2. Project Outline As I have stated in the introduction, the SOE embodies a
and teach everything – it is not “professional teachers share
strong philosophy about learning, specifically about learn-
expertise with their highly qualified students”. Therefore, I
ing exotic topics that lie outside the scope of the main-
went for candid, natural shots; nothing should look staged
stream. That is why we have decided to find and contact
in any way (a rule that only had to be broken for some pic-
teachers of these topic in order to portray them; our search
tures in the Jujutsu series that would have been too dan-
included: Hula hooping, astronomy, astrology, jewellery
gerous to take otherwise).
making, TV presenting, yoga, meditation, pottery, knit-
The shootings themselves turned out to be of much
ting, homeopathy, taiko, various exotic martial arts, play-
more value to me than just some photographic practice: I
ing the didgeridoo and many more. I easily gained the
have learned a great deal about every subject photographed
support of many teachers by offering them all the pho-
and tremendously deepened my interpersonal skills as a
tographs taken during the session for no fee or condition
photographer working with real people instead of models.
other than stated in the “Creative Commons Attribution-
I have documented every step of each individual project
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0” license model.
and kept in touch with both my placement provider and
I have chosen to use a visual style that is as far away
the people photographed to involve them in the selection
from the polished looks as found in advertisements as pos-
process. I am extremely grateful that I had the opportunity
sible. The philosophy of the SOE is that anybody can learn
to do this project exactly the way I intended to. 19