I don't think I quite got that...

actually I didn't: from Kiasma swag

If you're going to be late in Finland, it is good to have a good reason as lateness is, to put it mildly, somewhat frowned upon - and as excuses go 'I had to wait for Tarja Halonen to get out of my way' is not bad when being (almost) late for something. That's Finland's President Halonen if you didn't realise.

You might have read my post last month about me being one of the winners in the Ola Kolehmainen / Kiasma / Nokia Ovi valokuvakilpailu (photography competition).  As their site says, Ola chose 14 photos by 11 people (3 of which were mine - Zinc Slash Tree, Finlandia and Curves) from the 96 entrants.  Well on Friday I got my prize (luckily I wasn't too held up by a certain important person in reception) - a workshop with Ola on our efforts and tour of the show with him, which was also photographed for posterity.

 

Ola explains all... do I look like I get it?

If you look carefully at this picture you can see Ola commenting on some of my photographs. (He was interested in how these pictures went from 'documentary' to 'half documentary/half abstract' (crop out the sky...), to totally abstract; the difficulty on using a culturally, and meaning loaded building like the Berlin Jewish museum as a subject for 'abstract' photography; and also why I had chosen those pictures/subjects).  He also was extremely conversant with the buildings and architects themselves, which was interesting to me (as the only architect in the room) but perhaps over the heads of some of the others.  

Or perhaps not... Unfortunately the ten minutes while we discussed them was the only time spent speaking English for almost three hours - so it was hard to tell.  While what little I followed seemed interesting, you'll understand why I'm looking a bit blank in the photos.  I think he was discussing how naming the pictures changed them (eg. the picture of the reflection of Mies' Barcelona Pavillion 'Less Less Is Is More More' becomes a discourse on minimalism), and also how chance and accidents in the darkroom can totally change a picture even when carefully pre-planned and considered (a white building becomes vivid yellow; a magpie lands on a window ledge; a tiny weed grows unseen from behind a metal disc...), amongst other things, but... He was however kind enough to say he hoped I got something out of it at the end - probably noticing my glazed look!

We did also get a swag-bag from Kiasma (contents pictured below for authentic anal-retentive micro-blogging) - including a very apt t-shirt and pad of post-it notes considering my struggles... but my foolish dreams of shiny Nokia kit or photography books were dashed. Never mind - a fascinating day in any case.