It is hard to keep a portfolio which is up to date. Each day you feel like adding something or taking something out. So, in order to keep it more or less fresh, I made a decision of moving it to my personal Photoshelter - page. Now as I am doing my daily work, there is some hope that the portfolio - or portfolios - get a fresh picture occasionally.
My "venue specific blogs" have been mainly personal websites from some major assignments I've done and do. Intended for friends and family, and people interested in this type of work or photography in general. The last one is from Berlin Athletics WC. And I will continue doing them whenever there is a major event I am part of.
The first ones were done in Finnish, but due to the feedback I got during Beijing Olympics I decided to write in English. Some published examples and audio remain - naturally - in Finnish.
The last worth mentioning maybe is called Princess Sophie Diaries. It is a very personal tale and a ongoing exercise in multimedia design. I hope to update it as soon as the present sailing season is over...
One of the most resent ones is this image on the MTV3 website, presenting Mikko Hirvonen's WRC 2009 racingcar.
Handcoded in flash, I feel this technique has enormous potential to offer, althought it can get pretty technical quite easily. Add RC-helicopter runs for videotransitions and we are talking serious expenses as well.
Maybe worth mentioning that the first one on the list has so far gotten over a million hits on my server. The Lahti Skigames -example is an interactive tour with several hotspots and has authentic audio of Janne Ahonen; the Levi -example has Kalle Palander as the narrator. It also shows the power - and need of - HDR-imaging in this type of imagery.
Ice hockey example is one originally done for my blog on the Ice Hockey World Championships 2008 in Canada, as is the Peggys's Cove one. Late Tove Jansson's summercottage is shot in HDR and it is a part "Princess Sophie Diaries" .
For a long time I was dissapointed because one couldn't view these on mobile devices, but this has changed: iPhone or iTouch -users can load a free app called PangeaVR. Browsing the library under "P" you find a sample - call it a teaser - of the above mentioned "Princess Sophie Diaries", with captions. I will try to geotag them soon, so one can also view them in GoogleMaps.
I am not great fan of straight video done for the web, as it quite often means that it is done without real ambition and looks cheap. In addition in Finland, also known as Nokia-country, there has been a long persisting, hard-headed ideology that video for the net should be done with a cellphone (preferably Nokia...), and the (sad) results have been plastered on the sites of our newspapers.
However, there is no way one can surpass the editing stage -not in visual storytelling or in straightforward writingprocess. Nieminen and Tiilikainen is a example of straight video which - in my opinion - should be about the baseline in videography and editing that can be done by a photographer on a combined stills/video assignment. Joona Puhakka might be interesting, as it combines so called end-triggered high-speed footage (overcranking to 100fps/s) shot with Sony HVR-1VE and UW-video shot with Ixus 850IS. Levi 2008 is your basic 45 sec insert done for TV, alongside with the still images (see Cases below).
I strongly feel that further combining video and still images and especially paying attention to good audio is definitely the form of visual expression in the future. For the most part, multimedia is still lacking the MULTI part... Continuing on that thought, you might want to check the Princess Sophie Diaries, a work in progress.
Saikkonen 8 is the first straight audioslideshow I ever did. Joona Puhakka - althought lacking in style and presentation - clearly shows how certaing form of storytelling might suit a particular subject exceptionally well (he explains in Finnish each one of his competition jumps). Tero Pitkämäki (javelin) and Jelena Isinbajeva (polevault) were done during Athletics WC in Osaka Japan 2007, using XLR-audio directly from the mixer and combining it with Apple loops in Soundtrack; Kiira Korpi is one of the slidesshows I did during the EC-skating 2009 in Helsinki.
"Eye on the Sky" is nothing spectacular visually, but very informative, showing the production of the live aerial footage in the Neste Oil Rally 2009 in Jyväskylä.
More examples in the CASES and the BLOGS.
For instance, the boxing example shows how two WFT2-transmitters were used in order to achieve maximal speed into the workflow.
The Levi-example is shown as an example of how there might be surprising new clients and markets emerging, in the times when the printed press in struggling to stay afloat (the client was a TV-network's website)
The figureskating is a classic example of what happens when all the careful planning goes down the drain and you quickly have to improvise - something...
Iltalehti example is a spread I did after Beijing Olympics for my client (a daily national newspaper). Nothing for professionals really, but I got lot of positive feedback from "normal" people, i.e. friends not working in the field who read it, saying that they had never really understood how much goes into doing what we do.
Shot on 22nd January, 2005, in Pretoria, South Africa, late afternoon. January 2005 was the rainiest month in 25 years in Pretoria. Image portrays pole-vaulter Matti Mononen in training.
Canon EOS1DsMrk2, 70-200mm/2.8 IS; 1/400 sec at 2.8, ISO 640.
The Best Sports Picture of the Year 2005 in Finland
The Best of Scandinavian News Design 2007
The Best Sports Picture of the Year 2002 in Finland
Although mainly a sportsphotographer, I just have to post this one, as I have been having so much feedback on this image. I was shooting a sports event in the neighbourhood, when a friend sent a SMS saying that the warehouses were on fire. I arrived to the scene in couple of minutes.
After observing the fire a while I thought of Monet's famous painting (London Parliament in the Fog) and I just patiently waited 'til the smoke and flames were as I saw they should be.
Canon EO1DMrk2, 70-200IS 2.8 at 1/320 sec, f 7.1 at 250 ASA
The opening spread of Iltalehti featuring this image received later an award of excellence as the Best of Scandianvian News Design 2007.
Shot on 18th February, 2002, in Salt Lake City, USA. Image potrays skijumper Janne Ahonen during the Olympics Team Competition, first jump.
Canon EOS1D, 16-35mm/2.8 at 1/1600th of a second, f 11.0, at 800 ASA
I foresee that in the future my work might actually evolve more into a role of a producer - somehow a natural extension to teaching and workshops I do now. Time will tell.
Spring of 2009 I tutored six very talented young aspiring photographers, trying to teach them the basics of linear storytelling in still images and simple creation of audio slideshows. I have been hoping to present their work here for some time now and while waiting for all of them to complete their work - and to double-check some legal issues - here are the two first ones - maybe they work as teasers at this point.
"To learn from people, to understand situations, to interpret looks" is how she describes her work. Action is on the stage - and the camera is the interface between the world and her mind.
To see her finished work click here.
To see his finished work click here.
