felt like being encapsule from the rest of the world.
07 Shelter
A quitted shelter in the middle of landscape as a image of freedom, human brevity and power of nature. In the shelter we found plenty of items and furniture left behind - just as someone left the house rashly and had no time to take it with them.
08 Stop
The whole project consists of 60 pictures, taken on almost every day during my stay in Finland. It is about observing a bus stop next to the student housing area of Rovaniemi. It mostly deals with the change of people, time and space - regarding the change of season and light.
09 Arc
These Gothic arcs were constructed for an snow hotel in Levi, Lapland. This kind of temporary architecture is quite oppositional to the central idea of Gothic architecture, which was made for eternity and was supposed to show power and persistence.
10 Friction
These photos were taken in St. Petersburg, Russia. They are dealing with the ambivalent appearance of this big city.
11 Fronts
This series works out a similarity of textures and colour tonalities of building fronts. You commonly find a combination of metallic and wooden materials - which often lead to vertical and horizontal line patterns. Also the use of light blue can be found as a central aspect of these.
