My Photography: Details II

These are images I took last Sunday around Helsinki, I hope you like them!

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Already Gone

Cardboard

Grave of Our Love

Hidden Belief

I Bend But I Will Not Break

I Pass You By

I'll Stand By You

I'm Staying

Infinite Weakness

Light Beyond

No Admittance

No More Steps

Pain In My Heart

Reminds Me of You I

Reminds Me of You II

Sickness

Street Lamp

What You Left Behind

Wounds Healed?

You Cast A Long Shadow

Your Love

You're In My Way

Artist of the Week: Akseli Gallen-Kallela

Akseli Gallen-Kallela (birthname Axél Waldemar Gallén) was born on 26th of April 1865 in Pori, Finland. His represented national romaticism and realism in his work. The artist who studied in Paris first painted the bohemian life, but more and more Finnish nature, landscapes, and the people started to interest him. Also the mythology, the Finnish Epic "Kalevala" started to fascinate him. He created nationalist art, through which he portrayed the vitality of our culture and Finland's right to exist as a nation when the country was fighting against Russia. After Finland got its independence, Gallen-Kallela worked for a while as the President Mannerheim's adjutant and designed uniforms and other items for the military. In 1922 he began to design the Great Kalevala. He designed ornaments, typographs and illustrations for few years, but it was not until he visited Mexico and North America (Chicago) that it became clear to him how to portray the Finnish Epic, Kaleva. It was then that he discovered how he could illustrate the spirit within the poetry, how he would portray it through paintings and typographic methods. In 1931 he travelled to Copenhagen to lecture about his work and also to meet other Nordic artists. During the return back to Finland, 7th of 1931, he died in Stockholm.

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Ad Astra, 1894

The Aino Triptych

The Symposium

Démasquée, 1888

Boy And Crow

Spring, 1903

Kullervo's Curse

The Defence of the Sampo

The Fratricide, 1897

Sky (wall rug), 1900

Lemminkäinen's Mother

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This painting is quite special to me. It's illustrating the Finnish epic Kalevala. In this painting, Lemminkäinen's mother is praying at the side of her dead son. In 1999 (I think) as I was still studying fashion design, art history etc. we had to take one painting we liked and try to copy it as best as we could - this was done so we would learn about the technique of that particular artist. I decided to do a detail shot of this painting (Lemminkäinen's torso). I still think I did a pretty good copy of it. I still have that painting, so I'm adding it below.

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My detail copy (1999) of Gallen-Kallela's Lemminkäinen's Mother.

My Photography: Auroar Collection

This week's My Photography post is connected with my work. I took these images in 2001, when I was still studying fashion. We had a big EU-funded design project in our school called "Snowcastle". I entered with this women's winter collection.

The cape is one of the central pieces of the collection (though unfortunately from these images you can't see it properly): it is one-shoulder, assymmetrical cape with a silver jewellery closing. All the jewellery was made by students of the jewellery design course corresponding to my original ideas and sketches.

The outfits were inspired by the finnish ugriculture and the nature. In the collection I wanted to portray the strength and the fragility of an ancient Nordic woman. There is eight outfits total, here is only a portion of the collection. This collection was the biggest single designer collection done within the design project (consisting of over 20 pieces) and it won second prize in Italian fashion design competition and was ranked in the top ten at young designer's competition in St.Petersburgh, Russia. This is also the collection I have to thank for a lot that has happened in my life - this was the ticket to Milan and all the other wonderful things that followed that experience.

In all the dresses either a portion or the whole dress was made of handmade felted material, which I produced myself. Over 20 meters of fabric - it was a hard task but very rewarding after I saw my creations come to life.

I took these photographs myself during my photography course and I am really happy with them. I think they capture the spirit of my collection very well. I hope you enjoy them!

Finland: Land of the Midnight Sun

Here's a proof to everyone who has not witnessed the Finnish midnight sun! During summer it doesn't get dark at all. This year I have some troubles adjusting to the light. Or maybe my sleeping schedule is just gone bullocks recently? Anyways, last night I couldn't sleep and I was still up at five in the morning. When I saw this unbelievably beautiful sky, I just had to take a picture of it. The sleeping part succeeded finally - courtesy of Air France, haha! I stole these from the aeroplane last summer when I was in Brazil, eh he he! They came handy now, so all I want to say is merci beaucoup!