Featured Photographer #37: Dennis Konoi
My name is Dennis Konoi and I was born in Finland. I’m 22 years old, I’m a first-year student studying photography in England at the University for the Creative Arts, Rochester.
Where did photography meet you? It stumbled into my life when I was about 14 years old when I got my first digital SLR camera. I just instantly liked it, mostly as a hobby, to take pictures and create memories. This ‘hobby’ of mine went on for a couple of years until 2012 when I started studying photography in Finland for a year. This was the year when I was introduced to the world of analog photography. I was instantly hooked on it.
After my studies, I started out with a 35mm Yashica TL-Electro and bought my own film developing kit and started developing my films in my apartment. Since I didn’t have a darkroom for printing, I had to scan the negatives to publish them on my social-media platforms. The funny thing is, as I was taking snapshots and documenting my life with my Yashica, I was this whole time working without a light meter.
This was the time I found the Lumu lightmeter. It fitted perfectly in my price range at the time and I liked the fact that it worked with my iPhone. During the past few years I have started to collect old film cameras. I usually take my photos using a Hasselblad 500c/m with a Carl Zeiss 80mm f2.8 lens, or a Canon Av-1 35mm SLR. I have an old Rolleicord Compur also, but haven’t used it too much. Whenever I’m not taking photographs, I film bits and pieces of everyday ongoing stuff with my Canon Zoom 318 Super 8 camera. I’ve photographed weddings and personal portraits too, but this I usually tend to shoot on a digital SLR for its convenience.
Those times I don’t have the camera strapped around my neck and make photographs I usually spend skateboarding or with my girlfriend.
What do you want to achieve? The thing that inspires me the most in photography is the diversity and all the different methods and styles and outcomes. This is something that I want to study more and more in my life. I like a new challenge or a fun experiment. In a couple of years it would be amazing to have a big exhibition of my own. That’s something that keeps me going — a next step and a new achievement.
Top 5 photographers or bodies of work at the moment:
Boris Mikhailov, Yesterday’s sandwich,
Bernd and Hilla Becher, 'Typologies’,
Alex Pires, from Free Skate Magazine,
Edward Steichen and his Landscape work,
Irving Penn’s image of the Woman in Moroccan Palace.
Final piece of advice for others: When you have a camera on you, always keep your eyes open and be on your toes, you never know when that magical moment comes and you press the shutter. Use your imagination! Have fun and experiment with things, you might not succeed the first time. Anyway, keep on doing the things that inspire you the most! If photography is one of your interests, you should get yourself a Lumu lightmeter and start making images.
Links to my work:
www.dkonoi.com – personal website/blog
www.dkonoi.wordpress.com – University blog
Instagram — @dkonoi
Facebook – Dennis Konoi
Email – dennis.konoi@homtail.com
