Little Pre-Christmas Party with Public Relations People in Tampere
My colleague Sami took this pic of us: we all got the experience how fun being in the pic can be! And forgot to had all those thoughts: "I always look awful in the pics..." (Is this Finnish thing or a global thing...???)
It wasn't very snowy weather last Tuesday when we had our Pre-Christmas Party. Even though a large group of Public Relation People from different organizations gathered together to have traditional Christmas treats and meet each other.
Luckily bad weather didn't bother us and the atmosphere was cozy and it felt little bit like Christmas –maybe because of treats and candles. The coziness was created by the people. Everyone made up a positive adjective which described them and it started with the same letter than their first names. I think "C" was the most difficult letter, but the owner of the C-first name managed to create one! (In Finnish language there isn't many adjectives beginning with "C"...) Some of the people thought even two or three adjectives! I hope they all remembered their adjectives all day or even longer.
I was organized the event with my colleague Sami Reivinen who owns a studio in Tampere. We cooperate a lot all the time, so it was natural to organize this event together. All went well, even we had problems with the technics at the beginning. How sure you can be –we had tested everything during one hour before our guests arrived and still something went wrong... luckily we're both so calm...
Our theme was something like "good picture conveys your message better". Quite natural and relevant topic for both of us and I assume that to the Public Relations People too. We watched pics together, we talked about them and especially we talked about being in the pic.
So it was all about good pics and also about the moments they are taken. Two hours is a short time, but still a good time to talk about the topic you love. I also liked to meet all the new people I haven't met before.
I had a great feeling about the event and especially about the people. I hoping to face more of this kind of events!
We had cozy and bright feeling at the Studio KLIK...
Sami is talking about photos and shooting from professional photographer's view. Listeners were especially interested all the tips of guiding your models and separating a good picture from the bad one. Sami was really behalf of happy and positive faces –and we got the experience of this positivity during our group-picture shooting session!
I'm talking about meaning of education (naturally...) as a part of everyone's work. I think it's important that Public Relations People know more about shooting and they understand better about the quality of photos. I'm sure it will increase motivation and satisfaction in everyone's work. It also will help when cooperating with professional photographers.
Thank you for all participants! Thank you Sami for the cooperation!
Get inspired by the FEP Congress in Lyon!
Get inspired by the FEP Congress in Lyon was the theme of the workshop which was held in September. The workshop was for the members of the Association of Finnish Professional Photographers. I participated the congress last February as "a Finnish delegation". I promised to be a messenger after the congress and deliver all the news from there. As we all know summer is busy time for portrait photographers, so finally at September we had a possibility to organize workshop. Never mind though -ideas, inspirations and excitement were still perfectly in my mind.
Congress in Lyon were organized Federation of European Photographers (FEP) and Groupement National de la Photographie Professionelle (GNPP). Program at the congress was great and atmosphere cozy, hospitable and friendly. It was great to see friends once again! Check my thoughts about congress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHc6g6q21Bc
In the workshop I shared my feelings and knowledge about the congress, showed some pictures from those photographers who were on stage there and told the stories behind the pictures, photographers' feelings about photography etc. I was personally really impressed about all those presentations I was able to listen in Lyon: Paolo Roversi, Uwe Ommer, Martin Parr, Umberto Stefanelli, Pierre Delaunay, Bert Stefani, Eddie Tapp, Peter Mathis...
After my presentation we shoot together. Including get inspired -theme we added HAPPINESS and JOY to our themes for that workshop :)
At the beginning of the workshop my presentation.
Working together with JOY!
In the picture: Sari Muhonen, Mika Hiltunen and Riitta Kuisma.
Here are few results. Our model was Johanna Uusitalo from Foto-Friitala:
Thank you for all participants: Johanna, Marja, Sari, Sami, Irina, Paula, Riitta, Tuula, Mika from Tampere and Mika from Uusikaupunki. Thank you Laura for all the organization.
World of Portraits -exhibition in Tampere
World of Portraits -exhibition was organized in Tampere during the summer 2011 by Nina Tiitto. Exhibition consisted pictures of 27 portrait photographer around Finland.
I participated in exhibition with three pictures which were part of the calendar I shoot last year for Women's Ice Hockey Team called JYP.
Opening ceremony was held in very hot summer day. In a picture below I'm in the ceremony sweating. Picture was taken by Jarmo Glader -I even didn't have my own camera. More pictures about opening.
Story of a certain image - Italian State of Mind
"They call me Kari the Scooter." In this way I got to know a person who's passion is scooters. We met in a famous cafe in Tampere which is called Cafe Runo. It's a place where strangers begin to talk to each other and make friends. "I collect all the things which are somehow connected to scooters. If you ever find something interesting, don't hesitate to grab it with you and bring it to Runo's staff. They know to who to deliver them."
Kari the Scooter came to my mind during my vacation in North Italy 2007. I took this image and it has stayed in my external hard drive since. Begin of June 2011 I got invited to Kari the Scooter's birthday party which was of course in Cafe Runo. This certain image came to my mind, and luckily I hadn't destroyed it. Name of the image came to my mind during retouching...
There's a story behind this certain image. I'm attracted to idea that the image ended up to it's recipient after years it was taken.
Working outside the studio, workshop in May
I did the workshop in Central Ostrobothnia Culture Institute last May. Our subject was to work outside the studio using available light etc. We had a great weather the whole weekend, so we were able to do a lot of different kind of lighting demonstrations. Even though it was quite windy, it was easy to do demonstrations because of so many assistants: our group was more than 20 people. Probably everyone got the practical experience of carrying lighting equipment around. Including all carrying and studying people had time to shoot pics about demos, and you can see the results below the text.
We started our workshop with theory about the basics of working with available light and lighting outside the studio and then we went outside to do demos. You never know about Finnish spring weather, so we all had a lot of extra clothes for the day: it can be so cold that you need your winter clothes or opposite: even T-shirt is too much. This weekend we had both. Once again.
After demonstrations using direct sunlight, working in a shade and shadowless circumstances we had a break and we got ready for the evening. Previous night I had been observing the sky and how late it gets before it's right time for the blue moment.
Ilkka Kyllönen and Jukka Vähälummukka made layout for the pic where Matti's car was the main props. We gather to the spot around 22pm, made lighting plan together and share tasks for everyone. Ilkka and Jukka had chosen challenging spot to shoot, so everyone really had tasks to do!
We were at the shooting spot very early before the right moment. We had enough time to do the set up, go through it and review the main points. It was interesting spot for teaching too: we were next to the rapids and a main railway track. And naturally some of our equipment was left behind at the studio (luckily it wasn't too far away). Still we worked as a team for our pic and we were ready well in advance. Even mosquitos didn't disturb us much..
Anyone wasn't tired and everyone did their job perfectly! We had a great evening learning and working together. I think we learned a lot. Jukka was so enthusiastic that he finished our pic during the same night, so we were able to see final result next morning.
Great workshop, great people and enough lights.
Whole day outside the studio... documentary pics by Matti Knuutila.
During the day demos using direct sunlight, shade etc.. Luckily it wasn't raining.
Between lighting demos we also learned how to shoot architecture by just choosing the right moment.
We used different kind of lighting equipment all day. And we had enough people to carry them!
The whole team working for the blue moment pic.
Jukka had smoke machine in his trunk...