JANNE-PEKKA MANNINEN PHOTOGRAPHY

Ahh, ‘tis the season for a cranky old geezer to be annoyed by everything, especially Christmas!

It is always wonderful to be invited to make a poster image for a new play or a performance of any kind. Every occasion is a new opportunity to make an image that will convey the world that has been–or will be–created on stage or on location.

Stop me if you've heard this one. A man, a mermaid and a rhino walk into a bar.

Breaking the two-year cycle between immersive pieces, Flow Productions has created a new work called NIGHTTOWN this year for the Lumo Light Festival in Oulu after last year’s hit VARIKKO. And so it is time to break down another poster image and explain how we got there!

Two years since my previous blog post? And two years since the previous immersive experience from Flow Productions? Coincidence? Think not!

Flow Productions Presents: HYLKY. This is the poster image for the upcoming immersive performance. It’s shipwreck-themed, both actual and metaphoric. How was this image created? Read on!

Ah, white seamless. Let me count the ways I love thee! It’s versatile, it’s clean, it’s crisp, it’s professional, and it’s not such a pain in the ass to pull it off. I was hired to do professional portraits of architects by two architectural firms in Oulu, and turns out they both wanted portraits on white. So, white is what they got!

When it came time to photograph poster art for the second iteration of VILLA, I decided to try out some Polaroid. Instant film=instant art, see? That’s the joke, but turns out Polaroid shot on a medium format back really brought a nice, weirdly painterly feel to a piece that’s quite mysterious.

You may recognize Tommi Ojala from the Chilluminati launch shoot I did a few months back. Tommi gives “great face”, as they said in the ‘90’s, but he’s also a talented singer-songwriter. I asked him to sit for me in the studio and a few weeks ago we made time for a shoot.

It so happened that my dear friend and regular partner in crime, Sampo, got together with Vili from Wulf&Supply to think about a line of clothing. You know, tees and hoodies and stuff. Having broad tastes when it comes to popular culture, Sampo set to work designing prints that flirt with the occult, secret societies, and pizza. No! The All-Seeing Eye, I mean.

This summer, I got called to make promotional images for a local health-care center for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Oulun Sydänkeskus needed images to be used on their website and the aim was to create photographs which depicted their day-to-day operation. They also needed some headshots for the personnel.

Another day, another immersive piece combining contemporary dance and circus, sound design, light design, photography, installations, apocalyptic visions and all-around bad-assery. It can only be another Flow Productions, er, production!

So there I was last summer, hanging around at a local record store and checking out a mini-concert by the astonishingly talented--and wonderfully animated--guitar player Petteri Sariola. He was in town to promote his new album, Resolution, and as I was watching him rock out in the confined space of the store, I had a thought: This guy would make for a great portrait.

The promotion of a stage performance begins at an early stage and usually at a time when there is very little in terms of a finished product, be it visuals, sound, lighting or choreography. Sometimes things are still finding their place right up to the premiere. Not so with [mute]!

When I asked Pirjo Yli-Maunula to sit for me, I picked up a couple of rolls of different kinds of plastic, and some tarp, and some rope, and I was ready to start serial killing--I mean, making a cool portrait with her!

Man of the arts Jukka Takalo accepted my invitation to sit for a portrait most graciously. Jukka is a staple of the Oulu art/culture/music/cool things scene and is well-known (inter)nationally for many things.

I have photographed aerial acrobat Sanna Vellava many times while performing and rehearsing, but this time I wanted to make a strong portrait with her and planned a few lighting scenarios for her.

Tuure Kaukua is a talented young dancer who relocated from Oulu to Helsinki last year. Our loss, but he was up for another photo shoot in my studio this June when he was visiting home.

Pessi ja Illusia is having another run, which is great for anyone who missed it the first time around, but also for me, because there's a timely opportunity to take a look back at the portraiture I did for the production. Check it out!

Last fall I visited Japan for the very first time. I went to report on a few stories there. One of those stories was about an organic farming community called Konohana Family.

Alright! So it's 2017 and I had a chance to kick things off with a really nice one-day shoot with a local band called BONES AND MARROW. Instrumental skeletal rock is what they play, but you probably figured that out already.

As it is the end of the year and the beginning of a new one, I took a look back at the projects I did in 2016. One of the longest commitments for me—and the most fun—was Flow Production's excellent piece called TORNI — THE TOWER.