Julius Koivistoinen is a young Finnish student passioned about photography. He's mostly self taught but has already been working as a photographer for a couple of magazines published not only in Finland but worldwide, and his photos have reached to become the cover shots of those magazines for plenty of times. In addition to commercial work, he loves to work on personal projects and with smaller clients. Currently he's available for assignments near Helsinki and Lahti. Be sure to visit his portfolio and Flickr page!
On the August 23rd I at last got to know with a sport which has fascinated me since a friend of mine told me about it many months ago in the army. He too is into fixed gear bikes and in addition has worked as a bike messenger in Helsinki back in the days. (Note: I actually photographed him a while ago riding a busy street on his fixie in Helsinki. See the photo in the end of this post!)
Bicycle Polo is a team sport similar to traditional polo, except that bicycles are used instead of horses. There is 3 players on each team and you may not touch the ground with your feet or you must go and “tap out” by riding to the mid-court and hitting either side of the court with your mallet.
We were playing in a court right next to the centre of Helsinki, in Hietaniemi. There was about 30 persons playing and watching the games in total.
The fixed gear bikes are ideal for this type of playing by the way, as with them it is very easy to “track stand” in a single position for example. When you’re totally in control of your bike with your feet only it’s a lot easier to concentrate on steering and waving the mallet with your hands.
Jump on this article to see the rest of the huge photos I took that sunny afternoon! (+ the photo of my friend Toni Aikasalo riding his badass fixie) Bike polo photos are taken using a Canon EOS 5D camera and objectives ranging from 50mm to 135mm.
Oh, and if you’re in one of the photos, feel free to share it on your Facebook profile for example, but be sure that the undersign is visible or add a caption “Julius Koivistoinen photograhy – http://www.julious.fi” to the image. And don’t forget to comment or at least hit the Facebook’s like button at the top of this article. Thanks!
In addition to airsoft guns I’ve been handling real deals for quite a while at work already but just now I got the chance to test out shooting with one.
During this week we were at a shooting range in Helsinki with Jarkko Koskinen from Rekyyli. The firearm I was practicing with was a 9mm pistol CZ-999. The model is used by the Serbian army.
Besides shooting from a standing position from the distances of 5, 10 and 15 meters, my accuracy was put on a test from a distance as great as 25 meters (27 yards) too. Those shots I fired the gun supported as seen in the video below. I shot five to six bullets at a time and I’m prertty proud of my best result: the pattern of six shots could be fitted in my fist.
Here’s some images from the shooting range photographed by Jarkko. The lights were set by me though.
Note: The following image is staged. The gun seen in the photograph was safely unloaded before taking the photo. Pointing towards someone with even an unarmed gun is strictly forbidden.
Strobist info: Bare 430EX strobe unit attached to the wall on my right side and another one far back in the shooting range lighting up the target. The strobes were triggered wirelessly using a ST-E2 transmitter.
Luckily Jarkko was carrying a video camera with him too. Here’s a short clip from the shooting range. The title is: “Julius uses his head”…
In other news…
I figured out that the photos of me and my bike I uploaded two weeks ago were so very lousy for not showing the beautiful bicycle in its full potential. So here’s an another try!
Kona Paddy Wagon and me shot with Canon EOS 5D and EF 135mm f/2L
I just fell in love with street photography again. I’ve been photographing the streets of Helsinki and went on a trip to Saint Petersburg where I documented the local people with my camera a lot too.
Or it might just be the camera particularly which is creating such a thrill in me.
For a long time I’ve been drooling after the Canon’s EOS 5D especially due to it’s full frame sencor and the advantages brought with it and the camera’s slim body also. So I finally took the plunge and got that camera body of my dreams!
A comparison between images taken on Canon EOS 350D and on Canon EOS 5D (Thank you Marja for being such a lovely model as always!)
Some of you might be thinking why didn’t I invest on the new 5D mark II instead, but I just don’t need all the features it has, so it would have been waste of money to me. I’ve been using the old 5D at work for a long time already so I knew what was the perfect choice for me.
One more thing before I let you to jump on the photos taken in St. Petersburg. I want to address my love towards the Canon EOS 5D + 50 mm prime lens combo by showing the following three images of one photograph. The images don’t just come out outstandingly sharp, but the focal length is just right on a full frame sencor. It is not too tight nor too wide, just perfect!
Canon EOS 5D, 50mm f/1.8: 1/800 sec, f/2.5, ISO 200 The first image is the photo uncropped, the last one is a 100% crop.
Ok, here they are (click the photo below). Please enjoy the gallery and maybe even leave a comment considering them here. Thanks!
Olin fanittamassa Mark Turusen kolmiloikkakisoja Eläintarhan eli Eltsun urheilukentällä elokuun 31. päivä. “Satuin” samalla ottamaan mukaani 135 millisen objektiivini testattavaksi, koska paloin halusta päästä kokeilemaan kyseistä putkea urheiluvalokuvaukseen. Otettiin myös pari muutaman minuutin kokovartalopotrettia. Kuvia:
Canon EOS 350D, EF 135mm f/2L USM, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, 430EX, ST-E2
View slideshow
Canon EOS 350D, EF 17-40mm f/2L USM, EF 50mm f/1.8 II, EF 90-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM, 430EX
“Skate SM miniramppi kisat järjestettiin Kiasman design minillä johon oli lisätty kaksi extensionia. Kisat hoiti kotiin Enis joka oli kuulemma juuri treenannut Espanjassa takapihan pooleja muutaman viikon ajan.
1. Enis Fazilov
2. Ville Mäkelä
3. Harri Puupponen”
For those who care, I apologise for neglecting this blog for such a tremendous amount of time, but let me explain myself…
First of all I’ve been out there living. On my summer holiday I travelled with Marja through the city of London exploring the urban culture and meeting new people for a week. Plus, there’s no London without a portion of fish and chips in an atmospheric pub! (There’s no photo of it though. Sorry!) We also enjoyed amazing local attractions in Saint Peterspurg while visiting my grandparents there and finished the whole package by going to Viljandi Folk Music Festival in the Southern Estonia. We were so dedicated to listening to music and dancing with Marja that we didn’t even take a camera with us. And that’s huge from us!
Here are some of our travelling photos from London and St. Petersburg:
Another reason for me not updating this blog has been work. I’ve been hired as photographer for three different magazines including Softaaja in which my work has been seen already previously. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for me to work in a studio and I have learned a lot! Many shots I have taken there are still waiting for their first publication in the magazines so you folks have to wait for a while for the newest pieces of my work. I’m pretty excited about them already.
Until then here’s some of my work for them:
I was shooting airsoft ages ago but didn’t link to the gallery from my blog. See the gallery from the link below: (Also, see how cool Väinö and his moustages look below.)
One more thing. There’s a new gallery of a skateboarding competition (SkateSM 08) coming up in the near future so stay tuned! Here’s few teasers for you:
Oh, and I bought a new lens but I will tell more about it later! You may guess what it is by judging from the following photo. *tease*
Have you ever wondered why some photography are lacking of the “wow”-factor and look flat while other shots may look so great that you drop? Maybe some photos look so amazing that you can’t even believe they’re real. Well that may be just the case…
(click the image for additional info about it)
I’d like to share a series of images where you can see the development of one of my photos (above) from the original file to the image which hopefully does indeed have some of that “woahness”. My post processing starts off with Lightroom’s basic brightness, color and contrast adjustments and after that I do dodging, burning, cloning etc. using Photoshop. It may sound pretty simple – and it is – but I think it really makes the difference!
Maaliskuun loppupuolella lumilaudan selässä menivät Tomi, Toni ja Jami (kuvassa) minun jälleen viihtyessä kameran toisella puolella. Meno oli entistä kovempi, mikä toivottavasti näkyy myös kuvista. Hope you enjoy ‘em!
Koulumme täyttää tänä vuonna todella pyöreitä: 100 vuotta tulossa täyteen. Tämän kunniaksi koulussamme on järjestetty erilaisia projekteja, joiden päämääränä on kohentaa koulurakennuksemme yleiskuvaa. Oma osanottoni koostuu valokuvateoksista, joissa pyrin käyttämään valoa luovasti. Kuvissa esiintyy vanitas-maalauksille (Vanitas Wikipediassa.) tyypillisiä symboleja pääkalloista lähtien. Kuvaamataidon opettajamme Pirjo sanoikin osuvasti: “Nyt sitten viimeistään tulevat nuo koulumme kaapeissa lymynneet luurangot esille.”
Kunkin kuvan valo on lähtöisin yhdestä ainoasta salamalaitteesta.
Lisätietoa kuvien esille panosta tulee kun synttärit koittaa.
Perjantai-iltaa 7.3. vietin Kesoilinmäellä ensimmäistä kertaa urbaania snoukkailua valokuvaten. Lumilautaan tarttuivat Toni ja Jami ja paikalla oli myös videokuvaaja, jota saan kiittää salamalaitteen lainasta! (Nimesi ei jäänyt mieleeni, joten laitathan kommenttia. ) Oli tosi mukavaa valokuvata temppuilujanne ja toivottavasti nähdään taas samoissa merkeissä.
In English: Last Friday I was shooting urban snowboarding for my first time and I enjoyed myself doing it! I hope I’ll get to do that more in the future.
Canon EOS 350D, EF 17-40 f/4L, 430EX, ST-E2 + A strobe from Sigma(?)
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