exhibited work

These are my first photos that are being exhibited in a public place. And not just any place! The venue is the legendary Yo-talo in Tampere, my old hometown. The pics are huge, the JP pic is 125cm x 65cm and the Jussi/Timo pic is 180cm x 125cm. What a start for my exhibition career (add sarcasm tags around "career" :D)! The photos are a part of the interior design together with 5-6 other rock photos so they'll hang around in the bar for a while, I think :) I'm pretty proud and I'd like to thank Petra-Miisa Juusenaho of Interiori for this chance, she's the one who "discovered" my photos :) If you live in Tampere or visit Tampere, go have a look at the pics and tell me what you think!

Metsatöll

I followed Ensiferum on their European Tour for a week in October 2009. I also made friends with Tracedawn and Metsatöll who were also fun to shoot, looking forward to shooting more of them! So get your asses back to Finland! :D I concentrated mainly on Ensiferum, since I was on assignment for them, but also shot the special guest bands. Since I can't publish the Ensiferum photos yet, here is the first Metsatöll pic for you :) Enjoy! There's more to follow, stay tuned :)

Rockstad Falun: H.E.A.T

H.E.A.T plays great 80s hard rock. They are energetic live performers and really take their audience into consideration. Hope to get to shoot them more in the future, this time the light was really boring since the concert was an open air gig and during daylight time. Fortunately the sun didn't shine and that saved some of the ambience :)

Rockstad Falun: Sabaton

So I opened my festival season in Falun, Sweden. Rockstad Falun (rocktown Falun in English) is a great, small town festival organised by Sabaton. This year their concert was also to celebrate their 10th anniversary. And what a gig it was! A lot of pyros, great stage show, the guys were in top condition and gave their best to the audience. They were so much fun to shoot and I managed to get a grip of that adrenaline kick from the "three first - no flash-ambience" again.

Needless to say the audience loved Sabaton as well. I heard there were people of 10 different nationalities and some had taken a bus ride of over 30 hours to get there. Unfortunately the weather was a traditional festival weather, i.e. not the best possible, it was raining but at least there was no mud: the festival was held in the middle of the town on a market ;)

After the festival we had a fun after party with the guys, of course ;) No awkward photos were taken, I usually keep my camera packed after I've "done the job." I'd just like to thank the Sabaton guys again for the great gig and attitude and for being so nice. The same goes to Olof from Skrikhult Production, their Scandinavian agent. A huge thank you for all the hospitality I experienced on my trip to Falun :)

In addition to Sabaton's I also shot the H.E.A.T gig. They were a lot of fun to shoot too and a great live band. At this point I've uploaded only the Sabaton pics, H.E.A.T will follow a.s.a.p :)

Pellavarock 2008

Attention, this post is still under construction, more pics will follow :)

The festival season has begun already and I am once again reminiscing the festivals of last summer. In this post I'll be presenting some shots from the Pellavarock festival which is held in Lammi. A lovely, small festival with good artists. Well organised and the atmosphere was great.

All in all, it was really nice to shoot the festival, my favorite band to shoot being Bloodbath. Who could resist some fake blood and right attitude and guys who aren't taking themselves dead seriously although they are making death metal ;)

BLOODBATH

SOTAJUMALA

RYTMIHÄIRIÖ

KIUAS

Harmaja

I shot the band Harmaja last week at On The Rocks, Helsinki. Very challenging. Monotonous, red-yellow-orange based light, the band was very static. Their music is so peaceful and poetic, it's a challenge to capture the mood in concerts like that. I knew already before shooting them that I'd convert the photos to black and white. I think it better describes the mood in the concert than colour imagery. And I just can't stand the colour of the light that was available in the concert ;)

sometimes more dreams come true

I had been dreaming of shooting an open air festival at some point. I didn't really know how to get a photo pass to any festival (except for Rocknight, which isn't an open air, haha)... So I was going to the Rocksound festival in Huttwil, Switzerland, with my friends anyway and since Ensiferum was playing there I decided I'd try and ask them if they could help me out with the pass and I'd give them photos in return. And against all my expectations I soon got a message from Markus where he said they'll organise it for me. Just like that. That's how I ended up shooting Ensiferum for the first time :) I also shot Korpiklaani, Eluveitie and Queensrÿche, which truly was a dream come true. Hey can you imagine. My first big festival ever and I get to shoot one of my all time favorites, Queensrÿche. I was already excited to be able to finally see and hear Geoff Tate live on stage! I once again couldn't believe how lucky I was.


The Kirder brothers don't play in Eluveitie any more, but I posted the pics here anyway since they were such great characters on stage. The amount of energy and charisma was damn amazing.


Btw, gotta love the red bass strings :)


Here I tried some rather bold post processing... I think it kinda works with him.


Ok and my beloved Ensiferum :) It was raining cats and dogs by the time they were playing and I only stayed in the pit for the first 1.5-2 songs instead of the usual 3 first. Markus and his tongue are an essential part of every Ensiferum show :)


And here's Korpiklaani. I had such a fun party with the guys the night before and they were fun on stage as well. Btw, the Eluveitie, Ensiferum and Korpiklaani gigs were outside and that's why the light is not very interesting.


And here we go... Queensrÿche... Geoff Tate sounded just great, just great. He was a dynamic performer with a lot of expression.


Oh how I loved that moment. I just wished it'd never end. Oh and the lovely Pamela Moore was there too and they played quite a few songs from the amazing Operation: Mindcrime I-album. Which was released 20 years ago, 1988.

P.S. I'm so happy Tate didn't wear those lovely leggins he wore in the 80s :DD
P.S.2. I ended up shooting on 3 festivals last summer, I hope next summer I'll shoot at least as many :)

have yourself a merry heavy christmas...

I shot the Raskasta Joulua-concert 20.12.08 in Tavastia, Helsinki. It was a good experience. There were a couple of problems though... There was no photopit so I had to shoot from the audience. Which was a pain in the ass since Tavastia was sold out and packed. So I was being pushed by people from all directions and taking in-focus pictures was a true challenge. In addition to that the girl in front of me kept on banging her head against my camera. *sigh* Not so bad for my camera, but the poor girl's head...

The pics I shot are going to the website of Dex Viihde, the company that organised the whole concert :) They will appear in the "Media"-section where diverse media can download pics if they need images.

I'm not unequivocally satisfied with the images, but that was what I could do at that time. So, here we go, enjoy :)