solitary houses stand still in surreal photographic series by kimmo metsäranta

Kimmo Metsäranta captures surreal urban landscapes

Notes on a Place is a photography series by Kimmo Metsäranta exploring the experiential nature of urban space. Its foundation lies in representing the subjective experience of the surrounding space. Each photograph reconstructs observations from the artist’s surroundings, creating surreal urban landscapes devoid of people. These images do not depict places as they are but as Metsäranta imagined them—clear and manageable.

all images by Kimmo Metsäranta

Notes on a Place creates an unusual imitation of reality

Through post-processing, the photographer reinterprets the environments he sees, altering spatiality and the condition of buildings to change or erase their original function. Digitally detached from their context, these places become artificial—familiar yet foreign, resembling an unusual, stage-like imitation of reality. The result is a delicate balance between surrealism and realism.

Notes on a Place series was captured in Finland and Iceland between 2015 and 2022. In 2023, the series was published as a book by Khaos Publishing, earning recognition as one of ‘The Most Beautiful Books of 2023’ by the Finnish Book Art Committee. It was also shortlisted for the prestigious Rencontres d’Arles Book Award in 2024.

Notes on a Place spans seven years of photography across Finland and Iceland

‘A building’s primary reason for being is to serve humans: to put them in their place and give them an address, warm them, shelter them, care for them, provide them with food and commodities—to thus in every way enable their long, superior, ubiquitous existence. When all traces of people are removed from pictures, you begin to add people to them in your mind. But if we reverse that automatic process and try to think another way, images void of people can become cornucopias,’ states Hanna Weselius in the epilogue of the book Notes on a Place.

the series captures urban landscapes devoid of human presence

imaginary scenes where architecture and space defy their original purpose

exploring the tension between familiarity and detachment in urban spaces

void of people, urban landscapes present an unusual, stage-like quality

empty spaces invite the mind to imagine new narratives

Notes on a Place explores the experiential nature of urban spaces

detached from context, places become artificial yet oddly familiar

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project info:

name: Notes on a Place
photographer: Kimmo Metsäranta | @kimmo_metsaranta

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom