10 Question Column: Finnish Photographer Konsta Leppänen

Photographer Konsta Leppänen with his adopted pointer Buster, found in the streets of Spain. "People are the most interesting subjects for me as a photographer. They’re also the most difficult subjects, since 10 percent is the photography and 90 percent is about observation and interaction."

Konsta Leppänen is a talented young photographer from Finland and a member of the 11 Collective who won the biggest Finnish photojournalism prize last year, the Patricia Seppälä Foundation Award. Andreas Romagnoli and Jeanne-Marie Cilento ask the hipster and intellectual 10 Questions about his life and work

KONSTA Leppänen’s landscape and urban photographs often have a solitary figure lost in a vast alienating cityscape or a sea of snow and water that capture a sense of spiritual and physical isolation. Yet his portraits of people are full of dynamism and life and seem to fizz with suppressed energy. Leppänen alternates between using black and white pictures and those that are more saturated to explicate the contrasts in Finnish life and culture.

His passion for photography began when he started shooting portraits of people on the street and then later joined the 11 Collective, the group of avant-garde photojournalists. He says the collective's aim is to create a new type of Finnish documentary photography. Working with the group, he produces annual in-depth photo essays around chosen themes. 

“Our first project was about Finland and the exhibition has toured around the country for a year now, including at the Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki,’’ says Leppänen. “The main idea is to collectively help each individual with their personal projects and to diminish the loneliness of the process. From very early on we expose the process of visual storytelling to the analytical evaluation and constructive criticism of members of the group.”

Today, Leppänen is studying the Master's Program in Visual Journalism at Tampere University and works as a freelance photographer and photojournalist, alternating between working for well-known Finnish magazines and newspapers and making social documentaries.

1.What are you currently working on? 

I’m working on several different projects, two of which are part of our 11 Collective’s upcoming group projects. I was recently in Egypt reporting about the unrest there and I'm still trying to make sense out of those photos. The other is a broader and more personal essay-like study on men of my generation. However, for the next couple of months I’m also working as a staff photographer for Aamulehti, which is the second largest newspaper in Finland, so I won’t be able to work much on these projects right at the moment.

2. What inspires your creative work now?

I’m a typical Finn so very often my inspiration derives from anxiety and sheer envy towards those more talented than myself. It’s a very unhealthy and unproductive way to push yourself forward, but so far it has helped me to pursue my photography.

3. How did you choose photography as your creative metier?

I didn’t choose photography as such. I started studying journalism and worked in newspapers. I could appreciate beautiful, dramatic and clever pictures especially in the context of journalism, but at that point I couldn’t even dream of taking such photos myself. When I finally bought my own first camera, which was relatively late, in my early twenties, it infested me like a disease. I didn’t want to write anymore, writing didn’t motivate me to push forward like photography. Nothing did, really.

4. Can you describe the experience, person or training that has had the greatest impact on your photography style?

Actually, I’m not even sure I have a coherent style just yet, I think I’m only beginning to recognise what my style could be. This is something that should be asked from Elina, my girlfriend and mother of my child.

Since the beginning of my photographic pursuits she's been there encouraging but also judging quite harshly when necessary. You know ~ a slap on the face to get me back on track. I still feel the need to show her everything I've done immediately to see what she thinks about it. I think she knows what my style is way better than I do.

5. What do you find the most challenging aspect of your work technically?

Technically the most challenging thing for me is to not think about the technicalities at all. To let go of the technology, not to think about apertures and focal lengths and flashes and what not. They’re not important. What is important is what you’re taking photos of, not with what you’re doing it. 

For the past year or so I've been very tired of shooting with my DSLR aside from work. It's just too huge and intimidating. I bought a small mirror less camera and I have it with my everywhere I go and it's brilliant, nobody gets scared of it and nobody thinks I'm other than tourist. And the best thing is that I don't think about the technicalities at all! It really has rekindled my photography, same as Instagram, I guess.

6. What do you like to photograph?

People are the most interesting subjects for me as a photographer. They’re also the most difficult subjects, since 10 percent is the photography and 90 percent is about observation and interaction.

7. Do you have a set schedule of working creatively everyday or is the process more fluid?

Since I’m Scandinavian, I’ve tried to organise my creativity. I’ve tried keeping diaries, I’ve promised myself to shoot everyday and so on. So far nothing has really worked. I cannot force it. I think the most important thing is to keep your self somehow inspired everyday. Watch a movie, eye through some photos, analyse illustrations or just listen to music and try to enjoy it.

8.What part of photography gives you the most happiness and do you find your creative process is more rational or instinctive?

I think that if someday I'll be able to be totally instinctive about my photography I could finally be satisfied with myself. Hopefully that never comes. Satisfaction will kill off the urge to push forward and my photography is always closely tied to being unsatisfied. A certain level of struggling is elementary for my progress. But to answer the question: my photography is instinctive at best but usually very rational.

9. Is there a town or place in the world you consider inspiring?

If we talk about street photography or similar, Finland is a difficult country to work in. People are so reserved and they don't show too much emotion (or anything else, for that matter). That's why I really enjoy Rome, for example. People are relaxed and open in public spaces and allow glimpses into who they really are. It's almost as if they don't care and that is very fascinating and scary for a Finn.

10. In our digital age what is the relationship between photography and contemporary art?

I try not to bother myself with questions such as what is art and what is not – especially when it comes to my own work. Even though my photos have been exhibited in galleries and museums, I consider myself to be a journalist, not an artist. I most certainly have nothing against art photography and I am very pleased if someone thinks that my photos are interesting enough when considered in the context of art. However, I'm just not keen on making that distinction myself. With the 11 collective we've been very eager to mix and mess with the concept of art and concept of documentary and I intend to keep pushing those boundaries in the future. 

For more information about Konsta Leppänen visit: http://konstakuva.com

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

The 11 Collective won the Patricia Seppälä Photojournalism Award in March 2013, the biggest prize in Finnish photojournalism. Konsta Leppänen is at the far right.

A photograph from the 11 Collective's series 3.6 meters or more, an essay about Finns' relationship with their surroundings. It was shot around Finland during 2011 - 2012.

Another picture from the 11 Collective's series 3.6 meters or more about Finns and their environment. 

Looking like a group of medieval saxons, Leppänen's photograph of the Finnish band Death Hawks taken in 2013

A photograph from the Rome series taken in 2011: "I really enjoy Rome ~ people are relaxed and open in public spaces and allow glimpses into who they really are. It's almost as if they don't care and that is very fascinating and scary for a Finn."

 Finland's young Artist of the Year Jarno Vasala, photographed for Finnish Art Today magazine in 2013.

Another picture of Jarno Vasala, the young artist of the year for Finnish Art Today magazine shot in 2013.

A large man in a tiny Fiat 500 from Leppänen's series on Rome.

A plane caught in flight with a dynamic conflagration of birds and a street light. 

An evocative picture simply titled Hangover 2012.

From the Collective 11's 3.6 meters or more essay about Finnish society and landscape. 

Leppänen's photograph of a girl from a story on Finnish dental care taken in 2013

New Architecture: Japan's Silver Mountain and Red Cliff Tower

The shimmering free form of the Silver Mountain building is a foil to the rectilinear block of the adjoining mosaic-tiled Red Cliff tower.

Japanese architect Kunihide Oshinomi has designed a glimmering, anthropomorphic building like a futuristic sea anenome at the Senzoku Gakuen College of Music in Kawasaki prefecture, Ambrosio De Lauro reports with Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Atsushi Nakamichi

CALLED Silver Mountain, the building is at the heart of a small complex and is clad in gleaming stainless-steel plates. The neat block of an adjoining red, mosaic-tiled tower provides a rectilinear foil to the silvery, amorphous form. Oshinomi’s firm K/O Design Studio with Kajima Design created the new buildings which house rehearsal halls along with offices and faculty and student lounges.

“Designed at the pivotal point of traffic of the college of music's campus, the new buildings have a powerful outline of form and contrasts of silver and red," says Oshinomi. “I looked back to the basic principles of architecture ~ form, space, material and colour."

Oshinomi is head of K/O Design Studio and visiting professor at both the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the Yokohama National University's Graduate School. He established his architectural design company in 1993 and has worked on a wide range of design projects from skyscrapers to houses and from furniture to fashion. "We believe that architecture is only a small part of the human environment and we don't think architecture should be treated as a special factor from a design point of view,'' says Oshinomi. "We like to design surroundings that create a sophisticated environmental harmony."

Completed in August 2013, the design of the Silver Mountain building's stainless-steel plate cladding was originally worked out using computer simulation. The pattern was developed using 3D surface analysis to work out the best combination of standard rectilinear tiles plus curved and trapezoidal panels that were used for irregularly-shaped spaces. The adjacent Red Cliff tower block is finished in a graphic, patch-work of three different tones of red, mosaic tiles.

An airy, glass space connects the low-rise red tower to the globular silver building. "The cloud of glass is like a valley between the 'mountain' and the 'cliff', says Oshinomi. "It is one of the main pedestrian routes for this campus." Opening from three, curving foyers are the rehearsal halls which are located on different levels. The undulating concrete walls of the rehearsal spaces are designed to enhance their acoustic qualities. "The interior of Silver Mountain has a 3D free form and the lobby is like dramatic cave," says Oshinomo. "The rehearsal halls are flanked by exposed concrete-waved walls to stop echoes."

The Red Cliff building houses a faculty lounge on the ground floor furnished with mid-century modern armchairs, a meeting room, and a lounge area for students. Above are four floors containing the offices of the Senzoku Gakuen College of Music offices.

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Lit up at night, the shimmering buildings look like they are glowing sea creatures.

The silvery, free-form building is clad in specially-designed stainless-steel panels and is offset by the rustic stone paving that follows the pattern of an Italian medieval village. 

The curving, reflective surface reflects the blue sky of a sunny day in Kawasaki prefecture.

The scale of each building appears to change dramatically depending on where it is viewed. 

The tower is clad in different tones of red mosaic tiles and is connected by a "cloud" of glass that the designer says forms a valley between the "Red Cliff" and the "Silver Mountain."

Built from reinforced concrete, the interior of the building has sweeping curved walls.

The interior of the buildings are left clear and uncluttered with specially-designed seating.

The undulating concrete walls of the rehearsal spaces were designed to enhance their acoustic qualities. 

"The rehearsal halls are flanked by exposed concrete-waved walls to stop echoes,"  explains designer Kunihide Oshinomi. 

Honey-coloured wood floors contrast with the raw concrete walls of the three different rehearsal halls.

Opening from the glass "valley" are curving foyers leading to the rehearsal halls which are located on different levels.

The Red Cliff tower block is finished in a graphic, patch-work of three different tones of red, mosaic tiles. 

The Red Cliff building houses a faculty lounge on the ground floor furnished with mid-century modern armchairs, a meeting room and a lounge area for students.

The design of the Silver Mountain building's stainless-steel plate cladding was originally worked out using computer simulation. The pattern was developed using 3D surface analysis to work out the best combination of standard rectilinear tiles plus curved and trapezoidal panels.

Computer models of the Silver Mountain building's curvature.

The first floor plan of the complex showing the rehearsal room, curving foyer  and the glass-roofed "cloud" connecting the building to the red-tiled office block.

New Architecture: Scope By MA-Style Architects in Japan

"The large opening on the north side projects into the landscape and catches the changes of the season and daily weather, bringing in light and a feeling of the wind," say the architects.

Poised on a hill looking over tea plantations in Southern Japan, Scope is a sculptural new building designed by mA-style architects, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Kai Nakamura

DESIGNED as a giant viewfinder, the building has a jutting rectilinear snout that takes in the green swathes of the surrounding tea bushes. The house is compact ~ barely one hundred square metres ~ but has the strong presence of an abstract Henry Moore statue and the charisma of Le Corbusier’s small chapel at Ronchamp. The telescopic second level has a single glazed wall, like a lense, focusing all attention out to the brilliant emerald plants producing green tea that cover the Makinohara Plateau below.

Atsushi and Mayuma Kawamoto of mA-style architects wanted to create a contemporary new building in this small town in Shizuoka Prefecture. Sited high on a stone platform, Scope is resoundingly Modernist but has a certain grace of scale and lightness that prevents it dominating the landscape dotted with modest houses.

“We felt it was necessary for the client, who has lived in this area a long time, to design a building which could recapture the charm of the land afresh,’’ Atsushi Kawamoto explains. “The site consists of a tiered stone wall in a landslide prevention zone which is why we couldn't use the whole site for construction. We created the "telescope" form on the second level as a trapezoid because the view to the north is beautiful and the room spreads out in that direction."

Supported on two slanting volumes of exposed concrete, the second level’s horizontal viewfinder is rendered in a contrasting crisp white. "This large opening on the north side projects out into the landscape and catches the changes of the season and daily weather, bringing in light and a feeling of the wind," say the architects.

Entry to the house is through a covered courtyard created by the concrete walls. Inside, the light-filled entrance is bare apart from an elegant white spiral stair leading up to the main floor. The ground level houses a Japanese room and bathrooms that flank either side of the entry.

The curving stairway leads up to the top floor with several bedrooms and the spacious open plan living and dining room with its single expansive view across the tea plantations. Here, the interior has been kept to minimalist essentials with concrete floors, white walls and a pale, stream-lined kitchen.

“The internal space is simply organised so it is in harmony with the scenery outside,” Kawamoto says. “We can really create a rich experience by tying human beings and nature together through architecture.”

The slim and elegant spiral stair leading up from the entrance to the top level.

 The "lense" of the telescopic second level that has glazed walls and doors opening on to a balcony that forms the rim of the viewfinder.

The stream-lined kitchen with a far-reaching outlook across the tea plantations of Southern Japan.

The brilliant green tea bushes covering the Makinohara Plateau in the Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan.

The minimalist living and dining room divided by a sleek kitchen all in white.

The main bathroom with its deep Japanese tub, long basin with mirrored cupboards above and stony, concrete walls.

The house sits like a sculptural monument on a tiered stone wall above the modest local houses.

Slanted walls of raw concrete support the white-rendered, telescopic second level.

A courtyard of slim trees and gravel is created between the two concrete volumes of the ground floor that support the full-width of the top level above.

Scope lit up at twilight creating a welcoming courtyard entrance into the house.

Photo Essay: Positive Tension - Jubilee Church by Richard Meier

The soaring concrete sails of Richard Meier's church in the Tor Tre Teste suburb of Rome: both monolithic and full of light ~ it seems to embody creative energy and cathartic power. 

Traversing the city of Rome, through poor neighbourhoods far from the splendour of the historic centre, Andreas Romagnoli shoot’s Richard Meier’s Dives in Misericordia (Mercy of God) church. Like an image from a neorealist film, the church appears floating on a field of travertine marble ringed by a tangle of hive-like apartment buildings and a green park, write Andreas Romagnoli & Jeanne-Marie Cilento

THIS urban Roman scene in Tor Tre Teste balances the formal purity of the church’s architecture with the chaos of the tenements that surround it. The building is both monolithic and full of light ~ it seems to embody creative energy and cathartic power. Meier has said from an early age, he was inspired by the light and form of the great Baroque Roman churches designed by Bernini and Borromini.

''The central ideas for creating a sacred space have to do with truth and authenticity,'' Meier said about designing the church, ''a search for clarity, peace, transparency, a yearning for tranquillity, a place to evoke other worldliness in a way that is uplifting. And to express spirituality, the architect has to think of the original material of architecture ~ space and light.'' Modernist in design, the church also harks back to the simplicity and strength of the Bauhaus with the tension between line, curve and surface.

Today, Richard Meier is famed for his white buildings bathed in light, and the interior of this church has soaring ceilings and skylights made of glass that run the entire length of the building, inspiring a meditative atmosphere conducive to prayer and thought. Standing between one of the building’s soaring sails with the blue sky above, there is a sense of continuation that creates a virtual bridge between the earth and the heavens. The central body of the church is made up of three large white concrete sails that swell as if blown by the wind and discreetly refer to the Trinity. According to the seasons, the play of light on the inner sails changes, creating a volatile texture of shadows across the different surfaces of the building.

Richard Meier is an unusual choice to build a parish church in an outer suburb of Rome. Famous for his Getty Centre in Los Angeles and later the 2006 Ara Pacis Museum in Rome, the architect was initially chosen by international competition in 1996. The Vatican wanted a new, modern and iconic building to serve as a symbol of renewal in a degraded urban context: to be called the Jubilee Church in celebration of the 2,000th anniversary of Christianity.

In 1995, the Archdiocese of Rome invited six leading architects to submit designs: Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman, Santiago Calatrava, Tadao Ando and Günter Behnisch, as well as Richard Meier. When Meier's design was chosen, he showed the model to the bishop of Rome, Pope John Paul II. At the time of the consecration of the church in 2003 Meier said: ''When I think of a place of worship, I think of a place where one can sit and be reminded of all the things that are important outside our individual lives.''

The building's three sails sweep over a side chapel and half of the nave while a glass roof connects to a community building, a four-story atrium, living space for the parish priest, a community meeting room, classrooms and a tower with five vertically placed bells. The interior of the church combines sophistication and simplicity with the largest sail rising to nearly 27 metres above the nave. The materials are a subtle mix of golden wood walls and the pale travertine marble of the church's floor, altar and baptismal font.

Construction of the church was delayed for years by a shortage of funds and financial pressures led the archdiocese to seek donations of materials from builders and suppliers. Meier's design combines curvilinear and rectilinear shapes and also posed technical challenges. For engineers, the main hurdle was building the freestanding sails, which are designed to withstand heat, wind and earthquakes. Made of enormous blocks of precast white concrete, the sails were lifted into place by a massive steel machine that moved on rails. ''It took enormous effort to create what today looks so simple,'' Meier said.

Click on photographs for full screen slide show

The central body of the church is made up of three large white concrete sails that swell as if blown by the wind and discreetly refer to the Trinity. Meier's design combines curvilinear and rectilinear shapes and posed many construction challenges. 

''When I think of a place of worship, I think of a place where one can sit and be reminded of all the things that are important outside our individual lives,'' Meier said. 

Like an image from a neorealist film, the church appears floating on a field of travertine marble ringed by a tangle of hive-like apartment buildings and a green park.

Made of enormous blocks of precast white concrete, the sails were lifted into place by a massive steel machine that moved on rails. ''It took enormous effort to create what today looks so simple,'' Mr. Meier said.

Modernist in design, the church also harks back to the simplicity and strength of the Bauhaus with the tension between line, curve and surface. 

According to the seasons, the play of light changes, creating a volatile texture of shadows across the different surfaces of the building. 

For engineers, the main hurdle was building the freestanding sails, which are designed to withstand heat, wind and earthquakes. 

Standing between one of the building’s soaring sails with the blue sky above, there is a sense of continuation that creates a virtual bridge between the earth and the heavens.

Today, the pure whiteness and perfection of the building is showing signs of wear and tear. Construction of the church was delayed for years by a shortage of funds and financial pressures led the archdiocese to seek donations of materials from builders and suppliers. 

The three sails sweep over a side chapel and half of the nave while a glass roof connects to a community building, a four-story atrium, living space for the parish priest, a community meeting room, classrooms and a tower with five vertically placed bells.  

The interior of the church combines sophistication and simplicity with the largest sail rising to 27 metres above the nave. The materials are a subtle mix of golden wood walls and the pale travertine marble of the church's floor, altar and baptismal font. Photograph courtesy of Richard Meier & Partners Architects