ilona & puutarha

One of my favourite images that I have in my stock collection is this :). This time it was published in ilona & puutarha (Iltalehti). Hmm I think I miss summer...please come soon. It's still been snowing in Helsinki can you believe...

Jyri my husband is still in the Sahara desert running the Marathon des Sables. They had the longest leg yesterday (about 81km) and in those conditions it took Jyri about 17 hours to complete (if I calculated correctly :) ). I woke up at about 3.30am to watch him come to the finish line - there's a webcam on so it's pretty cool to see them come - and this time time appear from complete darkness with their headlights on. He looked ok and happy so good! I think today he can rest (since some competitors are only arriving today...) and then the final day is only 15km to finish off the whole thing.

On Friday there's another Silo Brainstorm, this time in Tampere - this time without Jyri and without me. But here's a few photos of the boys doing hard thinking :) https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.280356302045478.67541.173515059396270&type=1

Pixta.jp

Happy Easter to everyone! I will have a massive 4 day break and will be back after then :). During that time I will be following Jyri's Sahara run here http://www.darbaroud.com/index.php?lang=en and eat lots of Easter food.

Starting from today my whole stock photo library will also be available in Japan! A long process this as well, first me organising my files and sending them to Pixta, and then they had a huge job keywording every photo again in Japanese! But now they are there and looking good :).

Spring sessions - families and children

Spring is coming (at least it should be, doesn't really look like it when I look outside though...). I've been working with my portfolio, new site and everything else all winter and now it feels like I've almost done the hard work :). Currently I have been doing also commercial shoots but I love to do child and family sessions and always want to offer them to my clients. My new price list is coming out in the beginning of June so during April and May you can still book all the child and family sessions with my current prices!

Send me an email or give me a ring :)

Confirmation portraits

Almost spring, but we still have lots of snow...which we are getting even more as I speak :). It's been a nice and relaxing day today - client meeting in the morning in Mäkelänrinne, so after that I just had to have a swim (with my sister). Then lunch and oops it's already 2pm.

Also, today my husband flew to Paris where he'll stay for two days and then he is off to the Sahara desert to do the Marathon des Sables for the next seven days. I would so love to be there too and photograph but not this time.

These images are from a recent confirmation portrait session I had - beautiful winter light and the wet slush on the ground we didn't care about :).

Portfolio

Portfolio...a physical portfolio... I never knew how big of a task it would be to put one together. It's so much more than just quickly selecting a number of your photos that you sort of like. It's also defining yourself as a photographer - what you are, how you see yourself. If you had 30 chances by individual photos to show what you are like as a photographer so that the other side would also get the same idea, which ones would you choose? People who know me also know how much I've worked with this. Also because I choose something and after a few days I feel like I should have picked something else. And photos that I like aren't necessarily the ones I should have in my portfolio.

I have had so much valuable help from Pedro Reis, my friend, designer and a kind of mentor who's trying to get things through my sometimes thick head. So thank you for everything! I'm also thanking Merja Yeung who helped me with this a lot. And all my clients and projects that I've been involved doing my work have been amazing.

Now that I have made my final picks and put everything together I still need to print it :). So it is coming...

Spring baby - newborn shoot

Newborns - so special little ones! I usually arrive to a newborn shoot with nothing else than myself and the camera. I do have my flash but I only take it out if it really is too dark. I don't carry around lots of props for the little ones - I think that I will get to know them when I arrive and will use the special items that parents have already prepared for them.

On this day I had no hurry anywhere so lots of time to chat with mum and dad and settle the baby to sleep. A bright day so all done with natural light with my 50mm f1.4 and (my new favourite with newborns) 100mm f2.8 macro.

Gorgeous baby girl. My love to her and her beautiful parents :).

Kohta 18 - movie opening day today!!

The opening night for the movie 'Kohta 18' is tonight! I saw the movie already on Wednesday when they had the premiere night, and I think I didn't even blink during the movie, it was so good. And beautifully shot. I'm so proud of Maarit, can't even imagine how much work goes into a project like this!

Here are some stills and behind-the-scenes shots from along the way! Thank you Maarit for letting me to be a part of all this :).


And here you can watch the first 10 minutes of the movie: http://ylex.yle.fi/ylex-areena/play/1330076836333