Where did it all start?

• First Quartet
• Can You See It?
• First Sentence
• Children of the Universe

I got, from HUS (the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa), an assistive device for the visually impaired, with which text, for example, can be easily enlarged. When the device was introduced to me, I asked, can I take a picture with this? Which can be saved? You could not do that with the one in my hand, but one device was found with which pictures could be taken and saved and I was asked if I wanted it.

Oh, do I want it?

This opened up a whole new world for me that I had never seen before: the device magnifyed everything small and interesting. One time I even went out with it, but I found that the device is so important to me that I cannot risk breaking it outside.

First Quartet

In 2018, I participated in a group exhibition in Malmi and was amazed at the attention the pictures received. The quartet's pictures include moss, wood and ice, among other things. I had an interesting journey ahead of me with the magnifying device. The idea has already been summed up like this:

­Its mission is to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.­

USS Enterprise

Since the objects being photographed are impossible for me to see without an assistive device, they could also be other suns somewhere in space. Therefore, the images have been named after different solar systems:

Sigma dragon

Ophiuchi

Ksii bootis

Beta hydri

So I photographed a wide variety of things in my home that the Pebble magnifying device brought out to me. From the pictures of 2018, you can see that the colour scheme is still relatively narrow. In my opinion, there are major differences compared to the images of 2019, but also similarities.

In 2018, I had taken about 600−800 pictures that were quite acceptable. Then with these images started a big elimination process, as even the slightly recognisable images were easy to eliminate. The further the elimination progressed, the more challenging it became until there were about a hundred pictures left.

Can You See It?

Selecting pictures always requires the work of many months. As I had pictures of which I did not know if anyone could even be interested in them, the work seemed a little bit hopeless. In order to know if this made any sense, I agreed with Anni Hanén that she would come to look at my pictures.

I've been attending Anni's classes since 2015, and I have not encountered another teacher as great as she. Often the lessons have been challenging, because I feel that I see the photo series so differently. I hope the teaching has developed my vision.

A big challenge is also that I can see the images well enough only in suitable conditions.

Anni got to look at the pictures on my computer, where they were easy to see clearly on the big screen. She pointed out that there are bound to be questions about the granularity of the images.

This was good information that I cannot see. Since the pictures are mine, their granularity brings the viewer to my world, which is pretty blurry.

Next, Anni moved in front of my wall, where the pictures were printed. Then things started to happen: In less than five minutes, Anni took some pictures, turned them around, accepted a part of them, put ten pictures on the table in two rows and told how the series progressed.

Since, of all the picture series, understanding this one has been the biggest challenge for me, it could have been called Can You See It?

First Sentence

I was in Lea Kömi’s two−year exhibition project course at community college. After Anni took the raisins out of the bun, I started working, with the rest of the pictures, on a series of pictures for the exhibition. Lea always cut out inappropriate images if necessary. I will forever remember how I had 15 pictures in three rows and Lea put down her hand and calmly removed the last image of each row. So the series of images was formed slowly.

After the first exhibition and for the spring exhibition, we presented our photo series to Leena Saraste, who told me that do it this way or that way, it will be good, but in the other way even better.

Under the tutelage of Lea it was good to work on the First Sentence, and even at the last minute one picture was changed. For me, this series of images opened up, when looking at it from further away, you started to see completely new forms in the whole, which had just emerged during the selection of images.

Children of the Universe

The images taken in 2019 show more colours and forms. After a hard elimination, there were about 150 pictures when Leena Saraste and I started working on the series of pictures via email. Almost six months went by in this way because of the coronavirus, but when Leena came to visit, there were only about a hundred pictures left.

At this point, I already had the dream that three strong and skilled women would be among the creators of the series of my pictures. I gave Leena carte blanche after telling her my own vision that the series of images would not be unambiguous but complicated. This is how the Children of the Universe were born in a two−hour session.

It is a special way of doing things and I do not know whether there has been a similar cooperation anywhere. I am grateful and happy, because these series of images clearly show everyone's own signature.

Tero Kokko