Photo|Artika takes pictures of nature partly because viewing them reduces people’s stress.
Photographer Jarno Artika (b.1976) has been awarded in the international Nature Photographer of the Year competition.
Artika’s picture Old and wise surrounded by treefield and melting snow was awarded second place in the Plants and Fungi series. There are a total of twelve series in the contest, to which almost 23,000 photos from 96 countries were submitted.
Awards was shared on Saturday, December 14th in the Netherlands in connection with the Nature Talks Photo Festival. The awards were given now for the ninth time.
Artika was excited about the results at home. He says on the phone that he was surprised that the journalistic photo was successful.
“Portrait photos seem to do well in competitions like this. A little more stylized pictures, so to speak.”
In Artika’s opinion, the award-winning picture shows “a beautiful and strange old pine tree with other pine trees around it”. They tell a story that he hopes the viewer will notice.
“The rest of the trees are wood fields, about eighty-year-old forest ripe for felling. And then there is one old Karelia pine.”
He wants to draw the viewer’s attention to the fact that Finland’s forests, with the exception of national parks, are practically wood fields.
“There is no diversity in them compared to old forests.”
In addition to the trees, the picture shows snow melting around the trees. It refers to climate change and warming.
“A lot of story, even though it looks like a pretty picture in the forest.”
He took the photo from Patvinsuo National Park when he returned at the end of March.
“My wife and I were hiking and filming. It was a nice day, I got some snowshoes. There is a great road from Patvi to Lieksa. There I noticed a tree. I saw that there are many things right here.”
Artika had a drone with her and took the picture.
“I like to shoot with a drone from a bird’s eye view. It illuminates the world in a different way than we are used to seeing.”
from Joensuu According to his own words, a freelance photographer has to do “everything”. Magazine photography has decreased due to the situation in the industry.
Nature photography and observing nature is Artika’s hobby.
“In addition to the beauty of nature and animals, I like to photograph people in nature or traces of people in nature.”
The pictures tell journalistically how humans affect nature. Nature also affects people. The nature picture has the same effect.
“When you look at a picture of nature for a couple of minutes, research has shown that it reduces stress and brings a good mood. One of the reasons to go there and go around photographing these things is to bring it to people who can’t get to nature and see it for themselves.”