Once again, I wanted to make a collection of selected photographs from the ending year. These are my personal favourites from all the work I managed to shoot and create, but the year of 2014 also included some other great experiences. I visited new countries and also West Coast USA for the first time, and really wish I could explore those countries more in the future. This year's selection includes both, landscapes and urban photography. 

On top of everything, my work was part of a gallery exhibition in London in July. 
The exhibition, 'Landscape: Rural vs. Urban', was held by The Brick Lane Gallery and featured four works from me. I will write a separate blog post about this very soon. 
Anyway, this is my selection from this year of 2014.

Lastly, thank you everyone for your support and interest in my work during this year! 
Hopefully we all get to continue with some new explorations next year.
Thanks a million,
Kimmo

Jimmy Chin is a photographer, filmmaker, professional skier and climber. He's an explorer. The first time I pumped into his work was when I saw some Camp4 Collective's videos and later I also went to see the extreme sports film Into The Mind, which included footage from Camp4 Collective and Jimmy. By the way, I highly recommend that movie, especially if you feel like you're in need for some escapism from the daily churn. Here's Jimmy Chin's website for more info about him.

Also, Jimmy's Facebook feed is a wonderland of it's own. He posts material and updates from his trips and expeditions from the places like Himalayas, Yosemite and Patagonia as well as pictures and videos of the top of the top extreme sports athletes such as Alex Honnold and the like. Here's a great National Geographic talk with them. 

If you have interest (who wouldn't) in this kind of amazing and unique places, pictures and videos, look up his work.
You won't be disappointed.

Here is National Geographic's photographer profile on him.

Alright my friends in London, or close by, or visiting by chance - I'll take a small-ish leap here as my photography will be part of a group exhibition, held in The Brick Lane Gallery, located in central London (July 23rd onwards).

So, if you feel intrigued, you're more than welcome to visit The Brick Lane Gallery. The landscape art exhibition will feature works from nine artists and, as far as I know, consists of photography and paintings. I'll try make it to the final weekend as well as it's a damn rare occasion for me. 

Here's the exhibition flyer which, funnily enough, happens to feature my work.

Here's some street photography picks from March 2014 when I was visiting New York. The Big Apple is always an enthralling place and although street photography isn't something I normally do a lot, of course I had to give it a shot. All of these photos are in black and white, but I'll post later some cityscapes from the same trip.

As a tradition, I have posted my personal favourites of my photography at the end of each year. So, now it's time for the collection from 2013.  Of course, the photo set is dominated by landscapes from Austrian Alps and Iceland, which were the absolute highlights for this ending year. 

You can also have a look at previous years' collections here: 2012, 2011 and 2010.

I notice that I keep coming back to this beautifully shot short film (by Astray Films collective) for inspiration, so here it is for inspiration. Although the film is about a photographer's thoughts and world, I think the things he says go a long way for many of us, regardless of the passion or lifestyle that one has.
The photographer/cinematographer/director that centers this film is Mickey Smith. He's also part of Astray Films.

Dark Side of the Lens has won multiple awards for its cinematography (among others). Watch and enjoy!

Dark Side of the Lens - Directed by Mickey Smith, Produced by Helen Hayden, Line Producer Rivie Verran, DOP Allan Wilson.

"Plot outline
‘Darkside of the Lens’ offers a surreal, ethereal, passionate and personal glimpse into the life and motivations of an ocean based photographer - working on a magical, yet isolated, frozen and dangerous stretch of the Irish coastline. 

The story of the photographer is a tale seldom told. Through poignant, poetic narrative, the film eventually transcends itself as an abstract reflection of one photographer’s ideals, to become a voice for the artform. 

Indeed, the film itself becomes a visual poem of sorts, set in a mindblowing environment of epic heavy waves, strange sealife and monolithic stunning clifflines. Land, sea and wavescapes illustrate the grandeur of this environment, and huge explosions of water bring it’s realities home, as the photographer swims through the epicentre of it all. 

Through one mans translation of what it takes to create images that inspire, we also gain insight into the unheralded and misunderstood art form of ocean based photography.

The merits of the artform itself come into focus - how it is unique, the risks involved, the challenges faced, the highs and lows of the game. The narrative delves into the reasoning behind risking your life for a photograph when there are meagre financial rewards, and illustrates what it takes to succeed in a specialist niche that demands such a strange combination of photographic and physical prowess. 

The result is a unique, moving, and inspirational understanding of the nomadic lifestyle involved, and the subsequent realities of living it in the brutally cold big wave environment of Ireland."

I decided to arrange a Print Giveaway once again and this time it was only held on my Facebook photography page. I gave out two high quality Hahnemühle fine art prints. After a lottery pick out of almost hundred people, the winners turned out to be from Finland and Canada. So, here we have the two pictures that the winners selected and I set out to post them.

Here's the next inspiration post and this time with a photographer that truly has his own style in his photography art: Alexandre Deschaumes. He's a French landscape photography artist, with a focus especially on a dreamlike and mysterious, yet dramatic landscapes.

His style and sceneries are something I really love watching. He effortlessly mixes colour photographs and black & white work in his portfolios, the main focus being in majestic landscapes throughout his photo galleries.

Also, the locations are pretty much either some of the ones I've already tried to capture (to my best abilities, that is) myself, or places that I really wish to go someday. Overall, the grand mountain scenes and the dramatic ocean shores are exactly what gets me excited with photography. Here's some samples of his work, more behind these links: Website and 500px.

Some time has passed since my last inspiration post, so I'll share you more works of great photographers: Here's Joey L. 

He's a young Canadian that has an amazing commercial portfolio (you're most likely familiar with some of his work), but he also shoots personal projects in the most remote locations. He also offers tutorials for photographers. Have a look. 
I really like his fine art twisted style, a classy blend of technical craftsmanship and artistic creativity. 
His full name is Joey Lawrence, by the way.

In this video Joey describes his style and the way he works.

As I've done the last two years before, I've collected my favourite photographs from this ending year of 2012. It includes more colour than before, but also some black and white photography as I've started to find my own style in fine art direction of photography. In this collection, I have photos from Australia, Indonesia, Italy, Paris and Finland.
So, even though it feels like I had relatively little time for shooting this year compared to last year, I still managed to visit a few amazing locations and get some new material.

I also had my first two photography exhibitions here in Helsinki ('A Glimpse Of The World' and 'Shades'), so that was 
a big challenge as well as a place of learning for me. I'm happy I managed to do the exhibitions and we'll see what happens next year in that regard.

Hopefully I still continue to learn and develop next year. There's some new shooting locations already in plans. One of my dream places is becoming true when I get to visit Iceland next July. Really, really looking forward to that!
Happy new year everyone! Here's my chosen photos.

December in Paris could be windy, rainy and chilly, but it's also very atmospheric and beautiful, even if the sun is nowhere to be seen. Clouds and dark shades make the city even more appealing. As I many times find out with my photography, clouds and scarce light creates a unique setting for capturing moody and mysterious scenes. So, here's some urban and cityscape photography from winter days in Paris.

Nick Brandt's photography work takes your breath away and just makes you stare, silent. He left his successful career in music video directing and commercial side to capture the wonders of wildlife of East Africa. How he became introduced to this area he later fell in love with? Nick Brandt directed Michael Jackson's music video for Earth Song, after which, fittingly, he wanted to express himself by photography and make his effort for conservation and threatened wildlife in Africa. He now has his own non-profit organization for conservation work called Big Life Foundation, which focuses on wildlife in the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya and Tanzania.

I was kindly asked by two friends (and café owners) to bring in some of my photography and hang them on their café's walls. I named the exhibition 'Shades' and it includes five colour landscapes and four black & white square prints. These landscapes are, yes, from New Zealand, but also one from Bavaria, Germany and one from Australia.
 
So, from 16.11. onwards you can see some of my photos framed on Kahvila Sävy's walls in Helsinki. It's an awesome, cosy coffeehouse. You are guaranteed to get the best special coffees (double cappuccino being my favourite from them), tasty and fresh croissants and hear some nice tunes from vinyl records. I would definitely recommend visiting, even if not for my photos. Here's three of the nine photos that I got printed in Sävy.

I've created a new slideshow collection 'Weddings' about the wedding photography I've done during 2011 and 2012. I added this new section in the navigation menu where the collection can be found.

I want to thank these beautiful now-happily-married couples for letting me to show these photos. You can also click any of the photos to see more.

I've ended up seeing some amazing places around the world already and I've tried to capture it in my own way and style. I consider this only the beginning, however, and there's so many more great and mind-provoking destinations yet to see. 

There will be some selected photographs on display at the cosy Cafe Talo in Hakaniemi from the beginning of June onwards. I also have reserved the upstairs of Cafe Talo on June 1st for my friends and friends of the friends and just all the people that would like to have a look at my photos.

If you like what you see and even wish to get one for yourself, some of the prints are for sale. I will put 5€ from every sold picture into a Kiva Loan (http://www.kiva.org/about/) which I think is a sustainable way of creating new opportunities around the world - the people that might not have the same support system around them that I've had, for example. The buying is not the main point, though, and I just want to welcome you all to join me and have a glimpse of the world.

So, 1.6. there will be a get-together and after that you can visit Cafe Talo (http://www.cafetalo.fi/) and check out some of the photos.

Welcome you all!

More info and updates will follow...Here's the Facebook invitation.

I wanted to share you one of the "new wave" photographers, who has his unique style of photography, but who also is eager to break some old school rules in the photography business. Free sharing, the active use of internet and social media, educating other photo enthusiasts and HDR (high dynamic range) photography are some of the things this man is well know for. He is Trey Ratcliff and I would recommend to look into his work, not just the great HDR images he creates, but also his versatile blog StuckInCustoms.com in general and the tutorials and videos he has put out for everyone of us to enjoy. Trey also offers a Free HDR Tutorial on his blog, so if you're interested in learning more about HDR shooting, this might be something you definitely want to have a look at.

Here's how Trey describes his work and himself: "I am known generally for the unique way in which I capture and process the world around me. I have my own “take” on HDR Photography, and you can see my free HDR Tutorial right here. I grew up blind in one eye and this might have changed the way I view the world. I don’t know. It’s hard to be objective about the way one’s brain was wired. My background is in computer science and math, so I bring an algorithm-like process to capturing the scene in such a way that it evokes memories in a palpable manner. Whatever that means."

This is a short behind-the-scenes video about one of his HDR landscape images from Iceland, just to give you an idea:

This is a bit longer video where Trey Ratcliff visits Google's Mountain View headquarters for an Photographers/Authors@Google talk:

Thanks to internet and digital advancements, there's more and more publications and websites that support creative people and give them a chance to display their work. Under Republic is one of them and they are here for "Establishing a network of Artists, Musicians, and Iconoclasts." Sounds really good to me. Anyway, they were kind enough and asked me some questions and displayed some of my photos in their latest #10 issue.
Under Republic is an e-magazine and you can read it in here. If you want skip to my interview, it starts from the page 42. You can tell from the funky layout that these guys want to do things in their own way and that's always a good thing. I surely appreciate that they have my photography nicely presented on spread sheets too.

More at: www.underrepublic.com