April 2019 – Photography
April was a bit of a mixed bag. The lakes have been thawing nicely and I have managed to get out into the nature, but in the end there were only one or two landscape photos that I thought were useable. It’s that time of the year where the scenery is mostly brown and patches of snow scatter the landscapes. Sure, these moments should ideally be used as a means to stir ones creative juices, but the photos that I have taken in the forest or by the lake just haven’t stood out for me enough. The rest of my photography time was spent developing my portrait skills in the ”studio” (my lounge), taking cityscapes or trying out older vintage cameras. April was an interesting and greatly rewarding month for me. Below are some of my photos from April 2019.
Above: Joensuu’s local wolf-dude statue caked in snow. A snapshot from an early morning walk.
Above: ”Pielisjoki”. Our local river that runs through the city was one of the first places that I noticed had thawed. This is a panorama of one of my favourite spots for a cityscape photo. I’m a sucker for reflections.
Above: This April I got my hands on an old Polaroid SX-70 from around 1974. I’ve wanted one of these cameras for a very long time now, and I finally decided to get it. I like the idea of having any instant camera for taking photos that focus on family, friends and other personal details that could one day serve as memories. The physicality of using a Polaroid has a unique feeling to it, and reminds me that not everything needs to be perfect or predictable when creating an image. I hope to do a full blog with more of these Polaroid photos.
Above: Rosa Summanen was back again in April to help me out with my journey into portraiture. This image above is a photo from a simple, red-themed shoot. As someone who has relied mostly on natural lighting for my landscape photography, learning how to manipulate and control the light has given me goosebumps. It’s been great to develop my skills and I’m now starting to feel more confident with this side of photography.
Above: Another one from the red-themed shoot.
Above: Experimenting a bit using a combination of flash and continuous lighting.
Above: A soft and muted lake scene at golden hour in Joensuu.
Above: My only decent sunset photo of April. Being back in the nature and enjoying moments like these have reminded me of what brought me into photography in the first place. Can’t wait to do more.
Above: I’m really happy with this image. I did another shoot with Rosa for this one, but this time we went with a noir-style theme. The smoke was added afterwards with Photoshop, and was created with another photo of burning incense that I took separately. I definitely want to do a separate blog post detailing the whole shoot, as there were many interesting images, many of which I’m still busy editing. The photo above was definitely one of my favourites, and I was really happy to have it featured on the Fstoppers Instagram feed.
That was it for April! I hope you enjoyed the photos and please go and check out more of Rosa’s modelling skills here on Instagram.
Have a great May! 🙂
Jason Tiilikainen 