INTRODUCING NICK TULINEN
I come from Finland, where the sun, during the winter, rises at 9 a.m. and goes down at 3 p.m., not much time for daylight pictures ;) It doesn’t matter though, I have a flash for when I shoot in the evening! I’m 27 years old and started the camerawork 20 years ago when I got a Hi8 video camera for my 8th birthday. We used to live on the countryside so I made loads of nature and animal documentaries with voice-over. I was always interested in art and did a loads drawings and stuff like that, but at the first time I was taking pictures before I really focused on photography in my late teenage years. My girlfriend at the time used to do nude modeling at the local art-school, she’d let me also draw her posing on weekends when I stayed the night at her parents. We used to hang around naked a lot. I remember the first time when I was taking pictures of her, it was in the shower in beautiful natural light from a small window. Too bad I’ve lost those pictures by the years… Thinking now of these times, I believe they shaped my present obsession with sexuality, sincereness and nudity in my work. As in contradiction with my more abstract huge paintings, my pictures always seem to be presented in a smaller format, honest and more straight forward. I always tend to work in series, focusing on the space in between the pictures, striving to develop confusing feelings. The arrangement of the pictures is very important for me, but it depends on the space they are presented. I’ve always wanted to experience and see new things in life, I love nature, meeting new people but I’ve always been a very sensitive guy. Photography and art in general has been a tool for me to process the past. My wife says that I have an obsession to buy a new camera, or accessories once or twice a year. My latest fetish camera would be the Olympus Mjuu I bought from Germany last summer. I’ts the smallest good quality pocket film camera I’ve ever used. I now have it with me everywhere I go! It’s “All-Weather” so guess It’s really good for Finnish extreme weather conditions. I’ve been using it in the sauna too!
This is my wifes crazy black horse is Belinda. I wanted to take a picture of her in complete darkness.. So we had to go in the woods that there would be no extra lights around. After shooting a few pics we had to stop immediately because the horse started walking funny. She must had got blinded by the flash and we didn’t want 600kg tripping on us. But the picture turned out really good with a bit of craziness captured. I don’t really follow photography that much these days, though I want to honour Jouko Lehtola who died this year, he documented the Finnish youth culture of my generation in a very beautiful honest style. He is a legend and died a bit too early. RIP.
