Another shot from the shoot at the rocks with Henna.

For the record I hate photoforums. All of them.  On the forums there is one brand of photography that I hate specialy. That is “art photography. “  You know exactly what I mean.

I do not do art. I do pretty pictures. Pretty and simple.  If you ask the guys who make “art photos” what they think of model photos (anything after richard aveidon that is) they will most likely discribe them as “empty photos.”

I don’t care. Let it be empty. Rather it be empty and pretty than ugly and full of content no one can understand.

I do not want the get used to the feeling it gives when the shutter realeses and I know I got something really worth keeping. Something I’ll love untill the camera drops from my hand for the last time.

Kalle emailed me in the spring, he was looking for a wedding photographer. Mika who I happened to know was their choise but had already being booked so I was the second choise. Or third, fourth..

Anyways Im so clad I got the gig because I had heleva good time. The couple Kalle and Sinianna were awsome to shoot and I don’t remember when I enjoyed shooting more. I wasn’t nervous (not a good thing thou) but all the anxietys I had vanished when I drove to their house and Kalle was their to greet me. Having a smoke and looking like he just woke up.  And this was just before we were scheduled to shoot the portraits in location.  Hell yeah I thought, pulled out the camera and started the job. Nice!

More to come but its now saturday and I’m the middle of postprocessing thus Im taking a break and leaving the computer for a picnic.

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.

Three days ago Janne asked why I haven’t posted anything new. I laughed because my blow was silent for couple of  days at that point. Three or days, what would happen if I stopped for two weeks?

To be honest I’d love to have something new to post every week but its not possible.  Mostly because I do not shoot enough but also because I try to control the blog a bit. The aim is that anyone new who visits the blog gets a clear view what I am about as a photographer.

Wonder why I did not show this picture from the Porvoo shootfest on the first round.  Of course the lighting on this  is something that I’ve done numerous time before. I’ve done it with all my lenses but the flare is simply the best with the cheap 50mm 1.8. When I started setting up for this Janne began to fuss around. It hit me in the head a bit that I do this too often but then again I don’t care. It looks good.,

I’ve spend plenty of time on the water with my bucket so I haven’t shot anything in a while but thigs start to heat up as the wedding gigs began to unfold. Some modeling shoots and shootfests are on the calendar also, but nothing solid yet.