Mr. Markku Saiha is a freelance photographer from Pori, a small town on Finnish west coast. He has been professional photographer since early 80s. He is particularly interested in marine and fishing issues and sea landscapes. Saiha was also part time fisherman over a decade, his main caches was whitefish and salmon.
Saiha has visited regularly several coastal villages and fishermen’s families during last three decades, and closely followed the traditional coastal fisheries to disappear. His photographs from this era have become documents of the costal life style that was an important and visible part of everyday living all along the Finnish coastline for centuries.

Mr. Saiha has also studied fine art printing and photography technique over the years. He teaches time to time, and has held several workshops. He has also published guidebooks for photography with one of the largest publishers in Finland and a photography book about fisheries and fishermen. Mr. Markku has also held several photo exhibitions during the years. The traditional Coastal fishing is his life-long documentation project in which the exhibition also is connected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Demoiselles are the flying jewels of running waters. They live in the water as larvae for two years after which an intensive one-month long grown-up life full of drama begins. The males hold territories for themselves and act aggressively towards one another other, which includes a fierce fight for what is rightfully theirs. In this battle for once area a multi-phased scenario full of turf battles, hot pursuits, flying round in circles and physical confrontations takes place. Territorial struggles can take hours and even result in the death of the other party. To the females, the males perform refined dance, which is meant to attract the opposite sex in order to interest them with special act of persuasion. Adult life will end no later than at the end of the summer, but life goes on as eggs and caterpillars - and a new generation is on the fly the following summer.

Karjalainen is an award winning nature photographer and insect expert. The State Award for Public Information was given to Karjalainen for his first publication Suomen Sudenkorennot (Finland’s fireflies 2002). This book gave birth to a great interest on the subject, and increased the number of firefly enthusiasts exceptionally. The book was also awarded in the Best of the Year Competition in Photography and Illustrations series. Karjalainen's second book Suomen heinäsirkat (Finland’s locusts and Grasshoppers 2009) is the equal in significance as his first publication and will presumably remain the basic work of the field for a long time. This book was chosen to be a part of the most beautiful books collection of the year.
Karjalainen was elected a Fotofinlandia-finalist in 2011. In recent years, Karjalainen has focused on photographing Beautiful Demoiselles around the world and in addition to Finland he has been in the Southeast Asian rain forest.