I’m having a struggle whether or not to buy this amazing old school 35mm lens. I’m having a test-go with it right now and shot these two with it.. I’m starting to think ‘yes, i need this piece of work.’

If you don’t think I should, stand up now or silence forever. But do it fast, I have to decide before Jarkko get’s home from work!

Posted by Konsta

Posted by Konsta

Spot a fellow journalist! Some photos from the “Pelastakaa Reijo” demonstration from last wednesday. Konsta and Jarkko were able to attend and here are some shots. The portrait gallery was made by Konsta. The event itself went well so big thanks goes to the people who took the time to make it happen. We will not go into details of what the demonstration was all about because anyone interested in journalism should be very well informed! And as always there is some mischief going on in the photos but it does not change the fact that we feel strongly for this one. The cause is very much justified. And no one really asked us but we’ll say it anyway: signing contracts with such terms is a definite no-go. This goes for all of us at Partakuva.

Some additional information can be found at http://www.pelastakaareijo.fi/

Posted by Konsta

I didn’t think much of Helsinki before. With a stubborn reservation I kept an emotional distance between myself and the city. I got lost there everytime, as I never really bothered to adopt the map.

But as time has passed it has been harder for me to ignore how unique Helsinki actually is. Nowhere else in Finland there’s such a variation of atmospheres among the city districts, like towns within a town. I wouldn’t want to live there – not for now at least – but I find myself quite excited everytime I have some business there.

I had a couple of assignments in Helsinki on monday and a couple of hours in between them, so I just enjoyed the crowd and the sunlight reflecting from windows. The photos actually looked better in colors, but I wanna grasp the black&white, really learn it. Some people do it with such amazing style.

By the way, there’s a Reijo-demonstration in Helsinki today, so I’m heading there again today as soon as I hit the “publish” on this post. See you there!

Posted by Konsta

I’m a friend of brash aggravation, so here’s finland, folks.

After we called the police since no one else seemed to care, he became alert, rised up, shouted “Fuck!” and tried to strike me with his bottle of booze.

But then he fell again.

And the bottle was plastic anyway.

Posted by Konsta

Don’t I just love these assignments: “Konsta, there’s this dance spectacle going on in Kuopio Musiikkikeskus. Just stay there, shoot whatever you want. You’ll get a page.”

I feel I’m at my best when I get to just shoot what I want. Then again who isn’t?

Posted by Konsta

If there’s one thing I feel I’ve put a lot of effort this summer and also feel I’ve made some progress with it’s shooting portraits. I’ve put more emphasis on really catching something essential from the person and less on the techincal gimmicks. Altough I’m not always 100 percent sure the essence I feel I’ve captured is really the essence of that particular person and not what I imagine or want or have decided forehand.

Be as it may, here’s some portraits:

1. Ari Liukko, the fiddler of Kuopio City Orchestra.

2. Juuso Laitinen, young promising tennis player.

3. Thomas Barrineau, Decathlonist who has set his mind to compete in the olympics one day.

4. Oili Marski, an artist.

5. Jukka Tuovinen, a volley ball coach and golf enthusiastic.

6. Mirel Wagner, Singer-songwriter.

Posted by Konsta

I had my four days of summer holiday and we spent it in Copenhagen. During those 3,5 days we actually managed be in the city I was distracted from photography by a certain *cough* video project. In addition to many single shots I was mildly pleased with but which didn’t have much to do with each other, these were the only photos that formed some kind of coherent series. If someone missed that link between them I’m more than happy to underline it: despite the liveliness of Copenhagen there’s no people in these photos.

That’s very un-characteristical for me since I usually wait for people to arrange something photographically interesting and then I just press the button. But this time there’s no-one.

And photos without people are still life, right?

And still life is of course immediately profound art.

Which makes me a you-know-what.

Feel free to differ.

Posted by Konsta

We don’t do this often, so I’ll do it now:

Just an arbitrary cavalcade of people I’ve encountered and photographed over last four weeks or so. I’m not going to explain the photos, if they don’t explain themselves in the depth necessary in such a post, their just plain bad photos. I’m just gonna say, that I know I’ve seen something similar with the sixth photo somewhere. Sorry about that.

Posted by Konsta

This is a small reportage that I kinda fell in love with. Or maybe I fell for Vieno and Pentti, wife and husband and the protagonists of the story. With their lighthearted spirit, youthful energy and the unconditional warmth combined with that strange friendly sly they were like walking promises of an old-time shananagan or another.

Despite the traditional costumes and setting, I myself don’t feel that this is a story about old days and vanishing culture. For me it’s more about Finnish gender and identity.

None of the pictures above were ever be published.

We went to Riuttala house museum for completely different subject, to make a quick and simple instructions on how to make a birch whisk for sauna. Vieno and Pentti were there to show us how. However I was quite rapidly distracted from our objective as these amazing things just started to happen around me. Suddenly there were wooden legs and lambs and gymnastics on the brand new shingle roof. I was overwhelmed with how spontaneous and one-hundred-percent-real every action and expression were.

Posted by Konsta