The objectives of the course move beyond learning how to take an excellent technical image. What do the different photographic approaches demonstrate and highlight? By the end of the course, students should be able to handle a camera, make professional prints, and have a broad understanding of photography as a medium. Most importantly, students should develop a critical approach to its use in architectural and landscape discourses.

Photography transposes the three-dimensional object onto a two-dimensional surface. How has the introduction of photography altered our understanding of the world, and foremost, the understanding of architecture? Students will be exposed to philosopher Vilém Flusser´s ideas and criticism of what he calls the apparatus (mechanical / industrial limitations). We will also discuss Roland Barthes idea of the viewer's interpretation (spectrum) of an image (punctum and studium). 

A perfectly manicured lawn with no signs of moss is divided from an overgrown forest ground by a white picket fence. This is how the Swedish photographer Lars Tunbjörk introduces the Scandinavian suburban garden in the photobook "Home" in 2003. Both the domesticated garden and the undomesticated outfields have the same birch trees and grass. The only difference is that on one side there is a man who cuts the grass.  

Our overall interest in this course is to look at the peri-urban landscapes around Oslo. What is in the realm where the city meets "nature". The students can look at this "in-between" space from a landscape (nature) or architecture (buildings) perspective. This area has for a long time interested many photographers and has a strong tradition in Scandinavia, such as in Tunbjörk's work. All of our tasks will be focusing on, and problematising this peri-urban area. An essential reference for this course is the book The New Topographics – Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.

It is highly suggested that students have their own semi-professional camera.