The Diary of Sauli Hirvi » Photography

Oma Kaupunki Campaign

Sauli Hirvi — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 09:37:08 +0000

Last month, me and Marko Rantanen went shooting around the Helsinki metropolitan area for Helsingin Sanomat omakaupunki.fi ad campaign. “Oma kaupunki”, which translates as “My city”, is a site where people can exchange tips, events, news and services. The campaign theme is “Greetings from the neighborhood. This is what Oma Kaupunki is made of.” All the ads show how people can collaboratively participate in documenting their home town.

I shot with my Pentax ME and Marko used his Hasselblad XPan. I wanted to use film cameras to get a casual feel to the photos, like they were shot by ordinary people, but still remain stylish enough to be used in advertising. The look is largely based on my personal snapshots and the handwritten, care-free typography by Jenni Juntunen plays an important part.

The print ads are comprised of short collaborative stories about Helsinki with thematically related pictures.

The campaign also contains two fridge magnet outdoor ads where people can arrange words that describe Helsinki. The magnets are free to take home with you. And if that wasn’t enough, we have a multi-user banner where five persons per banner can arrange virtual fridge magnets.

Fridge magnet outdoor ad

Fridge magnet multi-user banner

"For free" ad in stores around Helsinki

Post-it sticker ad

Marko hanging from the ground

Some of my photos allocated for this campaign

Vacation Time

Sauli Hirvi — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:15:44 +0000

I started off my summer vacation by going to my girlfriend’s summer cottage. Not a cloud in the sky with temperatures near 30° C. The water in the lake was at best 23° C. Scenery was excellent, but you must pay a price to the mosquitos. Below, a photo of my feet after being drained gallons of blood.

Also got some nice national romantic shots.

[flickr album=72157624424742584 num=16 size=Square]

Polaroidin’

Sauli Hirvi — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:45:12 +0000

I purchased a Polaroid SX-70 from eBay and some PX 100 film from The Impossible Project. Unfortunately the exposure meter on the camera is malfunctioning. First it was giving inaccurate timings and now it’s stuck to a single shutter speed. Luckily it wasn’t too expensive so taking it to a repair shop will bring it to about the same price as other SX’s were on eBay.

What’s annoying is that a lot of film was wasted. PX 100 costs 18 € per film (8 photos) so these kinds of technical problems are understandably unwelcome. A year ago you could find Polaroid 600 film from eBay for as little as 10 € per pack, but now the prices have risen to well over 20 €. A sad state of affairs.

The PX 100 is a black and white film and has really nice sepia tones, and if you keep it warm while it develops the tones drift towards red. It gives everything a nice Fallout 3 like post-apocalyptic quality.

Speaking of Polaroid, Lady Gaga was appointed the creative director for a special line of Polaroid products and, more interestingly, Polaroid is planning to release a new film camera thanks to the availability of new 600 film.

Rollei Retro 400 S Impressions

Sauli Hirvi — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:04:11 +0000

I shot a few rolls of Rollei Retro 400 S and I must say it was the most difficult film I’ve used so far. The contrasts are pretty wild and exposure is hard to predict, but when you succeed the results are very pleasant. It has a dreamy quality to it. Over 50% of my shots were really underexposed, even though I overexposed them when shooting. It also might have been a mistake to push a few rolls to 1600…

Subsequently, I ordered 10 rolls of Ilford XP2 films from macodirect.de. Even with shipping the price was about half of what they cost in stores here. XP2 is a black-and-white film that uses C41 processing, which means you can develop them conveniently in one hour photo labs.

Here’s a few examples of the Rollei Retro shots:

Wikintage

Sauli Hirvi — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:01:11 +0000

I like old things; cameras, synthesizers and what-have-you, but a lot of times it’s a pain to find manuals and other documentation for them. For this purpose I created a little wiki for myself earlier this year. It’s a nice way to keep everything handy when you need it. Now I thought it would be nice to share it with others so if someone Googles for these specific manuals etc, they might find them here.

Check it out: http://saulihirvi.com/wiki/

And here, for no reason, is a photo of my Stylophone which – ironically – isn’t included in my wiki.

Bought a new lens once again

Sauli Hirvi — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:11:24 +0000

SMC Pentax-M 100mm f2.8 to be precise, shown below. With this, my repertoire contains a 28mm, two 50mm’s, 100mm and a 80-200mm zoom.

I went for a walk in Katajanokka today and saw an old man going for a swim in the sea. Managed to snap two photos of him.

I also shot a test roll in which I finally figured out how to use my Nissin 3200 GT flash. Turns out I had been using it in the wrong mode. The one with yellow, green and red circles was the correct one (i.e. auto mode). There was some helpful info here. My model doesn’t have those A (auto) and M (manual) markings. Nice to have it working for me now. Luckily, I had only wasted one test roll with the wrong setting.

Below is one photo from the flash tests. It came out wrong in just the right way.