Artistic

Another concept shoot, this one based on the belief that if you wish upon a star, your wish will come true.

I enjoy doing concept shoots and was pleased to find a great model and make up artist to help me achieve my vision for this image.

Model:  Veera Lehtonen / hair and make up: Nina Laitala

Prague was the birthplace of one of the greatest artists in the art nouveau period: Alphonse Mucha.  I could not visit the Czech Republic without doing a concept tribute shoot to that amazing fin de siècle artist.

For these two sessions, I chose the stars series by Mucha, North Star and Moon.   Makeup and hair by Diamond Beauty – Dana Bárová — with model Model: Petra Snopova.

And a portrait from the session

On a very stormy and cold Winter day in Bellingham, Washington, I was given the fantastic opportunity to shoot a beautiful young lady.  The tree in the background is very special – it is home to the city’s bald eagle and he was flying around us carefully to make sure we weren’t going near his nest.   My little model and her father were troopers through the cold rainy day and worked hard to give us the beautiful images from the day.

This one was my favorite from the day.  A simple one light set up.

Today, I thought it would be fun to do a shoot that really showed just how beautiful Finland is in Winter.  If I could design a postcard of an amazing Winter wonderland, then these are what I’d submit as the artwork.

Presenting a 9 year old Finnish girl, her reindeer, a book on antique Finnish maps, and a beautiful snowy day in January.

Can you tell I live in the most beautiful place on Earth?

A fantasy shoot revisited.

Time to break out the artistic skills again.

And I thought the forests were beautiful….

I’ve just started to proof a shoot done in the area of Loviisa and RuotsinPyhtää.  A beautiful, beautiful area encompossing 18th century smithies, sawmills, fortresses, and castles.  And the location of some of the biggest sea battles in Europe (Imperial Czarist Russia vs Imperial Sweden) took place in the waterways in front of these areas.   Pyhtää the town also has an interesting history in that it was split in half along the river Kymi from the Treaty of Turku in the 1700s.  The forge and ironworks ended up on the Swedish owned side.  The rest of the village on the Russian side.

Above: The bridge that once divided a country

Below: Battlements and fortifications from the 1700s