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!
Update 20.2.2010: The article is now visible on my portfolio (link)
Just a week ago I arrived back from Sweden, Härnösand. There I was working for Softaaja magazine (or Airsoft Soldier as known internationally) on the photo reportage of the biggest airsoft event I have ever attended in.
This event, a four-day-long scenario game called Berget 7, was a very interesting one to cover. I was playing the role of an in-game photographer meaning that I was all the time – day and night – keeping close to others on my side (Separatist Reform Party i.e. SRP, while the other parties were NATO, Milo’s Tigers, Yuri Orlov’s Mercenaries and Civilians) who were mostly Finns too.
And not only did I have to capture some interesting photographs, my mission was to create an in-depth story of the whole trip so that everyone reading the reportage could get the image of being there. Thus staying focused on stories developing around me and writing captions for my photos on the fly were key elements to me.
The game itself was a great success. Our SRP forces outsmarted the others right from the beginning and we got a firm grip on the leading position. In the end SRP and its new allies crushed NATO and escaped to safety.
As I came back home with the huge pile of photos I was thinking to myself: “What a great experience!”, and then: “How in the World can all these photos be packed into a single article?!”
The thing is, I recall being told beforehand that the reportage had six pages reserved from the final magazine issue. Then we at the editorial negotiated afterwards on 10 to 12 pages, and finally, my photo story got overwhelming 14 pages! Seems like I did quite an impression on the people above me.
The photo reportage will be published in the 5th issue of Softaaja and probably in the 5th issue of Airsoft Soldier also so stay tuned and go get them when you can!
Few weeks ago I was photographing the collerctor’s cover photo for a Finnish airsoft magazine Softaaja. Our models Stefan (on left) and Janne were dressed up as post-apocalyptic scavangers inspired by the Mad Max movies and the Fallout game series. Stefan likes to describe himself as a cat hunter and Janne is a sand warrior.
Keeping the light simple was a good idea this time as the models were interesting enough in my opinion. One big light source comes with a very natural look while it’s still very pleasing to the eye also.
Even though we shot these in the afternoon it still was quite bright outside. That is why I chose to use a silver reflective umbrella as it’s the most efficient light modificator when used with my small 430EX strobe units. In addition I like the little rougher light coming out of the reflective umbrella compared to a shoot-through brolly as the light doesn’t scatter as much. I had two strobes instead of just one pointing in one umbrella so that I could turn their power a bit down to gain a faster recycling time.
The photo is taken with a Canon EOS 5D camera and a EF 17-40mm f/4L lens which is a combo I love. The strobes were triggered wirelessly using a ST-E2 transmitter.
Here’s three details from the image seen above:
The equipment those guys are wearing is epic. Self-made armor based on a hockey harness, real ammunition boxes and the outsoles of shoes, leather clothing, vintage sunglasses from the 50′s, laser protective goggles, self-made shoulder guard with chainmail and a steel plate protecting the heart (I made that, actually!), self-made pistol holster and the list goes on.
Underneath are two examples on the images that were used as reference while building up those layouts. Just to give you a clue what I’m talking about.
Screenshots from the early episodes of Fallout game series
Photo from the movie Max Max 2: Road Warrior starring Mel Gibson
The following photos are random snapshots from the same photo shoot. Just a neat little bonus to all of you hungry for backstage imagery.
Canon EOS 350D, EF 17-40mm f/4L @ 37mm, 1/4000sec, f/9, ISO 1600 (for the grainy look)
Yup. Today we travelled back in time to the second World War as Airborne troops. I was the war photographer (as usually) because I don’t have anywhere near as cool gear as Tomi and Janne! And someone has to do the dirty work anyway.
Canon EOS 350D, EF 17-40mm f/4L @ 17mm, 1/800sec, f/8, ISO 200
We were taking photos for Softaaja magazine so this is just a teaser because anything that may be published is kept secret for now.
Canon EOS 350D, EF 17-40mm f/4L @ 17mm, 430EX, 1/1000sec, f/6.3, ISO 200
My second magazine cover ever was published in the 5th Softaaja of this year! See the cover itself in the photo below… You can see the original shot under it.
Ruostehauta
Some photos shot by me in a post apocalyptic airsoft game were published in the same issue of Softaaja. See all the 73 photos of Ruostehauta by clicking the link underneath the photo below or click here.
Gear used: Canon EOS 5D, Canon EOS 350D, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, EF 90-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM
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!
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