We used to have a band. Me, these two guys pictured here and two others, we used to have a band. I miss that quite much, having a band and going to practice and smacking tunes out of my bass. Back in the days in Rovaniemi we used to be an item. A somewhat lousy item with crappy music and crappy attitude but 100%  good time, all the time. Now the three of us live here in Tampere and we go skating quite often together. I now feel similar anxiety towards skateboarding as I used to feel towards the band. I only wish I saw the two other dudes that are not pictured here more often, but they don’t skate. Nor do they live here.

Horses from Jarkko on Vimeo.

Last saturday I got an assignment to make some shots of horse racing. I was touched by those steaming beasts in eerie cold darkness so I made this video as a by-product. I wanted to the final piece to be in HD but somehow I managed to screw up the settings in edit so it isn’t. Soundwise originally I was editing this piece to go along with Portishead’s “Machine Gun” but then thought that what the heck, I’ll do my own soundtrack. Headphones are recommended.

Last year I didn’t win anything and I plan to put on a similar performance this year. However, this attitude has it’s perks: I didn’t make the most obvious choices with my pictures, but decided to push my limits a little. It’s easier to take risks when you don’t think it really matters anyhow. Therefore I’m actually quite happy about how my set turned out. It looks like.. me?

Elina helped me with this final set, big thanks to her. Also thank you Jarkko and Ossi Ahola, with whom we had a great brainstorm/photo-eyeing-session few weeks back. Anyway, here they are:

I don’t really like blue color, but the december evenings in Oulu are so blue they just ask to be photographed. I’ve been walking around quite a lot with a camera while living here, and now that I’m moving south again, I thought it would be nice to take some evening shots just less than one kilometer away from my home. Like a diary in the case I never come back again.

Couple of months ago I got the most exciting opportunity to hop on a trawling ship as an assignment for Suomen Luonto -magazine (thanks Samuli and Tatu for passing this assignment on). It was maybe the single most interesting assignment I’ve been on as a freelancer (and maybe ever). Most of the freelance-jobs I get are portraits. Nothing wrong with them, really, but this time around I actually felt I was part of some bigger cause, actually putting an effort towards greater goal.

You see, lake Puula is a bright-watered lake with a great vendace fish stock. However, the peat production at the bogs surrounding the area has over the years ruined the nearby lakes and now threats to blur Puula as well. It would be the end of vendace fish, since clean bright water is essential for it to survive.