You are warmly welcome to my homepage!
I’m Aino Huotari (b. 1985) a Helsinki-based freelance photographer, journalist and documentarist.
I’m a Master of Arts with English Philology as my major and journalism and intercultural communications as my minors. After graduating from the University of Jyväskylä in 2014 I got the chance to join a documentary project Marco Polo in Peru by video journalist Jelena Leppänen. The same year I started working as an entrepreneur in the field of visual journalism and photography. In addition to photography and video, I also write stories.
My most recent work focuses on documenting and reporting environmental topics such as climate change and protection of the Baltic Sea. I’m interested in studying the relationship between people and environment through my photography. Intrigued by our role as both the cause of and solution to current environmental problems, I approach different phenomena through the way they appear and manifest in our daily lives, in people’s personal experiences and stories. In 2018 I received a grant from Jokes (Journalistisen kulttuurin edistämissäätiö) for a documentary project on the protection of Baltic Sea called Meri meidän. The project’s opening exhibition was held at Sanomatalo, in Helsinki in May 2019.
2019–2020 I worked as the editor in chief in Nuorten Luonto, which is a membership magazine of a Finnish environment organization for children and adolescents Luonto-Liitto.
I’m interested in the photograph’s ability to raise questions and create discussion. For me photography is more than a way to visualize reality, it is a tool for social change.
In 2019 I held a photography workshop at the Finnish Nature Centre Haltia for a group of Nordic and Baltic adolescents and their instructors as part of the program of the Nordic-Baltic Junior Ranger seminar. In the workshop we discussed effective photography and documentary work – the social influence of photography and how to build visual stories around environmental themes.
Please feel free to contact me for journalistic and documentary assignments and collaborations or photography workshops. I’m happy to work with other journalists, documentarists, photographers and writers. I enjoy both solo and group projects.
