Age: 23
Hometown: Turku
Ronja Siitonen is a young photographer from Turku you should know. When she’s not studying photography at Finland's own version of Chicago(Lahti), you may find the Turku-based photographer at any number of her favourite spots around the city. That's also how Ronja ended up in this Logbook. We met Ronja around 5am on early Sunday morning at the stairs of Turku city library. We had a great conversation about life, arts and creating. When the sun begun to rise and we both started to stagger home we decided to make this nightly mumbling into a blog post. A post about Ronja and her views about photographing and creating in this God forsaken year 2020. So here it is a somewhat censored version, but true never the less, in her own words:
Hi! I’m Ronja Siitonen, 23- year old photographer originally from Turku, now studying photography at Lahti Institute of Design.
I think photography is a natural medium for me because it’s so tied to our real world. To me, real life and real people are usually much more interesting than fantasy or fairytales. When you manage to capture something absurd from what the real world has to offer, that’s the most rewarding thing.
My method is pretty simple: I always have a camera with me, and I shoot along the way. I never really learned to take photos with my phone. I’m not good at planning my pictures beforehand, the details usually unfold while doing. Self-portraits have always been a big part of my photography, the process feels natural when I can try different things in peace. I often think of my photos as series, that’s why for example instagram and it’s celebration for singular photos is a bit difficult as a platform. Besides photography I enjoy writing. Combining photos and text is something I want to do more in the future.
Womanhood. Youth and it’s temporariness. Those are the two subjects I just can’t shake off. Sometimes I’m just randomly shooting without a goal, and afterwards notice that I’ve processed those same subjects again. And I think that’s cool, I’ll do it until I’ve got it out of my system. And as a female photographer, it’s inevitable that exploring my place as a woman artist will always be part of my work.
Besides those subjects, I’m interested in all kinds of people and phenomena. I guess that’s kinda mandatory if you want to create something.
I’m fascinated by the idea ”what will these pictures say about me or the world” If I’ll look at them 20 years from now? Maybe they’ll say nothing much, but hopefully they’ll resonate with someone.
The idea of ”me as a photographer” is constantly changing, and I’m just trying to keep up and enjoy. And to remember that pretty pictures won’t change anything <3
Follow and see more Ronja's work on Instagram @ronjasiitonen
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