Mustavuori caves / Mustavuoren luolat

  One day when in a local book store I noticed a book, or actually a book cover, which intrigued me quite a bit. In the image a person was standing in a place which reminded me of something similar like "Tomb raider" or some other action / adventure game scene. Could this place really be in Finland?! I opened the book and tried to find the pages where the place was mentioned, but because I was in a bit of a hurry I was left clueless , I didn't have time to find it! Good for me, there's always uncle Google, and with a few search words I came to the conclusion that the place has to be the WW 1 bunkers just on the east side of Helsinki. Of course I had to go there! So on Friday afternoon I jumped in my car and headed for this interesting spot. I parked my car on a nearby parking place, and because I didn't have any Idea where to start my search I once again checked the coordinates from the world wide web. Pretty easy I thought, the place was marked pretty well in the map, so I just started my walk which wasn't too long. Some 10 minutes later I had found a cave. The cave actually was a tunnel which had been pierced through rock. Made a few images and walked through the cave to the other side. Even if it was pretty cool place, it wasn't the place I was looking for. "Never mind", I thought, "The spot I'm after can't be very faraway!". So I started my search. Allover in the forest there were trenches dug in the rock, remains from the time when Russians tried to fortify Helsinki during the WW 1. I walked here, and then I walked there, and I just couldn't find the place I had seen on the book cover. Then finally when I already thought I'm in the wrong place I stumbled across this fairly deep pit, with two man made caves in the stone wall, and there it was! The place I had been searching. And how was it down there? Here's some images...

  Aina välillä törmää uusiin tutkittaviin paikkoihin ihan sattumalta. Kirjakaupan hyllyssä pisti silmään kirjan kansikuva joka minusta näytti enemmän "Tomb raider"-pelin lavasteilta kuin joltain Suomesta löytyvältä paikalta. Vaikka äkkiä yritin kirjan sivuilta löytää paikkaa, niin kiire kun oli jäi koordinaatit saamatta. No, onneksi on ATKn ihmeellinen maailma. Ei tarvinnut kauaa hakea niin olin jo melko varma että paikan on pakko olla Mustavuori ja sen linnoitukset Helsingin itäpuolella. Uus tuttavuus meitsille, joten ei muuta kuin sinne. Alue löytyi melko kivuttomasti, ja eka luola tuli nopeasti koluttua läpi ja jopa pari kuvaakin otin. Mutta se kirjan kannessa ollut paikka? Ei muuta kuin kiertelemään. Siellä täällä kuljeksittuani ja kiveen hakattuja vallihautoja kierrettyäni alkoi jo olla fiilis että oon väärässä mestassa, se kansikuvapaikka on jossain ihan muualla! Sitten melkein puolivahingossa jalkojen alla avautui se kuvassa ollut syvänne ja sen pohjalla olleet kaksi isohkoa luolaa. Sinne ja äkkiä kameran kanssa. Harvoin on pohjalla oleminen tuntunut niin mukavalta. Mielikuvituksellinen paikka ja  toisella kertaa palaan sinne mallin kanssa. Tässä muutama maisema kuva...

   

Abandoned leather factory / Hylätty nahkatehdas

  Trespassing old abandoned places... Just how cool is that! A week ago I where on my way to Ostrobotnia and the town of Kokkola. Just a couple of days before the trip I made a Google search for old abandoned buildings and places in the area just to see if there would be something to explore nearby. Bingo! In a not too faraway village there seemed to be this abandoned leather factory. With the help of the old trusty Google Earth it was pretty easy to find the exact coordinates for the building. I was waiting for a mostly empty building, but it was a nice surprise to notice that there were quite much of the old equipment left on its place, so exploring the factory was very exciting. Here's some images..


  Aina on niin mukavaa löytää ja tutkia hylättyjä rakennuksia ja fiilistellä ränsistyneitä mestoja. Oli pieni hetki vierähtänyt siitä kun viimeeksi oli päässyt mitään hylkyä pällistelemään, joten kun oli tiedossa että ollaan lähdössä Pohojanmaalle ja Kokkolaan, niin pakkohan se oli pistää pieni haku "Kuukkeliin" ja tarkistaa mitä ympäristöstä löytyy. Montaa klikkausta ei tarvinnut vaivautua tekemään kun löytyi hylätty nahkatehdas ihan Kokkolan liepeiltä. Google earth-palvelun avulla koordinaatit pystyi paikantamaan aika helpolla ja heti kun oli mahdollista, niin sinne. Monestihan hylätyt tehtaat ja talot on melko tyhjiä. Firmat ja omistajat ovat vieneet kamansa pois tai sitten joku mukava kanssaihminen on ne sieltä sosialisoinut ja jäljelle jää vain tilaa ja pintoja joita kaiken maailman vandaalit sitten käyvät yksinkertaisuudessan koristelemassa spraymaalilla ja oman mielikuvituksensa tuotoksilla. Ja jos jotain irtaimistoa on paikalle jäänyt niin ne on pitänyt pirstoa, polttaa tai vähintäänkin kaataa. Tämä mesta oli iloinen yllätys. Paljon ihan suhteellisen ehjää kalustoa ja ihan makeita tiloja. Toki töhryjäkin löytyi mutta niillehän nyt ei voi mitään. Joten seuraavaksi kuvia kivasta pienestä urbexkohteesta Pohjanmaalla...

  

My winter and spring / Mun talvi ja kevät

   It's been a while from last time I wrote on this blog, and now it's time to start again! There's quite a few reasons why I haven't been around. One of them has been lack of time. Since moving back to Finland from Croatia it's been pretty hectic and If there's been hard to find time for shooting, it's been even harder to schedule some time for writing. But I'll try to correct that now! What I'll also do is, I'll unite my second blog, which is in Finnish, to this blog. The reason is that then I most probably will update both of my blogs same time and I'll save lots of time (Wish!).
   While my shooting has been more random than ever, I've done some cool gigs during the winter and spring! Visited a couple urbex-sites, and enjoyed the atmosphere in them. Had fun on a family photo shoot, and then I also got the possibility to get my feet wet in interior photography (Thx, Helsinki Interiors!). In the end of the text following in suomenkieli, some images... (As always!)


  Tekstiä ja kuvia on tullut suollettua viime aikoina kohtalaisen vähän, kun on ollut muuttoa ja muuta elämää suurempaa! Nyt kuitenkin olis aika korjata tilanne ja näin puolen vuoden jälkeen aloittaa kirjoittaminen uudestaan. Kun nyt sais sen yhden kirjoituksen aikaiseksi viikossa tai edes kahdessa (Viikko oilis kiva), niin sehän olis erävoitto. Bulgaria tuli ja meni, samoin Kroatia! Nyt ollaan Suomen kamaralla ihan kunnolla ja näin niin kuin suurkaupungin (Kait Hesa-Espoo_Vantaa sellaisia ovat) maisemiin kunnolla asettuneena kiire tuntuu olevan kova ja valitettavasti se on tuntunut kuvauksissa. Koetan kuitenkin korjata tilanteen ja lisätä sekä kuvaamista ja myöskin kirjoittelua. Sen verran kuitenkin on tullut kameran takana oltua että muutama urbex-keikaus on seikkailtu, yksi superhauska perhekuvaus ja sitten viimeisenä mutta ei vähäisimpänä Helsinki Interiors salli meitsin päästä mukaan remmiin kuvailemaan tiloja! Joten ei tässä ihan laakereilla olla levätty. Blogista sen verran että ajattelin yhdistää tän lontoon murteisen The wilder side of life ja suomen kielisen Seikkailuja valon valtakunnassa blogit. Eli yksi blogi, kaksi kieltä ja näin säästyy aikaa (Hope)! Loppuun sitten kuvakavalkaadi kevättalven kuvailuista...

While packing my belongings

  Even if I kind of love to get out there and make a few dramatic portraits in let's say for example some old abandoned buildings, there still is something in that lazy me who enjoys staying at home. If there is a good reason to shoot inside the four walls, why not! Technically I wouldn't say that my home is a very dramatic backdrop for any image. Just plain white walls and a few furniture. But as we are at the moment in the process of moving, I thought I'd execute one idea I've had already for quite awhile. Now when moving your stuff from place A to place B, it means that there's a bunch of boxes around, at least that's how the situation is here, and that means you could make a backdrop from those already filled or to be filled boxes, and that's precisely what I did. Piled the boxes, placed a small carpet on the floor, added some props to show what's our next destination, and then finally had my model, a.k.a. my wife to sit down on the floor. Nothing very ingenious, but a lot of fun and a good break between packing. To light my scene I used one speedlight with minimal power setup shot through an umbrella, and this from up and camera left. The main light was an orange geled speedlight, softbox and a grid combination, from camera right and a low angle. Here's the resulting image...

    

Heading for a head shoot? Why you should!

  When did you have your head shot last time? If the answer is ”Recently!”, that’s good. But as it is, most people don’t even think of finding a professional photographer to make a head shot of them. So why consider to do it? There’s quite a few situations when you need an image of your face. The most obvious nowadays is probably a profile picture for social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Then there is the possibility that you need to write a CV,  and it might be a good thing to ad a picture of yourself to your resume. And then your own website, ID-cards, just to mention a couple more places were we might have to place a picture of our beautiful face. Some might argue that they don’t need a payed photographer to make a picture for them, they do have plenty of good images of them self on their computer or in their mobile phone. Just pick up a picture you like, post it like that or crop it if necessary and there you are. So what could there be possibly that a hired photographer can give you more? A good experience! Working with a professional can be and should be a nice empowering experience, which can be fun and you will have good memories. Good images! A pro knows which lens to choose, that means good sharp images, with no distortion in your face. He knows how to use light to flatter your facial features, bringing the best out of you. He chooses the background with care, no distractions or poles sticking out from the head to take the attention from the your beautiful or handsome face. Education! From a photographer you can learn how to pose for photos, so you will have an advantage of your photo shoot even next time when someone makes images of you. So in the end you will benefit quite much of hiring a photographer to shoot your head. And if you are a pro then it's even more important that a pro makes your images, for professional appearance. Here's a couple samples how a head shot could look like...

A different kind of a family portrait

    For each their own style, right? But to find the style and the idea can be a bit hard sometimes. And then the time could be a factor you need to consider as well. It’s completely different when you do a photo shoot and you agreed for one or two hours with the client, but how about when you know that you need to work fast and you won’t have the luxury of time? That’s when it’s good to have your goal and idea in your mind ready Before you begin the shoot. For this image I had a pretty straight forward ready to go idea in my mind. One speedlight with a softbox and a grid to camera right. One test shot to see if the power is what it needs to be. Brought my models one at a time to the scene, placed them on the right spot, tried to get them relax, focused and fired. This time it worked like a charm, even the cat part which I thought would be hard if not even impossible. Two images of everyone, then a bit of a postprocessing for the chosen images and there it was, the final image. The photo shoot didn’t probably last more than 5 minutes, and that’s mostly because I had a plan and my models did an excellent job. The post processing part was a different story due to some technical problems, but in the end the image was there, ready to be shared. So, from where did the inspiration come from? If you are familiar with the pop culture you most likely got it already. You can see the original here.

Dvigrad

  One of those places you read about, you see a few pics and you want to go there by your self... and that's what I did! Dvigrad is an abandoned medieval castle in central Istria. The last residents left the place somewhere about 1700 and ever since the place has been falling apart. Plague, malaria, siege just to mention a few things this place went through before it was left by its inhabitants. Before driving to the site I was pretty sure it will be a big disappointment, just as it has been a few times before when I've been anticipating to see a new place, but not this time. I really could sense the atmosphere and it was a perfect spot for the imagination to fly. It though would have been cool to have a model with me, maybe dressed in a medieval dress, but maybe next time.