Muutos - Change

Two weeks ago, my boyfriend Topi and I went to the studio to take some pictures of an idea I've had in mind for a few months.

It was really fun, throwing flour on our faces and syrup all over Topi's body. Sadly the syrup went in his eyes so he couldn't open his eyes at all :D for or all the shooting long..

Many told me "oh my god Karina, you take naked pictures of yourself!" Come oon... There is only my shoulders on the photos AND just to make you know, I actually have my pants on, and no straps bras. 

:)

So I took the pictures, yay it was fun, the series' title is "When two worlds become one" and it's kind of personal but, thats the pictures I'm using for our school's exhibition "Muutos" which means "Change".

The exhibition starts on friday (in two days) so if you read this article and you are in Finland, welcome!

https://www.facebook.com/events/603026353041078/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Here's the facebook event, if you're interested, all informations are there.

I've been so busy lately with job interviews, this exhibition and all ! I can't wait to calm down. Then I'll be able to do allllll the personal projects I have in mind. I'm so motivated and inspired !

Tomorrow I'll write a new article about another shooting.

By the way, I updated my website. Take a look ! http://www.karina-boissonnier.com/

Therapeutic selfportraits

So, I thought about talking about selfportraits today. More precisely about 

therapeutic selfportraits

.

What does it mean ? 

Well, it fixes you as soon as you take it ! :) No, not really, at least it depends on you and your problems. 

But let's say it's like talking about your problem to a good friend of yours.  You feel a lot better and released. 

But I can't talk about it like it would work for everyone, and every person has its one way of getting better and forgetting problems. 

Mine is taking a selfportrait. Why ? Because I can put my feelings on the table. "This is how it is." and I even use them to get a better image. (That's actually kind of fun," hey, i'm sad, that's so awesome i'll take a picture!") But yes when you use all of your feelings to take an image, it gets stronger. Because I think this is how arts work. With feelings. 

Why take a selfportrait ? Personally it's because the picture is getting so personal I would never use a model who could never know how I really feel so it's damn hard to get a great picture.

I don't know if therapeutic selfportrait is the right name to give to what I really want to talk about. It works only for sad or angry feelings, but not happy. 

But yeah, of course, I also use my happy feelings to take some pictures, it's an awesome way to show the world I'm happy, and also get all the feelings out of me, like exploding. Because when I'm happy, I'm so happy I want to do crazy things, and taking a picture is a perfect way of "exploding". 

Argh what the hell am I even writting.

The point is, taking personal selfportrait, therapeutic ones and "showing the world I'm happy" ones is something I have done for like one year, and I noticed it two months ago and decided to make a complete project of it. The most personal project I can think of. Revealing the pictures' meaning would mean I reveal my deepest secrets. :) But I thought I could name the project "My story" or something like that. That's something I could do all my life long like a diary.

And when I'll be old I'll look at all the pictures smiling and remembering everything. :D

But really, I love taking this kind of selfportraits when I'm down. I think it has something to do with my love for photography. I mean I think I'm a little crazy and I feel like photography is my best friend. Taking a therapeutic selfportrait makes me feel like I'm telling to photography my problems, and he listens to me and tells me everything is okay and offers me a picture I can be proud of.

Hey!

What the ..! That's my fever speaking, don't listen to it.

I can't deny these pictures are the ones I like to take the most.  Even if I'm under the stress, sad, sick, happy, busy, anything, I always take a pleasure shooting. And it never takes much. Usually I get the idea like *boum* suddenly, and then 5minutes later I'm taking the picture and then I photoshop it, aaand it's ready.

Weirdly all my best pictures are taken like this. Not prepared and fast.

Anyways, being sick made me some good. I'm even more motivated for stuff and I really can't wait to get healthy.  I'm gonna do so muchh ! School stuff, clean my room, personal projects, shopping, party hard and shit :D 

And I got so much new ideas for the future. New awesome goals. 

I started to feel sad about myself, I'm full of ambitious and ideas but I don't do anything to make them come true.

Then I realized I'm 18 years old. And I still study.

So I have to calm down.  

Why the hell am I always on a rush.

And why the hell am I writting stuff that doesn't make any sense, again ?

Doesn't matter. I kept you informed about what's going on. What I'm doing in photography right now.

Actually i haven't said everything. I started a portrait series one week ago. I'm going to take a picture of all my friends, and my family. :) I'll print and put them on my wall.

I'll make an article about it when I'll have at least 10 pictures.

I can't find anything else to say.

Even if I'm sure I forgot to say 75% of what I wanted to say about therapeutic selfportraits.

One day I'll make an awesome and REAL article about it. But not on this blog ... ;-)

News

Lately I've been kind of busy for many reasons. Ups and downs.

But I guess I have time now to focus on photography and school again. 

I feel like I have so much to do. (In a really good way.) I counted 12 different projects, they all include at least 10 images. It's crazy but I know I won't get bored :)

Haha I can feel that I haven't written anything for a while because I write like an idiot, or maybe it's because it's 6:41am and I haven't slept yet.

Dunno.

Anyways, I have some news here.

I started to sell photography books (Only photos, all my best work until now.)

You can order it.. here -> ... http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/4141816-karina-boissonnier-photography

Then, I started a project, it wasn't really planned, I just started to do it. I want to keep the idea and explanation of the project for myself because it's really personal. 

I show the pictures anyway, you can use your imagination to think of their story. :)

Both are selfportraits.

I love taking selfportraits so much, for so many reasons. (NO, one of the reasons is not that I think I'm a good model, because I'm NOT.)

This week end I'll be doing some school exercices, but when they'll be ready, I can take pictures of my 100000projects!

I thought about taking one selfportrait for the project above. 

Then two photos for the portrait series I'm starting to do.

Then another project (I won't say the idea yet ! You'll know when I'll publish the images)

I'm full of ideas. Really. I don't know how many times I'll have to say that but DAMN, I love photography so much.

I know I have to shoot for my angels and demons project, just so I can start the death project and others but I feel so inspired and motivated right now for the personal one and the portrait series that I don't want to do finish it right away.

And I must admit that the ideas I have for the Angels and Demons project are really twisted and complicated, I need time to prepare everything. I want to do something really perfect.

I'm tired, again. (I feel like everytime I'm writing here, I haven't slept and I'm tired). 

I told all the news, yay, that's cool.

Oh I forgot.

I'm looking for a job ! Weddings, family photos, commercial, anything. I'm opened to everything.

(I need a work for this summer and eventually something for school time.. It's hard to be a student ;) )

Yep, but I'm done. I'll keep you in touch about what I'll come up with in the end of this weekend and write an article just for it. :)

About me ?

I thought I could write a little something about me.

Never did it before. It's nice to do it for the first time.

Let's start with the 20th day of May in 1994. It's the day I was born. In France at Fontainebleau. Lucky me, I wasn't alone when I saw the sun and breathe the outside air for the first time. There also was my twin brother who was born 9 minutes  before.

Nobody believes me when I say it, but Kalle is on the right side of the photo.

Anyways.

When I was a kid, I wasn't easy at all, I was crazy and I got sick all the time. (Actually I'm still hard to live with ;) )

But I already found my passion for arts, the first time someone put a pen in my hand. Starting from this moment, all i did was drawing. 

Ok, there wasn't only drawing, I loved chess, karate and dressing up random clothes.

I was really young when I wanted to be a Karateka. (Like 4 years old ?) I chose Karate, and I think the reason is that I didn't know any other martial arts back then.  Unfortunately there wasn't any club that would let me do karate because I was too young.

But 2 years later at the age of 6 I could finally be a great karateka ! haha

A few years later I wanted to play chess. So I had two serious activities. Karate and chess. Seriously I had like every weekend a competition, and everyday after school was taken because of lessons and trainings.

My plans for the future changed all the time, but they always had something to do with arts. I wanted to be a painter like my mother, a random drawer, oh and I also wanted to be a comic drawer.

But yeah ! 

When I was 7, I got my first camera as a birthday present. A digital one, with 1,3megapixels :D

My favorite model was my dog Gin. He was really good-looking.

After this day, my passion for drawing started to die, and my passion for photography started to grow.

I don't know when I decided I wanted to be a photographer. It came to me so obviously. Like true love!

But even though I wanted to be a photographer at the age of 10, I didn't really take it seriously, I just liked to take pictures all the time, without thinking about what I was doing.

I think it's in high school it really started when I got my first SLR camera (Canon 500D).

It was so fun. I don't know why but I started directly to use manual settings. Nobody told me to do it, I didn't read it anywhere and I just had fun with my camera. Like "wooow when the ISO number is bigger, the picture is brighter!"

And suddenly I knew how to use manual. Actually it's kind of fun, because I didn't know there was a light meter in the camera (when you take a picture you see if the picture is too dark or too bright.)

So I learned right away what settings are needed in different lights.

I noticed the light meter 6months ago, at school when the teacher said it.

And then I was like, "damn!". :D But that's a good thing because I'm really fast at configuring manual settings. It's just a plus.

One year after I got the camera, I started my first 365 days project (which I failed). It made me love conceptual photography and fine arts. But I already wrote everything about my photos in the previous articles (2011 and 2012 and 2013).

But about my life and my arts, it's really hard to say what really happened. What made me suddenly love photography so much. I moved to Finland with my brother when we were 15 years old (my parents still live in France). The first year I still was like "photography is cool and funny" and I just took random pictures.

Yeah it really might me the SRL camera that started everything.

And after it my passion just grew bigger and bigger every single day.

My plans and goals also, got bigger. Everytime I succeed somehow, I got more motivation and ideas for the future, and everytime I fail, I learn something new. 

Photography is also the only thing I don't see as a competition. When I played chess, it was just competition competition competition and I stopped because I was tired of it.

With karate I wanted to be the best in competitions and get my black belt. My spirit of competition was REALLY great in karate. But not in other things.

In school it's a bad thing because everytime I tried to get a good grade, I didn't want it to be only good, I also wanted to be the best of the class. And that's why I didn't do anything at school. I was too scared to not to be the best, that I didn't even try and study.

But it doesn't matter because it went just well and I graduated last year from a maths high school, one year younger than other finnish people.

But well, about competitions, photography is the only thing I don't try to be better than others in. 

Ok, maybe because it's an art. So none can be "the best of the bests". But still. The only person I try to be better than, is myself. And I don't even think about it like a "must do", I think about it like it's natural and fun.

Even if I was billionaire, I'd be a photographer, even if I was the most famous photographer in the world, I would try to get better.

What the hell am I talking about, again ?

After graduation, I went to a photography school at Muurla. Great place, great teachers, great friends. And perfect place for a brand new start.

New plans and opportunities. New friends, everything. It's awesome and I really do love my life now.

I know exactly what I want to do in the future, without knowing too well, so I'll get all kind of surprises and I still can improvise like I love to do.

I don't know if I've ever been so happy in my whole life. I have never been depressed or anything, I've always been a happy person, but this year, is way too awesome.

I still know how to hate myself though.

And I have some reasons to. As a crazy artist, I live my feelings way too much.

If I'm angry, I'm too angry, if I'm sad, I'm too sad, if I'm happy, I'm too happy.

If I feel like photography, I take pictures for hours, post-process for hours, forget to sleep, to eat and to go to school.

If I feel like I want to have fun and party, same thing.

I have big troubles with organizing my life. But I try really hard.

Now that I learned to eat well and clean my place and spend time with friends, AND take pictures for my project, I forget to go to sleep.

But I'm sure I'll succeed soon.

And here's just a selfportrait I took yesterday.

One softbox, slow shutter speed, reflector and the white balance with configuration of the white on cyan... :D I don't know how to explain better.

But I didn't need to photoshop it  much. Contrast + dodge and burning.

The picture shows some new sides of myself and the beginning of a new life full of big plans and hope.

I wish I could write some more stuff about myself. Sadly I'm only 18 years old, and my life isn't really interesting.

But I really wanted to write a biography. 

It would have been much more "official" if I'd have talked about myself saying "Karina" and not "I". But I don't think it's that important. And that's my blog and I'm the writter, I think it'd be a little weird if I said "Karina". No ?

Ok I start to write stupid stuff again, I stop now.

The article is not ready yet. It needs some edits and corrections but I'm tired now, I'll do it tomorrow.

I publish it here today anyway. :)

Oh! Katriina wrote an article about me in the newspaper but it's in finnish. But if you understand finnish there's more stuff about me in it.

I thought about translating it because some french (and others) people really wanna read it.

My website

Facebook Page

Good people do bad things

I don't know why but I forgot to mention my project Good people do bad things on the 2012 article !

But yeah. It's a school project actually. The theme was really free. The idea was to take a stand about something. Anything.
I decided to go for the fact that everyone is good. It's something I believe in, I think everyone has a reason to do something bad.. I do know almost everyone thinks different, and that's exactly why I decided to take a stand about it.

The opinion I'm standing for is "good" but the series is like.. harsh.

That's because I thought that if you have a strong opinion and you want people to listen, you have to show it in a way that will be really stuck in their brains.

Like "smoking kills" doesn't work on the cigarette packs, so they put ugly pictures on them.

I didn't think about the esthetic side of the picture at all. Of course yeah, I did think about the lights and stuff like that but I didn't want it to look "beautiful" or "good", I don't want people to be focused on any beautiful or artistic thing. I wanted to keep it simple and put on the pictures only elements that have a meaning. Nothing useless.

I know this series is not one people like. Not one my followers are used to see coming from me. 

But it doesn't matter to me because I really didn't try at all to get a beautiful series of pictures.

I actually killed my brains for this project. I thought about so many ways to tell my message, stories, everything.

The stories and messages I can see in these pictures are way too many. I know a lot of people can't see anything in them ! But it's okay, because I believe in the fact that if someone is interested by the project and really try to think and imagine stuff about the series, they'll get many things in mind.

Yepyep ....

I really did enjoy doing this project and it teached me to send a real message through my pictures. It was also really interesting working in the studio.

I don't have any kind of project coming that looks like this one.  I just counted 10 projects I have to do this year. (madness but at least I always have something to do).

I want to keep on photographing my crazy fantastic world in my head more than anything.

But giving opinions through pictures is awesome. I'm starting to be able to combine opinions with fantasy. 

But yeah what I like to do the most the most the most is showing my feelings in a supernatural way:)

I actually don't care that much about what I like to photograph the most. I don't know why I just started to think about it. I just photograph what I want to photograph and that's it.

But daaaamn I have soo many projects and ideas and stuff this year! If I succeed, I'll get better, so fast and so much, I'm so happy. :) And motivated.

That's crazy how much I love arts, photography and life.

Goodbye!

Big plans and happiness

This article won't be about my photos. 

Yeah, it will me about what I want to shoot, what I want this year to bring me, etc. But I won't show any pictures.

Because I don't know what photos I could show you. And it's not about that anyway :D

Lately I've been feeling really happy, I don't know why. Maybe because I saw the sun for the first time for... I don't know how long.

Maybe because I can't find in my life any problems right now.

Maybe because I've been meeting a lot of people lately. And yeah, I love meeting new people.

Maybe because I have the most awesome friends.

Maybe because I decided to behave the way I think. 

Maybe because I've learned to know myself better and I can finally say what are my weaknesses and strengthts. 

Maybe because I have goals. For this week, next month, 2013, in ten years, all my life ?

Yeah, well, I think one of the secrets for happiness, is having a goal. I personally feel empty if I don't have anything to wait for, or anything to do work for.

My holiday has lasted for a few days now, none is here, I don't have money to go anywhere. But surprisely I don't even feel lonely. Or sad. It's refreshing actually, having time for only myself. Having time to do stuff, like cleaning my room. (Wait what ?! :D)

But yeah, this time alone is perfect for making decisions and organizing my future.

Well,  I have big plans. I've always been really ambitious. Lazy, yeah, but ambitious. And I'm sure this strength will kill the weakness that is laziness.

I don't know if I have talent in photography, but I don't think it matters because I believe in the fact that passion, ambition and perseverance are important at 65% to make dreams come true. 25% is luck and 10% is talent.

I can be wrong of course. But this is my point of view.

I realized I have one thing that's more important than photography and career. It's friendship, family and love. Which means Love in general.

Yeah, I'm so ambitious I'll do my best to think of my career for some choices. If for example I go to America  but my best friend lives in Finland, oh noes! In this case, yes, I'll choose career. I know I won't lose my friend because of it.

But what I'm trying to say is that, I will never choose my friends just because I want something from them.

I don't want to do good things, because I can get something for myself.

I believe, so strongly in the fact that an artist who doesn't feel CANNOT be an artist.

If an artist can't laugh, do good things just for the sake of seeing people happy, love, party, and know all the bad and good feelings friends, lover, familymember give, he simply can't make arts.

Arts are all about feelings. Soul. What makes us human. 

Unfortunately there are way too many photographers or any other artist that make what they do in really empty ways. 

An artist has to think about life. Deep things. 

Yeah and of course loving what they do. Not just loving the things they can get when they do it.

Photography is not like a second me, it's a part of who I am. 

Like I'm a friend, a lover, a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a godmother, a twin, a student, a french girl, a finnish woman, etc, etc etc. They're all part of who I am.

And what the hell am I talking about :D

The point is.. I can't stand artists who are fake. Who make something they call art without REALLY thinking about it. 

I can't stand those who do good things just because they can get something from it.

I can't stand people that fake everything they do. Force themselves to be funny just so everyone can love them so they can be more popular and get something from it. Force themselves to be nice and helpful.

Argh ! This kind of people pisses me off :D 

But yes. They understand how to get a big and great career.  They understand how to get money.

How to survive.  They will never put their real opinions about things like I'm doing right now, because there are always people that disagree and start hating.

I don't want to be this person. I want to be real with what I'm doing and people around me. I'm sure it will make me a lot more happy. Maybe I'll never get the career I'm dreaming about because of it.

Maybe I'll never get clients and money. But it doesn't matter, because I can be myself and that is the second secret of happiness.

Anyway. What about my plans.

I don't want to reveal everything. Not even the half of it. 

Actually I realized there's nothing I want to reveal.

I think I should stop writing like an idiot and, I'll get back to work.

The best way to make dreams come true is writing them down, figure out where to start, how to continue.. And first of all. JUST WORK ON IT.

This article may have sounded like it's all about me but no. 

It's not only about artists either. If you are really interested about what I'm writing, I'm sure you can get many helpful tips. About life and realizing dreams.

Just remember those are MY points of view, you can totally disagree, it's ok. And maybe I will disagree with myself in one year.

OkOk.

But here are some videos I did while I was alone because of holiday. I think I have a true talent for music.

See you in the next article. :)

2013

So ! Now it's 2013.

It started in France. I don't know why, but I'm always inspired in France.  

Some may think it's because of the good food, and the romantic feeling Paris gives you, but, well, no. :D

It's because I get easily bored there ! 99% of my friends live in Finland now, and I can't take my bigger computer to France.

I'm not free either.

I mean, I go to my parents, which means I can't go whenever I want anywhere I want D:

It obligates me to spend 95% of my time.. thinking.

Which gives me inspiration.

And well, I got 3 project ideas. And big plans for 2013.

The first project is Angels and Demons. I've already shot a few ones, but it's far from being ready ! 

One of my 2013 challenges is to get better with studio and photoshop. So I took the picture above and the picture below with green backgrounds in Studio. Madness.

It's really hard. 

One of my plans for 2013 is to take at least 2 green background photos per month, to get better with photoshop. (and Studio yes yes)

My other plan is to take at least one conceptual picture per WEEK. 

When I say conceptual picture it means a picture of the project I'm having. Like now it's angels and demons.

The next project I will start, when this one will be ready, is DEATH.

Sounds morbid, right ?

I think it's an interesting subject. Everyone has thought about Death at least once in their lifetime.

It scares people. Intruigues others. Some are even waiting for it to come to them.

Because of different believes , religions, faith.

No, no I'm not going to represent death only in a horrible way. That's the stereotype, none knows what it's really like, so it scares, so everyone thinks it's the worse thing that could happen.

I want to take the pictures of the project in many different ways. I will try to figure out how different people feel about it, what different people believe in.. etc

I also want to find ways not to be so afraid of it. After all, that's the only thing in life that's sure, and everyone will have to go through it ;)

Damn ! I'm being so deep. It's gonna make me crazy soon.

Anyways, before 2013 I had an idea in mind that I couldn't realize just yet because I needed my friend Sara as a model (She has the perfect face for the idea I had!)

So I had to wait one or two months (can't remember), then pum, ready, taken.

I took it in studio with 2 softboxes. It was a funny evening. I mean, I think I forgot to sleep the night before it, and when I don't sleep, I'm not like "zzz i wanna sleep" but  I become completely crazy. And inspired.

In the middle of the shooting a random thing came to my mind and I told my friend "damn draw a black line on the middle of your face!"

She did it.

I shot her.

Yay !

Oh.

I don't have photos to show anymore :D But that's kind of.. logical. I mean, 2013 has just started!

But hey, big plans. I'm motivated and happy. I hope 2013 will bring me big things, experiences, beautiful people to meet and a lot of parties ! Whii!

PS. Sometimes I feel like I'm overexcited about this kind of stuff. (especially photography?!)

See you in the next article. :)