Finnfoto Award

(Kuva yllä tänään ilmes­ty­västä Kamera-lehdestä 12/2012, jossa pieni haastettelu). Kirjoitan tänään englan­niksi — toisella kotimai­sella kuten aina sanon. Perus­telen tämän jutun lopussa.

Remember Jaws? “Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water again…?”

I think this was the opening line of the trailer… Anyway, what can I say? I wrote in the beginning of my previous post that what really disturbs me is the lack of feedback… The past couple of days have — well, if not proven me wrong, but then at least compen­sated for it exponentially.

Feedback

First: thank you all for the honest, lovely feedback to my previous post. I’m totally blown away by the reaction. It’s been read by over 15 000 people — and shared by thousands. My wife who is a journalist in our local paper in Porvoo got a nice email from Itä-Uudenmaan pelas­tus­laitos (our local Fire- and rescue dept.) thanking for the feedback (I posted it in the comments). Plus the emails, phone calls, SoMe commentary, etc. I am totally mesmerized.

Naturally I hoped my sincere thanks would be read by as many as possible — but I was not prepared for this. See it in perspective: this is a country (and language) of less than 6 mil. people. Half of the population of Manhattan… Totally amazing number of people reacted to it.

I am news profes­sional and one of the unwritten “rules” is that good news is not news. Nobody cares about good news. Looking at the stats of this post and how people have been sharing it, I beg to differ. People do care.

For years (like twenty years ago) I had a piece of paper glued on my laptop. A quote from Roy Gutman, who just then had won a Pulizer: “The story that matters is what happens to people”. Looking at the the commentary of the previous post, I am reminded of this.

Another quote comes to mind — this one by Robert Chang, a CG artist I used to follow actively some years ago:

”We are only human, fragile and flawed, but in our moments of radiance we are capable of such profound beauty. It is those moments of radiance that makes this life worth living.”

I find my “moment of radiance” reading the commentary of the previous post. One more time: I thank you all.

Finnfoto Award

Second set of feedback: got an award yesterday. Sure, have gotten some before — and it always feels nice, even great — i.e. that what you do is appreciated. And yet, this time is different, it is huge. It is a great, great honor. I am sorry, I totally lack the adjectives…

The award is given by Finnfoto, which is the mother/umbrella organization (so to speak) of all our photo­graphic organiza­tions, including press, nature, adver­tising, etc. photo­graphy in this country,

And I did not get it because I snapped (God I hate that word…) a nice picture or entered a compe­tition of some kind. The award is given for a person who has “substan­tially influenced the development of Finnish photo­graphy and created possi­bi­lities for greater unders­tanding and appreciation of photo­graphy” (my trans­lation). I was honored by this award for defending the rights of photo­graphers, their right to maintain and control their own imagery.

Looking at the list of names who have received this award in the past (all 15 of them) leaves me speechless. Some of these are household names as photo­graphers, some of them are names on the back of photo­graphy books on my shelf.

I know: I turned fifty this year, but I feel like a fifteen year old rookie next to these icons of our photo­graphic history.

I am deeply, deeply honored.

Personal anecdotes

I just want to share (today I am allowed to bable, right?) two funny things which happened yesterday and the day before.

First, Finnfoto sends a press release a day in advance, with EMBARGO until 12 o’clock tomorrow written with red ink.

Well, naturally, lot’s of my friends work in the media. So my Facebook Wall starts immediately having “Congrats”-messages from e.g. Journa­listi (trade newspaper), STT/Lehtikuva (the biggest news/picture agency) and Journa­lis­ti­liitto (our union). I’m all smiling, pleased and happy… but respond immediately: “…like, I am sorry but I thought there was an embargo until tomorrow..?” and everyone goes like “oh shit, damn.…”

Kinda funny, makes you feel good when your personal friends, competent and profes­sional news people just get so carried away that they — just for a moment ‑drop their profes­sional guard. No, it was not negli­gence, it was just plain funny and I so laughed aloud (and appreciated it) when I saw it. (You can actually see some of that corres­pon­dence on my FB Wall…)

Then yesterday, when the news was released :-) : I was despe­rately trying to edit a series of pictures to my client. Working on assignment I only had my 11″ Air with me. And it has a small screen. And I had notifica­tions turned on… And call me vain, but I did not want to turn if off.

I had hard time seeing the pictures on the screen because my computer went “beep, beep, beep.…” and every two seconds there was a message from a friend (or a new friend) congra­tu­lating. It was so funny, people around me in the press room must have thought “turn that damn computer volume off and what on earth are you smiling about”…

Anyway, I guess that was the 15 minutes of fame we always talk about… But tell you this: I enjoyed every second of it.

Conclusion

Those of you who read Finnish I would like to refer to a column I wrote for Journa­listi, published today. When it comes to media and our future in it as photo­graphers and media profes­sionals, I strongly believe that we are on a brink of something totally different. Not neces­sarily an abyss, but something which we have to prepare for and take an active role in. And to do it now.

Please forgive me (or maybe you just say “Thank God…” :-) ) I will not pursue this theme further today. I will in the future, trust me. Today I will just enjoy… well: life.

And today it feels good. Really good.

_____________

PS. 

Kirjoitin yllä englan­niksi, kuten yleensä tässä blogissa olen tehnyt. Kieli­va­linta on kysymys, jota en ole pystynyt ratkai­semaan ja siihen tuskin on kaikkia tyydyt­tävää ratkaisua.

Toisaalta olisi hyvä kirjoitaa suomeksi — lukija­kunta olisi varmasti laajempi ja tyyty­väinen. Mutta: puhues­samme esim. tekijä­noi­keuk­sista tai monista alaamme liitty­vistä asioista ja epäkoh­dista on selvä etu, että puhun myös maamme rajojen ulkopuo­li­sille lukijoille. Tiedän, että jotkut tämän blogin jutut ovat erittäin luettuja myös muilla kielia­lueilla ja että joihinkin juttuihini viitataan myös aika paljon. Hemmetti, onhan jopa LA Times pyytänyt blogin kommen­teissa anteeksi idiot­ti­maista käytöstään. :-)

Konkreet­tinen osoitus tuli myös viime Vuoden Lehti­kuvat palkin­to­gaa­lassa, kun ruotsa­laiset kollegat tulivat terveh­timään ja sanoivat: “Kiitos, sinun blogisi on se lähde, josta tiedämme mitä Suomessa tapahtuu…” Vaikkei tietysti pidä paikkaansa ehkä näin, mutta minun on pakko ottaa myös tällaiset näkökannat huomioon.

Olen ajatellut, että kirjoitan jatkossa ristiin, kieltä vaihdellen, niinkuin oikealta tuntuu. Puhtaasti tekniset, pohdis­ke­levat jutus­telut toisella kotimai­sella, mutta asiat joissa selkeästi viittaan meidän omaan mediaamme etc. sitten tällä äidinkieliosastolla.

Toivot­ta­vasti lukijani ymmär­tävät tämän — ja kommen­tointi on aina terve­tullutt luonnol­li­sesti aivan millä kielellä itsestä hyvältä tuntuu.