In 2012, I edited a book called Bird’s Eye View of Mikkeli from the shots of pilot Paavo Jussi-Pekka. To avoid using the same name, I now ended up with the additional phrase “bird vision”. It tells me, I think, about the feeling when you’ve got on your wings, detached from the earth’s crust, and gliding above everyday at a height of about thousand feet. The magic of leaving your normal state of mind and watching the view with your new eyes. Through the eyes of a bird. How enchanting!
Since I do not have the pilot’s license, I have used the services of the Mikkeli Aviation Association: Kai Vana, the chairman of the association, has flown me twice in 2014 and 2015. I then submitted the upcoming book Mikkeli – A City in Transformation, which includes a few of my shots. There are about twenty of my previously unseen pictures in this show. Lots of details in large prints. Improvements to the Highway 5 are underway, as well as a Jurassic Rock event on the Kenkävero Peninsula.
An interesting feature in the aerial photography is that the new perspective on the familiar city makes visible things that the frog’s perspective will not take into account. I look at my images fresh and a bit like a town plan architect for whom a similar perspective is commonplace. However, the town plan in Mikkeli does not only mean a grid pattern, but many road lines have been drawn, at least seemingly freehand.
Olli Jaatinen (b. 1960, Haukivuori) is an established photographer from Mikkeli. In addition to dozens of exhibitions, he has focused on making picture books for the past fifteen years, which he has already done sixteen. In addition to numerous own books, Jaatinen edits a new book by Leo Montonen (1905–1968), a photographer from Puumala. Jaatinen is an honorary member of the Finnish Association of Photographic Artists.
