Archive for the ‘Niki's this and that’ Category

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Inspiration comes from all sorts of places – Niki Strbian Valokuvaus

February 27, 2010

Do you know the feeling when you finally get the grasp of something and you think how awesome you are? And than

BANG! BANG BANG!!!

A door opens somewhere, you look through it and find out that not only you are so not awesome, but you are less than mediocre. All you are left with is your charming quality to metamorphose the “down feelings” into positive energy. I call it discovering inspiration.

I found an unreal couple of wedding photographers today, check out Heather’s and Jon’s great One Love Photo blog. Of course, I have an excuse. They’ve got the power of two. I, on the other hand, am all alone – with a scientist geek hitting the keyboard next to me :D

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One for Thursday … – Niki Strbian Valokuvaus

February 25, 2010

A client turned friend. The sweetest of girls. With an unbelievable voice. Meet Keisha. A talented musician who was given the butterfly wings to change people’s lives with just a beat.

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Valentine’s day in the botanic garden – Niki Strbian Valokuvaus

February 16, 2010

All shades of green. Sunshine. Glasshouse. Kaisaniemi botanic garden on Valentine’s Sunday … PART 1.

Finns don’t regard love affairs stable enough to dedicate them a day in their calendar. As my father says: “Women come and go but basketball stays.” ;) Surely Finns do not have a dedicated day in the calendar to basketball either, despite the important fact that it’s my Dad’s lifetime hobby. If there was a holiday dedicated to sports in Finland, it would most likely be, you guessed it, to ice-hockey. Perhaps even skating. And maybe sailing. And maybemaybe to sauna (which counts as both sports and a cultural event here, didn’t you know??).

But we are talking about Valentine’s day. On February the 14th Finns choose to show their affection to friends. Because friendship truly lasts a lifetime. And because it’s quite enough to show affection once a year when government permits. ;)

I decided to celebrate the day by spending the entire day with my best friend/assistent/colleague/muse in the botanic garden, shooting a marathon of minisessions for my friends. Here the first sneak peek from Sunday. These two are quite fresh among my friends, yet I feel I have known them for a decade. At least. You two clowns, who are so in love: Come over soon to eat some halusky with us, we run out of the special cheese usually really quickly :) Enjoy, hope you will like it!

When editing the photos, I had the “Isn’t she lovely, daa, daa, da…” tune stuck in my head. I wonder why…

Let me introduce you, in case you don’t know why the heck the next photo features a lamp. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the famous Double Bubble lamp designed by Eero Aarnio. I challenged everyone to bring something special to the minisession and A+A came up with this. This is HERS not HIS. I am happy they didn’t go with HIS. The BMX bicycle could have been a bit difficult in the glasshouse…

The secret meaning is of course that the big bubble represents the boss of the family. Hmm…?

Looking into the future. Is it bright? Enough?

xoxo

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Posted in Families, Niki's this and that | 4 Comments »

Snow, snow, snow queen – Niki Strbian Valokuvaus

February 4, 2010

Having fun with friends. In -16. Wind. Both of my kids. Cranky. Imagine the shoot:

click click click click

back to the car –  unfreezing hands

click click click

back to the car – hot tea

click click

back to the car – cannot start the engine, cannot turn the key

click

back to the car – kids crying, me fainting from the cold, leaving and driving home

and … we almost kissed a truck who skid when the driver went too fast through a curve. But we got home safe.

You were awesome as always! thank you :)

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Casting call for YO-LAKKI kuvaus! – Niki Strbian Valokuvaus

January 28, 2010

You would not believe it, but May is knocking on our door. Ok, maybe not just yet, but we will hardly breath-in, breath-out (twice) and it will be time to take this year’s high school graduates’ photos.

Become part of my yo-lakki kuvaus campaign.

I am looking for 3 girls and 3 guys who will graduate from high school this spring and want to participate on my campaign. You can get involved on several levels. Everything is free and at some stages you can actually make money. :) For start, however, I would take your portraits. There is only one condition, you and your parents must sign a model release allowing me to use your photos during the campaign. Oh, and English is an advantage, but not a must. Kyllä puhumme suomeakin. :)

You will receive your free portraits, min. 5 photos, in digital format on CD (value of 500€).

This offer expires as soon as I have my 6 models, so don’t wait up. Hora ruit. (Time runs.) Call or email me latest on Feb, the 14th.

0400-358990 or niki@nikistrbian.com


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How is your handwriting? – Niki Strbian Valokuvaus

January 28, 2010

Pour me a drop of truth. It doesn’t have to be a whole glass. How is your handwriting? Getting worse with every email and Word document you write? With every letter you don’t write? I just finished reading a thick, thick book of correspondence between two Czech actors and humanists, Jan Werich and Jiri Voskovec, also known as V+W. And the great amount of letters that crossed Atlantic (since one of them lived in communistic Czechoslovakia and the other in the US) made me wonder… Would it be different for them if Internet was existing? Would they use the actual paper and pen so much? How many letters to my friends have I written lately… gosh, none, I don’t even have time to write emails. I don’t fancy that my friends store and back up my emails, but I think, I hope, they do keep the occasional letter I write – while my hand is in a great pain from such weird thing I want it to do. My handwriting got really bad over the years and it was not good to start with either…. I had a flash of geniality yesterday and found this www.fontgarden.com. Lifesaver! Before your handwriting gets real illegible, get it recorded in 010010111000. Or just download any of the cool free fonts they already have and pretend it’s yours. You can choose among big names’ handwriting – fancy a Franz Kafka? Marilyn Monroe? :) And while you are at it, enjoy the quotes. Some of them are real gems. Here my choice for the day:

And that’s why we don’t have any TV :D

Oh and while my lil ones cannot write yet, they can do this. Show me that with your mouse, ha!

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Posted in Babies and children, Niki's this and that | No Comments »

What we do on a boring day – Niki Strbian Lapsikuvaus

January 26, 2010

My lil son has a running nose, a symptom of the very first flu we might be getting during the fall ‘09/winter ‘10 period. Isn’t that cool that the viruses are only catching up with us now. Anyways, since he is really sensitive to cold temperatures + the running nose, I was not going to drag him out in today’s -18 Celsius. Our lil miss also stayed at home from daycare. What do we do on a boring day like that, when there is sunshine outside, kids sledging behind our house, but we must stay in?

However strange it sounds, we change bed sheets. Kids absolutely love it! They always have a blast with all the hiding, dragging sheets around the house, building tunnels, jumping, you name it! I bet tomorrow they will want to do it again :) I don’t mind, because our bedroom has wonderful light (and kids know that changing beds also means a little photofun for mommy).

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Smile, smile, smile – Niki Strbian Valokuvaus

January 18, 2010

For real! Is your day a little low despite the upturn of weather? Grab a cup of whatever you prefer and watch this, a smile guaranteed!

(It’s all about love, humanity, sadness, happiness, life…)

[youtube Cbk980jV7Ao]

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Posted in Niki's this and that | 1 Comment »

Zuzka and her horse – Niki Strbian Valokuvaus

January 15, 2010

After family Xmas in Slovakia that we enjoyed despite the weird and mountains unlike weather (mud, + temperatures and really cold and humid wind – whilst in Finland the winter wonderland has not only continued but got better all the time) we were to travel back home. My husband’s family lives 5 hours by train + 1 hour by car from the nearest airport which hosts flights from Helsinki. You can imagine the fun of traveling such distance with 2 kids under 5. This time we got lucky, our friends were going by car, so we didn’t have to endure the train, just 4 hours in car. And we got to play with cats in their house and I even had a moment to photograph the lady of the house with her new horse.

What a pleasure to see how a human and a horse seek mutual connection. After knowing each other for just a week or so, they were still very conscious around each other and yet Zuzka managed to earn his trust even for me (and the weird black big thing – my camera). They were after training and already in this spot when I arrived. More than ankle deep mud and fingers-crippling wind made me fear I was going to trip and destroy my Nikon toys, but luckily that didn’t happen :) I hope you will enjoy your photos, Zuzka. Thank you for everything!

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Posted in Families, Niki's this and that, hobbies | 2 Comments »

Meet me in my gallery hall :) – Niki Strbian Valokuvaus

January 9, 2010

As you read in my post before Xmas, I am very proud to have my photos exhibited at the Wayne’s Coffee on Aleksanterinkatu. Aleksanterinkatu is a street in the very center of Helsinki, known not only for high-end shopping but also for the very comfortable fact of being heated, incl. the pavements. And in winters like we have now – oikein kunnon talvi – it’s a blessing to have a heated pavement, pretty much the only place to wear your high heel boots in Finnish winter (your sexy, lined with fur and swore upon being waterproof, yet totally impractical, wet toes freezing in 5 minutes high heel boots).

Ok, enough of the blabbing editorial today, let’s cut it short. The essence of what I am trying to say is: meet me (on high heels or not) in Wayne’s Coffee on Monday 11th of Jan after 19:00 for a coffee and a chat. Beware the crowds! :)

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Posted in Niki's this and that, exhibitions | 2 Comments »

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