I'm a Finnish photographer who currently resides in this small town called Jyväskylä in central Finland. I really dislike being called an artist, although some of my work could be described as “statements” with very little or no commercial value and with still considerable amount of time going into their production. Possibly I just wish not to be labelled and hold the fact that many people like my stuff in high regard on its own.

When someone gives you definitive rules about what not to do and what simply can't be done in photography, usually it just means someone isn't trying hard enough to break said rules.

I've tried to do things my way without hanging around other photographers, looking for tips and exchanging ideas even as great as that may sound. Somehow I just feel the need to build everything from the ground up without any help or influence. Usually when I want opinions about my images, I ask regular people and not pros, knowing that just about anyone knows what looks good and what they enjoy. From what I've noticed, a photographer would first ask what lens or camera you used before commenting anything about the subject matter. Gear talk gets so boring after a while. The digital age gives so many possibilities, even if one intends to keep things real. Just about everyone who ever held a decent camera for longer than 15 minutes, can understand that some if not all of the deeply founded ancient rules about photography are outdated, rules about how you should compose your shots to even seemingly practical advise like not pointing your camera directly towards the sun. I'd say do what you like, experiment and if you find someone else who also likes it... Even better, keep at it, get better at it. I'm so easy to talk into all kinds of shady improvised quick shooting scemes. If it's interesting enough, I'll do it for free. Don't be scared to contact me. Ideas are also welcome, try posting something on that Facebook page why don't you.

Some of the image descriptions on this site are written tongue firmly on the cheek. If you get offended by something you may read, please ignore them all and focus on images themselves. I'm a bit of a wiseass and do keep seeing things that make no sense around me, capturing them, sometimes also in written form. I'm far too opinionated for my own good and quite simply incapable of creating a website that does not bring at least an inkling of these clear character flaws into light, I do apologise.

-Sami Saarela

This site is the end-result of over six months of planning and all sorts of attempts I weren't one hundred percent happy with. I once had a similar site up and running and ready to be released when I decided that I want to built it from the ground up and avoid all the mistakes along the way. Now everything is exactly like I want as far as the layout goes. I wanted a site that looks dark, but not too dark. I wanted it to look stripped-down and simple but not hastily cobbled up.

This site is optimized for resolutions above 1280x1024, preferably around 1920x1200 and any functionality with Internet Explorer is purely unintended and strictly coincidental.

“I reject your reality and substitute my own.” -Adam Savage
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