Some cross-country skiing before the winter is over. Assigment for sports photography workshop at Uni. And as you can see I didn’t manage to shoot any of the actual action. Instead I was interested in everything else. Well, that happens if you don’t concentrate.
Today I found myself at Kalevankangas cemetary. Even though I’ve been living in Tampere since 2002, today was the first time I visited the place. There is a small hill where random wanderer is suprised to be granted with a pretty nice view over the rooftops of Nekala. For half an hour there was an older man just standing, not budging an inch. Occasionally he lifted his binoculars, but other than that he did nothing. After taking few shots I went up to the top of the hill and asked what he was doing. He replied that he was up to nothing special, looking at birds but mainly just standing there. I liked him instantly.
Jarkko
—-
More election stuff. Yes, it makes you look at it, but is all visibility always a good thing?
Tatu
—
Out of today’s and yesterday’s photos I’ve established a theory: Elderly people’s vast and impeccable life-experience allows them to position themselves on perfect lighting whenever they know they’re being photographed… This gentleman however seems slightly undedicated how to react on this sudden spotlight.
Konsta
The remains of promotional material. Center Party’s marketplace meeting at Oulu.
Tatu
We were trying to get rid of the drastic hangover (thanks for that, J&V) the usual way. From the warmth of the bar I witnessed this lady slowly but determinedly making her way through the snow and water and whatever the sky was throwing at her. There was something surreal, dignified, knowing about her posture and looks. She made me shiver.
Konsta
Somebody is celebrating the day when it all began.
Jarkko
Quick practise fix in studio. No reason, just trying to evolve. This frame just caugh my eye and here it is, but I doubt that it will ever end anywhere besides our blog. The neck is poorly lit, but I think the face is pretty ok.
I’ve never identified myself being comfortable working with studio lights, but lately I’ve found the stuff interesting. Beyond the basic picture, there is so much to learn in details. And that makes some pictures stand out. And sorry for the gigantic size but I shot only portraits.
Jarkko
—
And who am I? That’s one secret I’ll never tell. You know you love me.
XOXO, Gossip Girl
This time of the year sunsets are already almost like in summertime.
Tatu
Back to ice and shades of blue. I know this is not very photojournalistic, but somehow I’ve been very interested in shapes, landscapes and patterns lately. I’ll get back to people someday.
Tatu
I was on an assignment today at Hämeenkyrö, some 40 kilometers off Tampere. After the job I was driving back home, as suddenly this vast and empty field with untouched snow just opened up in the forrest besides the snow. I kept driving, kilometer, another, third maybe. Then suddenly I just had to push the brakes and drive back to photograph that minimalistic scenery.
Konsta
Mysterious lady playing with plates. Kind of stealing from Francesca Woodman. This image just sat into my lap while goofing around. It was taken with ancient Canon Powershot because I forgot my own camera at home while visiting Helsinki. As you can see, I’m going for the more minimalistic color scale because I’ve noticed that using less color takes less bytes. So that means we can have cheaper home site for Partakuva and spend the rest of our cash flow on other luxuries in life.
Jarkko
Wednesday was a busy one at least for Tatu and Jarkko. Tatu was setting up Vuoden Lehtikuvat satellite/shadow exhibition in Oulu, Jarkko was doing the same thing in Tampere. So, that is pretty much the excuse for posting a day late. And for our delight, Hese has taken up the challenge! Do check it out.
But here are our puny efforts.
HelloKittyKitty! This girl walked past me with a balloon size of herself. I shot a burst, but she got away.
Konsta
- – - -
Some matryoshka dolls. Nothing to say about this really. The light was kinda nice.
Tatu
- – - -
Just ran through the railway station. I know, not much in this one.
Jarkko
Today I was on an assignment and found myself sitting in a hovercraft. I’ve been in a moving vehicle before, but always either on a road, in the air or sailing on a liquid surface. Driving (or hovering) on an untouched snow and ice looked strange but very beautiful at the same time. I think I’ve had this dream before.
Tatu
—
We moved in last weekend and are currently living among a jungle of cardboard boxes, tape, plastic bags and things we didn’t know we owned or even existed. These two ladies were still waiting to find their place, urging to be looked at. But they deal with their current state of degradation with a very different manner, don’t they?
Konsta
Insert persons. Today I had an assigment and I did take loads of pictures. So one might think that there would be some pretty decent photos that are good enough for Partakuva. But problem is that I can’t publish those frames yet so I just put these pictures here showing my backgrounds where I shot those people. You can imagine the missing persons, just standing there with a hint of monalisa-ish smile.
Jarkko
This week we’ll be mostly taking photographs.
We dedicated to put up a new challenge, but since we’re still quite exhausted after the last one, we’ll take it easy this time. The challenge is to take and post one photo each day during this week. It doesn’t have to be a good one, just a photo one took that particular day. No winners, no losers, just a lot of photos. You may join us if you have a blog or flickr-account or whatever, just post the link here on the comment box, and we’ll be sure to mention it! And if you want, after wednesday you can take this as a our commentary for this week’s big news: Vuoden Lehtikuvat 2010 competition results.
I’ll start:
I’ve felt pretty good about taking photos latelty. I’ve been candid and worked with intuition, not caring much about rules or such. Within couple days dividing photos into pieces (or fractals if you may, sounds fancier) has been the thing for me so I dedicated to go on with it today. Here’s a portrait of Miika.
Konsta
—–
Busy day, I was running around doing this and that. Hussling and so on. Being lazy I didn’t have much time to really search anything special for this damned challenge. Luckily this pond of melting snow came along and that was it. I had few classic “leaping over water” shots, poorly imitating Henri C. but instead I chose this one because I just like the awkwardness.
Jarkko
—–
This nightmarish scene outside my living room window was already there more than a year ago, when I was just visiting the city and this apartment. Oh, I hope they don’t start with garden gnomes any time soon.
Tatu
—–
My audioslideshow project Kauas on pitkä matka was published today at Suomenkuvalehti.fi and will be available tomorrow on the magazine’s iPad version as well. The story is about these two girls who live far up there in Lapland and have to travel some 80 kilometers to school every day – and back. It also goes a little further by describing their relationship on their northern surroundings.
The project was and of course still is a very dear to me. It’s not the first longer project I’ve started working on, but it’s certainly the first one I’ve managed to see through to the end properly. The audioslideshow is part of my bachelor’s thesis at the university of Tampere, and I’m very pleased that something so advanced and ambitious is included in the curriculum. Audioslideshow as a medium is fascinating since the making process can turn out to be very very complex.. There’s so many things to consider: like rules of video and photoreportage thrown together and you can’t really tell where one ends and another begins.
However, the final product is pretty simple, straightforward and powerful. Rather than pushing photographers to take photos AND video, one should consider this as a pretty good alternative for the internet and all the other new gadgets. All the material for them is generated through normal workroutines. Tatu, who’s an enthusiastic new-generation-storyteller, and who posted the first audioslideshow here on Parta&Linssit, was of a lot of inspiration and help.
About making this project, it was a long and hard road full of learning and hours of driving through and out Lapland, but I enjoyed every bit of it. It was refreshing to know, that I didn’t have to take loads of awesome photos or fully convince the girls on the first time I’d meet them because I’d have time to get to know them and earn their trust. However, if my livelihood had been dependend on this project, it would have probably never happened. Who has the time or the resources to travel many times accross the country over long period of time with no certain promise that you’d ever earn a dime out of it?
That’s a shame, since many interesting stories are left untold.
Anyway, here it is, click the link and see it for yourself!
Is the light monumental or something?
