We started the project from Revelstoke, Canada late last year and currently we are filming in Hokkaido, Japan. With record-breaking snowfalls Japan is the place to be at the moment!

Antti and Miikka Hast at Revelstoke, BC Canada.

Photographer Jani Kärppä from Lappikuva and Antti just before the last run of the day. Me and Jani decided to take a run just for fun after hard day of hiking and filming and Antti had enough energy to tag along. According to Antti the backcountry code goes like: “Never leave your buddies” and thats the way it should be at all times when you are out there with your friends!

New tools for the trade. I wanted to take it easier this year and decided to get a split-board. It saves energy and hikes are way more easier when you don´t have to carry your board and struggle through the deep snow. For steeper and shorter runs I still prefer my regular (goofy) board!

Japan randomness clockwise from top left: #1 Check out this gallon of whisky, Jani is having a laugh and wondering should we take some quality time off from the slopes? #2 Some Japanese guy recognized Antti at local grocery store and wanted to have a photo with him. #3 Our car just before arriving at Niseko, check out that huge pile of snow at the roof! #4 You can get everything from the vending machines, this one had toys, toys, toys and seeds to grow your own radish!

This was the result after flights from Helsinki via Copenhagen to Bergen in Norway. Thank you SAS! With this protector filter they smashed my 1TB external hard-drive. Both items packed inside tough Dakine bag, wrapped around with couple of shirts, fleeces and beanies. I made the complaint of damaged gear during flight but never got response. After couple of months I called back and the process was started but it has been six months and nothing, not even excuses.

Here is another pic of my trusty old 80-200 Nikkor which was fine after I changed the smashed filter. Another good reason for wearing one at all times!

This photo was part of exhibition called Harhalaukaus. It was on display at Bar Kuka in Turku last year and at bar Cafe&Pint also in Turku this year. It contained photos from seven different photographers. Photos were eventually sold in auction for charity.

Harhalaukaus, “misfire” or  actually “missed shot” in english was about accidentally taken or somehow ruined photographs that otherwise would have been considered useless.

My photo was taken at Scrapbook sessions 2008 in Rovaniemi. Shot was meant to be a backlit photo of snowboarder Miikka Hast. I snapped a photo with my old Yashica D, on the background I saw Teo Konttinen spitting water on the kicker and thought that I needed another, this time clean shot of Miikka. I forgot to advance film and took another photo double exposing them by accident. Result you can see above. I think it is much more interesting this way though.

Photo of the exhibition at Bar Kuka by Niko Vähäsarja, thank you very much Niko for making the exhibition happen!

Equipment that I use are supposed to be made for frequent use and they should last the normal wear and tear, without me looking after them with excess care. I admit that I am not the most caring people when it comes to my equipment, but still it happens so often that I can do nothing but wonder the quality of products nowadays.

I wanted to start a new category to my blog because of this and here is the first entry:

It is a flash shoe adapter. Cheap stuff but still designed poorly. Manfrotto should be selling these in 6 packs or something because they are just not made to last, crappiest stuff I have to carry in my bag. Shown in the photo broken in two different ways, one on the left is still holding flash but it is spinning freely and can be pulled out from its socket with your hand. One on the right will not hold a flash in it, you can see the cracks on the top.

Title of this post is stolen from an album of  90`s pop punk band, guess what!

Miikka Hast BS1 at Revelstoke on World Snowboard Day 2011

New season had great start from Revelstoke, BC, Canada. I arrived in Canada a week ago to film with Antti Autti. Antti joined Protest team riders Miikka Hast and Jonas Hagström who also decided to start their new Snowtour from here due to good early season conditions BC has to offer.

Check out more from:

anttisworld

Protest Snowtour

World Snowboard Day

More photographs from my phone. Clockwise from top left:

View toward the most famous fjell in Finland. Saana tunturi, as we call it in Finland, is located near Norwegian border, you pass it by on the way to Tamok. We never got to ride Saana, well maybe this year we hike up and take some turns.

This shot is from Folgefonn, Norway. It is a summer ski center and there was a lot of snow in may, in fact we got stuck on this road couple of times because of the new snow, and crappy rental car (not the red one you see here). This is the roadgap that can be seen briefly in Antiout. Landing was totally flat.

Helicopter pick-up is from Tamok, Norway. Really nice place and superb mountains! When there is no helicopter around you have to hike, no lifts, snowcats or even snowmobiles allowed.

Last one is my own DIY telecine. I transferred all the Super8 materials seen in Antiout by myself. Replaced projector lamp with led light and projected S8-film straight to DSLR equipped with macro lens. Great way to digitize your Super 8`s, quality is awesome. I will post another, more detailed story of this later.

This was interesting setup. Small camcorder fitted on this crazy  radio controlled helicopter in Folgefonn, Norway. We were supposed to get some of the footage from heli operator but the weather was really bad all the time and we were not able to do anything with this. Thats bad, it would have been great to see what this little thing can do. It was pretty cool looking thingy I have to admit.

Instead of crazy helishots we made a video that actually shows you how bad the weather was, check it out!

This photo of Ville Paumola was published in photo issue (03/2011) of Slammer magazine.

Another, similar shot of Antti Autti I used in Kinos 748 movie poster.

We had photo sessions in the park and after that took some powder shots with Antti. Ruka had already something like 40cm of fresh snow and it was so fun to start the season in Finland with good conditions.

Just like the good old days. 26th of november 2009 it was totally different than what we have now.

Slammer magazine

Kinos 748 full movie

Kinos 666 full movie

Some random photos from Japan in february 2011. Taken with my phone. I dont know are these actually making of shots or what, but something like behind the scenes anyways.

Clockwise from top left corner: Some days it was snowing all the time, this is what my camerapack and board looked like after 10 minutes of shooting. Second angle camera usually got buried in snow and you needed to go clean it up.

Lunch of the day, no restaurants in the backcountry so you have to carry everything that you eat with you, and take the thrashes back! Water, apple, bread, some Soyjoy and chocolate to make you hike around for 6-8 hours.

My tripod in the snow. After standing in one place for some time, snow gets packed below and you basically dig a hole for yourself. I used a shovel in this one but the good thing is that snow makes your tripod way more rigid.

The last one is from Tokyo, ma and photographer Jani Kärppä were sipping Sake from 2dl tetrapaks and shooting timelapse in the night. It was cool.

Wappulounas, the legendary snowboarding event where you don´t need to be serious or competitive, just taking part or being there is enough to ensure the fun. I made the video with some help from a fellow cameraman and original Northlight Pictures founder member Jukka Heikkilä from Bro Productions.

For more info about Wappulounas, check out their website.

Music from J.O.S at soundcloud.com/huh-huh-records

After five years or so that I have been getting my photos published regularly I finally got couple of covers in Finnish magazines. Both of these shots were done very quickly but in totally different settings. Both use available light.

Skier Kalle Leinonen was shot in Ruka half-pipe during a recess in a moguls contest that I was capturing on video, we had maybe 30 minutes to shoot. No problem, Kalle climbed up the pipe, did one test run and after that couple of hits more and it was done in less time we had. I was happy with the results.

Snowboarder Antti Autti was shot in New Zealand. We saw this good looking transition couple of days before on the way up in a helicopter, hit it and I got good landscape photo of it. Came back to the same place and I wanted to shoot this time in portrait orientation. We wanted to do as many runs as possible to get more things done, so no time to waste with heli waiting and superb spots with great snow all around. I rode to the spot where I wanted to shoot, grabbed my camera from backpack, set videocamera on a tripod, made the shot, packed everything up and thats it. Maybe 5 minutes in total. This was our first run of the day and I can`t imagine a better way to start one when you are up there in the mountains.