TOMAS WHITEHOUSE

Representing my first time out with the prestigious Andrea Joki and also only my second time shooting children’s portraits.
Maia is Andrea’s lovely daughter and she’s fairly experienced when it comes to posing for a picture so I was lucky, very lucky.

Andrea and I have talked many times on the phone, via email, she’s one of those people that has a seriously cool and interesting story to tell, I thought I had reasonably cool ex-jobs but Andrea has worked for NASA which certainly trumps playing guitar in a punk rock band.  Anyway, we have been fans of each others work for some time, also conspiring to shoot together for a while too but one thing or another presents itself as an obstacle and we’ve always had to postpone.
Today was a spur of the moment call, both a little frustrated with sitting indoors editing or tending to the infinite loose ends of photography related business (Y’know the kind that doesn’t involve taking any pictures whatsoever), so we had the idea of shooting Maia with my dog Maddie out somewhere nice.

Andrea had picked out a beautiful location somewhere in the rolling dales of Fagervik near Inkoo. Now, when she kindly came and picked myself and Madeline up from downtown Helsinki, it was around +33°C, a rarity for Finland and way too hot for some as neatly illustrated by the poor woman passed out in the middle of the street awaiting a paramedic.

Anyhoo, after a pleasant and air conditioned drive we arrived on location and I immediately compelled myself to break my flip flop and nearly pull my back out carrying my Avenger boom. Yes, it is true that intelligence and grace are not my strongest characteristics.
It was clearly going to be one of those days and of course this was confirmed by my own personal swarms of vicious paarma, horseflies that land on sweaty dark mammals (like me), proceed with an incision of a surgical nature and begin to drink all the blood they can. The self same jobs that carved a chunk from my brothers head last year during our sporadic Elvis flex.

So, I conclude that the phrase ‘Never work with kids and animals’ should be replaced with ‘Avoid working in proximity to Paarma’.

Aside from minor flesh wounds and blood loss, I really, really enjoyed the day. Johanna Merenheimo was kind enough to join us with her children, who teamed up with Maia to entertain Maddie and keep her cool.
Madeline had a superb day, made a whole bunch of new friends and was lucky enough to spend the majority of the afternoon free from a leash, lazing in the shade and being fed nutritious bugs by Maia and the Merenheimo gang.

My only regret was letting the heat (and the paarma) get the better of me, Andrea has some Alien Bee’s and I have eager to have a play around with these for some time. Next time!

Lighting wise, we relied on my trusty Profoto AcuteB 600R and D4 head, a 170cm octabox, Pocket Wizards Plus II’s and an Avenger D600 boom arm with A0030CS base. I also took the opportunity to use the Lee Filters ND’s I had bought a couple months ago to achieve much wider apertures in brighter conditions.

A huge thanks to Andrea, Maia, Madeline, Johanna and family. Cheers folks!

Andrea’s shots & Behind the scenes

My set on flickr