Valokuva

AUTUMN IN ÅLAND’S ARCHIPELAGO

Hi folks! I have just returned from the outer archipelago of Åland where I spent two weeks in the autumn storms. In case you don’t know, the Åland Islands form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. The islands are situated at the entrance of the Gulf of Bothnia and form an autonomous, demilitarised, monolingually Swedish-speaking region of Finland. But yes, of course you knew all this already.

I was happy to travel there and to the outer archipelago, together with my wife and my daughter. During day time I was photographing and in the evenings we read children books out loud in the candle light. We lived and worked next to the boat house in the picture above and I can tell you that the sea was all the time present. It was even in our dreams.

Working in these kind of pretty extreme conditions was some what an exotic but refreshing expirience. Two weeks on a lonely island without internet or mobile phone connections and without other people. We used rain water to wash ourself and solar energy to charge the camera batteries. There was a lot of limitations but even so we had everything we needed for a good life.

My photos from the outer archipelago are going to be published in the beginning of next year. I will tell you more soon… Until that, take care – of yourself and the planet.

With piiis and laaav, Peki

FOR THOSE WHO HAVE TIME

Choreographer Maija Hirvanen is known for her thought-provoking and deliciously quirky works.

Hirvanen’s latest creation For those who have time examines habits formed by the rhythm of contemporary life. Imperfection, ardor, and beauty through sweat and emotions; these are the elements that the audience will encounter.

Aki-Pekka Sinikoski took the promotional photos for For those who have time. “I was basically asked to visualise the play in a photographic way. At that point there was only some parts of the choreography ready but we went through a lot of Maija’s ideas, thoughts, and the consept. After that I created the set design and lights for my photos.” explains Peki about the creative process behind these photos that run over Helsinki in November.

“I really enjoyed working with Maija – once again. She gave me a lot of artistic freedom and basically asked me to be part of their dance production crew at a early stage of the play. After I finished my part of the job, Maija continued the process with her main crew. You never know about the future but maybe there is even more to come with this artistic collaboration with her…”

More photos in the Portfolio.

For those who have time: Zodiak

FROM DUO TO DUO

“I’m coming to the harbour. You can stop me only by drowning 5000 people”

Musta höyhen (The Black Feather) is a cutting edge crime novel written in Finland. M/s Norlandia and its crew is ordered to do an easy two weeks gig in the Middle East by bringing 1800 refugees and to ship them to Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. But as captain Sten Bremer leaves behind the masacre in Syria his ship is loaded with a chaotic crowd of 5000 refugees. Extreme right wing rises like a storm over Europe. No-one wants these people and harbour after harbour is closing their ports in front of the ship. The clock is ticking. And the dark sea is waiting…

Peki Sinikoski and Jussi Karjalainen, the award winning duo (Bada Bim Bada Bum) from Superkasi Studio, did the visual consept, photos and the graphic design for the first part of this crime novel series written by two well respected Finnish veteran novelists, Mauno Saari and Juha Numminen. The first of the Numminen & Saari books are out now and published by WSOY. Check it out! (Some embraising critics below in Finnish for all you Scandinavian crime fiction fans out there.)

…And oh YES, the client loved Peki’s and Jussi’s work so there is more to come!

Musta Höyhen

”Rikosromaani, joka on yhteiskunnallinen, poliittinen, ajankohtainen ja kansainvälinen – kaikkea tätä vetävässä paketissa.”

Heini Sivonen, Ilta-Sanomat

”Musta höyhen on kansainvälinen trilleri, toiminnantäyteinen meriromaani ja yhteiskuntakriittinen puheenvuoro. 
   (…) Trillerinä ja meriromaanina Musta höyhen toimii erittäin hyvin.”

Pertti Avola, Helsingin Sanomat

”Kirja on ajankohtainen ja siksikin koukuttava. (…) Kirjailijat kuljettavat juonta johdonmukaisesti lukijaruuvia kiristäen. Tapahtumat maissa ja merellä vuorottelevat notkeasti. Ihmisen raadollisuus rehottaa. Kirjassa on paljon hyviä ja eläviä henkilötyyppejä.”

Heikki Haapavaara, Kauppalehti

PEKI x ENCONTROS DA IMAGEM

GREAT NEWS! Finnish Teens is going to be exhibited in … [rolls drum … drums keeps rolling… drum rolls way too long … come on Matt Sorum … Can you please stop now… ] … PORTUGAL.

To be more presice there will be a great selection of my photos (even some new prints) in the Encontros da Imagem. That is an international festival of photography and video curated by Rui Prata. Ooh mama, I can tell you that there is going to be a really interesting photographers in that show…

–Yep, I have to admit that I’m thrilled to be part of this one!

Yours, Aki-Pekka Sinikoski

Encontros da Imagem

YLPPÖ

Ylppö Valokuvaaja: Aki-Pekka Sinikoski

 

Peki has shot tons of great photos for musician Herra Ylppö and his band Ihmiset. Their next album is titled Mies ja nainen and it will be published by Sony Music Finland. It’s definitely the best Herra Ylppö & Ihmiset album so far and for us it sounds like a dark and twisted version of Olavi Virta. This longing from the old traditional Finnish schlager music combined with a darken emptines can be found in Sinikoski’s photos for this album. The album is going to be published on January 18th 2012.

You can find the more picture’s on Korea’s first page. The picture above has been used in the album booklet. It has also been published as the cover of latest Soundi magazine.

Peki made also his first music video for Herra Ylppö together with maestro himself. Enjoy! Video is at the moment on #2 in Voice’s (Finnish Music Television) top10 chart so not too bad for the Peki’s first music video ever.

 

Herra Ylppö

Herra Ylppö

Herra Ylppö

More information about Ylppö can be found HERE

NEW NEWS ETC.

 

Oops, we are on the loop! There are two photographers working at Superkasi Studios. In the latest issue of Image magazine Juliana photographed some other photographers from Finland and now for the next issue I have photographed the photographer who photographed the other photographers. And after that Juliana will probably photograph the photographer who photoraphed the photographer who photographed the photographers… or something. Anyway, here’s her portrait. Even though if it’s sometimes not the easiest task to take the portrait of another photographer we both were really happy with the result.

During the last months I have been working with super many interesting projects for clients like Lufthansa Magazine, MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Technology Review, Sony Music Finland and Le Monde. I have also had some larger photo projects going on that will be released in the beginning of next year so stay tuned for the major update!

Besides all this action I have managed to find some time even for having presentations and idealogues at different events and forums. I was also really enjoying to teach in the documentary/contact photography course in the Photo School of Muurla. (And enjoying even more to receive some ridiculously positive feedback after the course via email directly from the students.) Yep, I really think that the more you give the more you get. – That’s simply how it goes!

From Helsinki with love, Peki

 

YLE TV NEWS

O’boy! Who could see this one coming?!? Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE made a story about my Finnish Teens exhibition for their main TV news.

Check it out HERE

Aki-Pekka Sinikoski: Finnish Teens

JUICY

This is my very own Biggie Smalls post. A post that I’m forced to start with a bit of twisted quote: “It was all a dream. I used to read Photo Raw magazine… ”

Photo Raw magazine has a clear vision. It’s exploring photography from all around the world: documentary, photojournalism and art. It wants to be a voice of all photographers and show the most interesting photo projects from all over. During the last four years it has become the magazine that propably all the professional photographers and photo lovers are subscribing here in Finland. Besides that the magazine has a growing fan base all over the globe.

During all these years Photo Raw has shown me amazingly great photos and mind blowing projects. Many times that damn magazine has made me almost frustrated. “How the heck can all these people take so much better pictures than me?”

You can just imagine how I felt when the Photo Raw contacted me to make a cover story of my Finnish Teens photo series. They wanted to publish a photo by me as the cover and to publish a 29 pictures portfolio of my pictures!!!

So, do yourself a favor and let your feet guide you to the closest magazine stand to buy The Juicy Photo Raw #15.

More information: www.photoraw.org

SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT

Helsingin Sanomat wasn’t the only newspaper that has been writing about the Finnish Teens exhibition. Actually it looks like there has been articles and news about it all over the country. At least Hufvudstadsbladet, Turun Sanomat, Keskipohjanmaa, Hämeen Sanomat, Kaleva, Ilkka, Pohjalainen, Demari, Savon Sanomat, Karjalainen, Kotivinkki, and Ylioppilaslehti has published an article about the exhibition. Besides that there has been news about the exhibition in many web magazines and blogs like YLE, Suosikki, Nelonen, City, Finnguide, Luksusblog, Sateenkaarimaalari and This is Finland.

If you have noticed any stories pulished in any other media than mentioned above it would be great if you could drop me an email about it.

Cheers, Peki

Aki-Pekka Sinikoski: Finnish Teens

SINIKOSKI + RADIO x 2

Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE’s Radio1 has one of my favorite radio programs called Kultakuume. It’s a superb culture program and I got the honour to be interviewed for it by Kai Ristola. You can listen the interview HERE

Also the small nice underground radio called Lähiradio asked me to visit their culture program Aspe & Co. So if you want to listen to almost 45 minutes of me speaking, you can find the clip HERE. But I have to warn you, That’s a lot of speaking – but with some good tunes included as well.