Lapland girl

A couple months ago I was practising studio-photography at my friends small studio. My girlfriend was modeling me and we decided to go with lapland girl theme. She got this nice furry hat (I don´t know is that was a real fur or not) that she has gotten from her parents when she was younger. I took a series of shots and here are some the pictures: I used 2 Elinchrome studioflashes. One camera right and the other camera left very near camera. I am quite happy to this shot, although there is not much contrast in light. Here is the other one with more shadows on her face.

Sisu - Finnish strong tasting candy celebrates it's 80 years anniversary

Famous (for Finns at least) Finnish strong tasting candy - Sisu, celebrates it's 80 years anniversary this year. I am a big fan of Sisu, so I was delighted to see on the other day, that Sisu has produced a Sysi Sisu branded candy to celebrate this 80th anniversary. Sisu, as a Finnish term means roughly translated (according to Wikipedia) as strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity. The equivalent in English is "to have guts". I wanted to give my share to the celebration, so I bought a packet of Sysi Sisu candy and photgraphed it in my Do-It-Yourself light-tent. Here is the result below.

Some photos from Oulu

Last week I was cycling around Oulu with my Canon IXUS 860 IS pocket camera with me. I took some photos from Market Square and Ainola-Park. People enjoying sunset at Market Square. On the right there is Oulu City Theatre. People sitting along the pier and having some refreshments. Old sailing boat attached to pier near market square. Watery view from Ainola-park.

Canon - The Assignment

My submission to the competition Link to the competition. You can vote your favorite photographs and the judge will choose the finalists from the most popular entries

Child photography session

I think child photography is one of the toughest shooting sessions possible. I was aware of this when I was asked to shoot some 1-year photos of our friends child - Iida. I was very happy to say yes, because I wanted and needed more practical experience about shooting sessions with "real" clients. I don't know if child photography is the best place to start, but it was fun! I took this session as a learning experience and tried to give my 100% effort to get best pictures possible. I have to admit, that this was my first time to take some photos that somebody has asked me to do, so it gave me also some positive pressure. I got my 2 Vivitar 285HV speedlights about 2-3 weeks ago, so I didn't had too much experience with them. I had with me only one working receiver to my Cactus 2Vs transmitter, so I had to work with only one flash. I would have liked to play with 2 speedlight, but sometimes you just have to work with the gear you have. Other stuff I had with me was one Manfrotto 001b Nano stand to hold the speedlight and attached to was also reflecting silvery umbrella. I had also with me large 5 in 1 reflector panel to fill the shadow areas. My girlfriend was with me there and she was assisting me, holding the reflector panel etc. The model's mom was also a great help to me to guiding and playing with Iida, and trying to get her attention. We took the photos inside the family house and because the weather was so great and sunny, we went also backyard to get some shots. There was bright sunlight out there, so we had to use diffusive panel in some shots to soften the sharp edged shadows. Iida was a great model through the whole shooting session, which lasted about 2-3 hours. She was so energetic, moving and running all the time, so sometimes it was a tough job for me to try get some decent shots. All in all it was a nice and fun experience and gave me more confidence to do also child photography. And the most important - the parents were very happy to the photos. More photos from this session you can look here

Euro MayDay 2008 demonstration in Helsinki

I was lucky ( as a photographer) to bump in to a demonstaration on my way to hotel after shooting some photos about capping the statue of Havis Amanda. Actually I didn't know then what was the demonstration about, but afterwards I found out that it was the Euro MayDay 2008 demonstration. Here are some video footage from the You Tube. I was lucky to get some pictures about the police force, who were waiting the demonstrators to come to Erottaja district, where they turned to Southern-Esplanade street. Here´s the photos.. Police vans bringing the police force to Erottaja district. Demonstrators in Mannerheim street. Police blocking the demonstrators way to Erottaja. Demonstrators neat swedish theatre Police troops ready The finnish Vappu girl approaching police Demonstrators at Mannerheim street. Demonstrators at Mannerheim street. Demonstrators heading to Southern-Esplanade street. More pictures fro the demonstrations you can find here

I promised you some pictures from Vappu celebration, so here we come. I was a couple of days in Helsinki and enjoyd the nice sunny weather and the carnival feeling of spring and Vappu. Here are some photos from Helsinki.. Police is patrolling in the Park Esplanade. The students occupying the stairs of the cathedral. The students occupying the stairs of the cathedral. Students walking in the Cathedral Square. People (and the Alien) in Market Square. People sitting on the stage in Park Esplanade. Vappu celebrations in Market Square The students occupying the stairs of the Cathedral The students occupying the stairs of the cathedral. Havis Amanda (now 100 years old) has been capped.. The Cappers The Cappers Faces in the crowd Happy swimmers. I you are interested, you can find more my Vappu pictures Here

On my way to Hellsinki

Right now I am sitting in a train on my way to Helsinki. I am soo tired, because I slept only 4 hours. It is always like that when I know I have to wake up too early. I have a 7 hour train trip ahead so I will have plenty of time to sleep. I can't wait to get to the streets of Helsinki and to start taking shots there..

Light-tent photography

Yestersay I was trying some product-photography in my DIY light-tent. I chose my Canon IXUS 860 IS to be a model for that, because it has nice silvery surface to get some reflections. I used Canon EOS 400 for shooting and shutter speed were around 1/125 to 1/200 most of the times. Aperture was 8 to 10. Strobist info: Product in a light-tent. Vivitar 285HV product right, 1/4 power. White cardboard product left to fill the shadows. Strobist info: Product in a light-tent. Vivitar 285HV product right, 1/4 power. White cardboard product left to fill the shadows. Strobist info: Product in a light-tent. Vivitar 285HV product right, 1/4 power. White cardboard product left to fill the shadows. Strobist info: Product in a light-tent. Vivitar 285HV above light-tent, a bit right side. 1/4 power.

Going to Helsinki for Vappu celebration

Tomorrow I will travel to Helsinki to celebrate Vappu (Originated from Walburgis-night)there. Before I join the celebration, I will go to the streets to take some Vappu-shots. I even try to get some shots from the Havis Amanda statue in Kauppatori getting student cap. I will post some of the photos later on..

Studio lightning practice - theme: women boxing

Last saturday I was practising studio photographing & lightning in Tornio, at länsi-Lapin Ammatti-insituutti. I managed to persuade my girlfriend to model me and I think she did great job. I was amazed the way she transformed to from one mood to the other. We created the theme around women boxing - or moreover women fitness boxing with a mean twist. Please be welcome to comment and give feedback to these. I used in these shots 1 to 3 Elinchrome 400w studio flashes, main and fill lights with shoot-through umbrella and hair light with snoot. I also used a bouncer to get some detail to possible shadow areas. In this shot I used (if I remember correctly) only one light on camera right and a bouncer model left. I have colored the eyes in Photoshop to get evil look in her eyes. In here I wanted the basic boxer pose. I would have wanted to use real, big boxer gloves, but we didn't have any available. I tried to get some mood to her face with the lights. One on model left and the other on model right, both with shoot through umrellas. Oh, and I think there was also a hair light with snoot behind the model, a little bit from left. In this one I wanted to create some kind of retro feeling, So I toned the picture, vigneted the edges a bit and added some noise. Happy boxer. Here I wanted her to change to red shirt, because with black shirt there was too dark shadow areas. I also asked her to wet her hair to get more realistic look. I think in here I had the main light on camera right and the second light on left, behind the model. Both with shoot through umbrellas. In here I just wanted to play with Photoshop and concentrated to her eyes.. In this I asked her to mess her make-up in order to create some mood and different look to her face. She also changed from gloves to these bright yellow-orange handwrapsand we some more color to the frame. Here I wanted to play with depth-of-field. I used my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens and got this nice blurred face, but still keeping the glove in sharp focus. During the lunch break we went across border to Haparanda, Sweden (only 10 minutes by car) and bought black mouthgard to get even more realistic look. We had really fun time to taking these photos and this is the result. Actually my girlfriend somehow really liked this shot after I had done some tricks to it in Photoshop. Very scary.. In this headshot I have the main light on model right and the fill light model left, more far away. i have retouched the eyes in Photoshop and played also with some tones and layers. This shot (face area) was too dark straight from the camera and the main light was too bright. I managed to correct it a little bit and toned this in Photoshop. I also retouched the eyes. Finally this one was actually one of the first shots I took, but somehow I like the light in this a lot. Even though the pose is very traditional. There was a main light model right and fill light model left. I also used a hairlight from behind the model, a little bit left side. I hope you enjoyed these and again, all the comments and critique are welcome!

Yesterday I was doing some studio photographing in Tornio. I will post some photos from the session shortly... It was a long day, so today I slept quite late and in the afternoon I went for a long walk with my girlfriend. Weather was very warm and there was a lot of people having a sunday walks, or just enjoying the sun. I had with me my Ixus 860 IS and I took again some pictures along the route. Here is some old style sailing boat (or ship) and behind it you can see the Oulu City Theatre, which actually looks like a nuclear plant. We walked through Hietasaari to the beach, and soon the clouds were forming to the sky. There was an interesting, icy view to the sea, and I saw this abandoned wooden bench there. Somebody had abandoned this rugged old sofa to the woods. In the horizon is the city center of Oulu. There was no breeze at all, so the water was like gigantic mirror reflecting nicely the dark clouds in the sky. Some one had already started the sailing season very early

Smoky view from Heinäpää hill

I was jogging again this morning, and I went up to the small hill, which is behind Heinäpää football fields. From there is a nice view against Heinäpää district, but you can also see from there the Stora Enso paper mill. The fumes that the paper mill produces smells sometimes quite bad, but I heard that the smell has been much more worse during the past times. Now they have some kind of filtering system attached to the pipes.

Sunny Helsinki

Greetings from sunny Helsinki. I attended a very interesting lecture about Russian business culture, but the weather was much more interesting, so after lunch I hit the streets with my pocket camera Canon IXUS 860 IS. It is very compact quality camera, and the best thing is that it often get unnoticed by people, so it is easier to take photos in the streets than with big bulky DSLR. I don´t have so much experience about street photography, so it is great tool for me to start. I decided to take good old fashioned tourist shots from some famous places and statues.

Main railway station

I don't know what the police were up to..

Finnish national theatre

The statue of Aleksis Kivi. Aleksis Kivi born Alexis Stenvall, was a author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, Seven Brothers (Finnish title: Seitsemän veljestä). Although Kivi was among the very earliest authors of prose and lyrics in Finnish language, he is still considered one of the greatest of them all

The Main Post-Office

The statue of Mannerheim. Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (June 4, 1867 - January 28, 1951) was the Commander-in-Chief of Finland's Defence Forces, Marshal of Finland, an astute politician and succesful military commander. He was Regent of Finland (1918–1919), and the sixth President of Finland (1944 - 1946)

The statue of Mannerheim.

From different perspective

Chilling near Kiasma, contemporary art museum.

Some posters

Mannerheim want's to come to the picture again.

Orange tram

Main railway station

Going back to Oulu by Pendolino train,

Trip to Helsinki

Today I am going for a couple of days trip to Helsinki, to visit my friend and to attend a lecture at Swedish School of Economy - Hanken. The weather should be better than it was my previous visit, in the beginning of april (See picture below, taken from Market Square).

Some painting with red laser pointer

I didn´t had anything special to do at friday night (weird, isn't it), so I decided to give a try to do some painting, using my laser pointer as a light source. Light painting, also known as light drawing is a photographic technique in which exposures are made at night or in a darkened room by moving a light source or by moving the camera. I did my experimentation in bathroom, because it was the only room where I could control the light 100 percently. I dragged my DIY light-tent to the bathroom, put my Buddha statue inside the tent, focused my camera manually and then I set my camera's self-timer ready. The camera's settings was on Manual mode, so I could control the aperture and shutter speed. I adjusted aperture to f/7.1 and shutter speed to 25-30 seconds, to get enough exposure. Camera was of course on a camera stand. I turned off the bathroom lights, triggered the camera, and started to sweep over my object with the red laser beam. It was quite fun and exciting to see what happened. Here are some snacks about what resulted. I have adjusted levels, some contrast and little vignetting using Photoshop. Have fun!

Some test shots with my new Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens

I bought a couple of weeks ago my first prime lens - Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II - and I can't wait to get some more experience shooting with it. I decided to buy this lens after reading these reviews from it, and because it was soo cheap. http://www.photocritic.org/2007/prime-lens/ http://www.tawbaware.com/canon_lens_test2.htm I have done some test shots, but have been quite busy writing my Master's thesis, so there hasn't been so much time for taking photos. But here above are some shots with my brand new plastic magic lens.

Morning jog

I try to get in better shape before summer, so I have started to walk or run regularly in the mornings before I eat my breakfast. Yesterday morning I went for a brisk walk and took my Canon IXUS 860 IS digital camera with me. The weather was sunny and clear, and the temperature was +2 degrees celcius. I took some photos during my 47 minute walk from Heinäpää to Oritkari and back. This one below is near Oritkari harbour. On the horizon you can see the pipes from the Stora Enso paper mill. I think this one is called Catkin in english, but I am not 100% sure.. This big building is Heinäpää sport hall, which opened its doors 12th November 2007. Behind it you can again the Stora Ensi paper mill. I converted the original image to B&W in Photoshop, Darkened a little bit the sky and vigneted the corners.