“When I go outside, I feel the need to master the view”, Ari explains. “I find myself taking the same picture over and over again. I feel that I have something to say, and I find new things in familiar scenes”.  We talk about Ari’s repeated visits to the lone tree by the lake and the chimney of the old cotton mill that was built in the 1820s. “I recently had an exhibition where every image was taken looking down the same street”, Ari explains. “I feel as though I have taken the same picture a zillion times, it still has something to say”.

Ari wants to have a relationship with his subjects. So not everything is worthy of his attention. He gives an example, “There is a nice river with rapids that runs through the centre of my hometown, Tampere. It bothers me that it has been photographed so many times, by so many people. It does not speak to me. I also struggle when I travel abroad. I look around and do not have the full understanding of what I am seeing”, Ari reflects. “It’s hard to build a relationship in an instant.”

Ari and I find ourselves talking about what makes good photography. Ari describes images by the light in the image. “It is the light that gives an image its identity”, he says. In his mind, the photograph of an old American car that his neighbour owns reminds him of a portrait he made of his daughter because the lighting is similar. I ask him about the still-life images that he makes within the house. “Our kitchen table gets the most amazing Northern light”, Ari explains. “I just photograph whatever happens to be there. I never create a still life scene. That would just feel wrong and artificial”.

Recently, Ari’s wife took him to the Espoo City Museum in southern Finland. The exhibition was a selection of Teuvo Kanerva’s Finnish cityscapes. Teuvo had shot 128,000 film frames over a career spanning 45 years. Ari scans and catalogues all of his work in Lightroom, and has shot over 20,000 frames since discovering film photography six years ago. “It seems, I shoot film a lot”, Ari says. “Much more than many professional photographers back in the days when film photography was the only game in town!”

The conversation moves on to looking back through previous work. Ari prints his best images in his darkroom, he scans and catalogues them all in Lightroom. He has taken to looking back through old images and is discovering previously discarded images that he now likes. For example, he took a photograph of a person browsing a book in a New York Bookstore. “Technically, it is underexposed”, says Ari. “But when I look at the result, it feels exactly like being there”.

We conclude by talking about where Ari wants to take the “Shoot on Film” channel. “Gear does not interest me, and neither does “how to” videos”, Ari explains. “I’d like to have someone else film the video and make them more slick. Most importantly, I would like to encourage more interaction. I’d like to create a conversation about what photography means to us. The channel already has a lot of engagement with viewers making comments, several people have sent me emails, called me, and even sent their prints and some gear! I like that”.

Images © Ari Jaaksi 2023.