I just turned 26 years old.
I took my first “real” pictures nine years ago in 2001. Meaning that the pics were my own and not what someone else told me to shoot. I remember taking my dads Nikon EM to summer job to shoot some picutres and I was so excited. The Haapasaari Curch where I worked as a clerk/tour guide is a beautyful wooden church 25km south-east on the coast of Kotka.
For years I’ve watched dad take family pictures with the EM that has a magical sound to its shutter. It was so complex that all I was alowed to do was to focus and press the release. Of cource it was not that difficult but I did not know it back then. I was stoked having the camera with me and padded carefully to the back back not to break it. It was going to be a slow day at the island and I had all the time to take the 24 frames. (most likely some cheap color neg film out of the market that comes in 24 exposure rolls.) Me being me I forgot which was the correct aperture for inside and outside and shot at f1.8 all day.
Bad move. Over exposing the whole roll by good 3-6 stops. Never saw the pics. Dad payed for the developing but said that there is nothing to print from. Auts, but after that the diffrence between f1.8 and f8 has been clear.
The camera laid low for the winter and many winters to come but I always picked it up during the summers to shoot my friends on our boat. Tried to shoot my kid brothers soccer game but did not get a single frame with the manual focus midrange telezoom. I had to shoot my sisters “old dance” but at the time it was just snap and hope at the venue. Dad kicked my ass with a simple window light portrait of Laura in our living room. I’ve always wondered where did his talent and pursuit of goof photographs disapeared. Now days he is happy with the nikon coolpix pocket camera and snapping on auto-mode.
I’ve never liked just snapping pictures. There had to be something else and more often than not that something is was another humanbeing. One of the pictures on my books is a simple portrait of a old school mate shot in our high schools lounge. Very simple, nothing to it actualy, but I thought I got something worth keeping. After school that day I went out side to shoot the streets but all I can remeber is the cold weather that numbed my fingers.
Never I thought it would come to this.
Almost everything meaningfull in my file is related to photography.
Im not complaining though. I love it.LOVE IT as Maiju Siekkinen would scream.
The pic above is a selfportrait shot in valkela churches sacristy. I was shooting a wedding for a awsome couple from Kouvola last saturday.
More to come.