Help me find images with some mystery.

June 28, 2007 8:21 AM

Please help me find some good mysterious images for students to write to.

I like to have my 4th-grade students write to images that demand an explanation, but at the same time seem at least a bit open-ended. I put up the picture on the screen, they write. Any images you can share with me? (And please share links, so I can find the highest-res image possible.)

posted by argybarg to education (23 comments total)

Stock photography will be a good source... suggest istockphoto.com
posted by Leon at 8:23 AM on June 28, 2007

Alright, the images worked on preview.

Try these:

Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
posted by argybarg at 8:23 AM on June 28, 2007

I think some of the most thought provoking images I've seen lately (that aren't too provocative or controversial, that is...) have come from Shorpy, which bills itself as the 100 year old photo blog. There are wonderful vintage photographs there, and every picture tells a story, don't it?

Upon preview, your images seem more abstract and of course more current, so I'm not sure if Shorpy would appeal to you.
posted by iconomy at 8:28 AM on June 28, 2007

Getting Lindsay Linton
posted by fire&wings at 8:32 AM on June 28, 2007

I remember using The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg in a similar situation.
posted by gac at 8:40 AM on June 28, 2007

Yeah, I came in to recommend Harris Burdick also, but gac got here first. You really can't go wrong with that.
posted by hermitosis at 8:46 AM on June 28, 2007

I love the actual story behind the third photo.

there's no surefire aggregator of what you want, but i'd imagine you could find something to your liking by cruising through Flickr's interesting this week
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 8:52 AM on June 28, 2007

I was going to say the same thing as gac and hermitosis. I believe I wrote a really excellent story about the one with the bump under the rug when I was in elementary school.
posted by wuzandfuzz at 8:57 AM on June 28, 2007

Thirding Harris Burdick. My ninth grade English teacher did the same, and it was a fun experience.
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 8:59 AM on June 28, 2007

Those picasso/light drawings from the front page right now. They would be awesome - bears and ghosts.
posted by handee at 8:59 AM on June 28, 2007

I suggest you also have them look for the mysterious in the ordinary--the canyons of a dried leaf, the reflections in a spoon, the skewed shadows of a bicycle moving surprisingly quickly as the earth turns. It is even more important that they realize the power of mystery is not in photographs, but in themselves.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:04 AM on June 28, 2007

I'll recommend two flickr groups of which I am a member:

League of the Empty Chair

LEC is a home for all those pics floating around the Flickrsphere of seemingly misplaced chairs.

We are not interested in just any photo of any chair/stool/place to put your rear, but ones that are Empty and/or interestingly OUT OF PLACE.

A pic of an empty chair at a cafe doesn't necessarily fit the bill, that's might just be a photo of a cafe not doing good business.

Hammocks aren't chairs. Neither are benches. Masses of empty chairs (vacant conference room/stadium/etc) don't suit this group's goal.

Drawings, paintings, or collages of empty chairs aren't what we're after, either.

It should go without saying that it shouldn't have a pillow or a blanket or a dog in it... it should be empty!

The key is the emptiness/unhomliness/unheimlichkeit/lack of belonging/uncanny that the chair represents.

Pictures with Stories Some are more "mysterious" than others, but it could be an interesting exercise to have students make up a story and then tell them the "real" story that went with the picture.

As for high-res, some flickr users upload and allow anybody to download high-res versions of their pictures. Others don't.
posted by 100watts at 9:17 AM on June 28, 2007

Some shameless self promotion for a pic that I always thought needed a story. If you use it, I'd love to see any good stories to go with it.
posted by chairface at 9:22 AM on June 28, 2007

Hmm. Your pictures that you link to are perhaps a bit more abstract than 4th graders would get. Or maybe I'm missing the point?

I seem to recall doing a writing excercise about who people (strangers) in a were; what they were about to do, what they had just done, their life story, etc. I think that's pretty neat.

Maybe pick some pictures from way back when, and some from foreign countries, or just people that look different from the norm where you are (flickr is of course great for this).
posted by misanthropicsarah at 9:47 AM on June 28, 2007

I like this one.
posted by nasreddin at 10:31 AM on June 28, 2007

Elephant on Bus.

Ye Old Fishing Hole

English Russia always has interesting pics too.
posted by yeti at 10:40 AM on June 28, 2007

Some of the Thematic Apperception Test images might work, though some will probably be lost. They're used in therapy in a similar way (though they seek a different type of outcome.) It's an ambiguous picture about which a patient is asked to make a story.
posted by santojulieta at 12:12 PM on June 28, 2007

I'm painfully curious about the story behind that first photo. Looks like a jet engine - albeit about 10 times larger.

I'm not even sure how I could google for such a thing.
posted by revmitcz at 2:25 PM on June 28, 2007

Try Postsecret, the site that posts scans of postcards where people spill their darkest secrets. Not all of it is safe for 4th graders, but you can pull appropriate ones for class.

I'm grabbing a bunch for a writing class I'm teaching in the fall.
posted by booth at 4:16 PM on June 28, 2007

revmitcz, I believe it was a rocket engine being trucked through an (Austrian?) town that was adjacent to the factory. Or was it the engine for a particle accelerator?

Thanks, all, for the fine suggestions.
posted by argybarg at 5:24 PM on June 28, 2007

revmitcz:

Found it.
posted by argybarg at 5:45 PM on June 28, 2007

riot rite right clit clip click is the place for weird images that beg for a story. (Some of them may be NSFW)

This one of Salvador Dali is also one to consider.
posted by cheerleaders_to_your_funeral at 5:24 AM on June 29, 2007

The photographs of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison are mysterious; not sure whether they would work for 4th graders though.
posted by initapplette at 8:57 PM on June 29, 2007