14/10/2026
Third year in a row among the best commercial photographers in Finland. 📸 🇫🇮 🌟
I’m very happy to share that ‘Onion Seigaiha’ became a Finalist and earned a Merit distinction in the Commercial category of the Finnish Photo Awards 2026.
This is my third consecutive year reaching the FPA finals, placing my work among Finland’s top 10 in the Commercial category once again. A result like that is, of course, a lovely bit of recognition. More importantly for me, it is also consistent external validation of the kind of work I build my practice around.
Beyond heartwarming feedback like:
“I really enjoyed it. That's something that could be on a wall too.”
“Fun. Good job. Keep doing this.”
one part of the live judging feedback made me especially happy.
The judges started looking really closely at the onion slices. They were trying to work out whether I had taken an easier route and duplicated elements in Photoshop. Eventually the verdict came from Martina Wärenfeldt and Paul Reiffer:
- “They all look different.”
- “It was brilliant. It made us all try and find it.”
- “That's sort of like why I was happy it landed up in Merit. Because I appreciate the effort that went into doing this.”
They were right. There are no copy-pasted onion slices hiding in there.
Every piece was individually selected, positioned and built into the composition by hand.
Technically perfect images can still leave you with absolutely nothing to look at.
A memorable photo depends just as much on the decisions made before the shutter is pressed as on what happens afterwards. Especially with a food hero in front of the camera, the subject itself needs to do some heavy lifting, and that is where food styling becomes every bit as important as photography. In this case, quite literally, slice by slice.
If an image makes a panel of professional judges lean in, inspect it and actively try to figure out how it was made, then something beyond technical ex*****on is working.
And soon you can investigate it yourself.
Onion Seigaiha will hang on the gallery wall from 2 November as part of my exhibition, Not Just for the Eye, at the Liszt-instituutti Helsinki / Liszt Intézet Helsinki.
You are very welcome to spend your sweet time in front of the print and decide for yourself:
🤔 Did she secretly copy one onion slice all over the image?
😯 Or did she really build the whole thing piece by piece?
I know the answer. The onions know the answer.
Now it’s your turn to look closer and ask the question at the heart of the exhibition: can a commercial photograph also be a work of art?
• • •
Created by a human. 📸
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