Outdoor photoshoot

Capture your Helsinki adventure with our Helsinki outdoor portrait photoshoot service specializing in creating timeless memories. Whether you’re exploring Helsinki’s iconic landmarks, strolling through its serene parks, or taking in its coastal beauty, we’ll turn your moments into beautifully preserved memories. We use both black-and-white and color film to evoke a vintage aesthetic of the mid-century era, highlighting our clients’ natural beauty and sophisticated elegance in an authentic way. Let us make your visit to Helsinki unforgettable!

What’s included in the Helsinki outdoor portrait photoshoot service

Our Helsinki outdoor portrait photoshoot package includes 90 minutes of shooting time outdoors or at locations of your choice, vintage outfit rentals for two people, two rolls of films with a total of 72 shots and one framed darkroom print in travel size of your preferred photograph. Additionally, there are also a series of extra services available, such as extra rolls of film for more photos, the option for more shooting time and more framed photographs. For more details on the available extras, view our extras section.

The customers get to choose their course, theme and location for the days photoshoot beforehand. At Atelier Temppeli we have several photoshoot themes and courses planned for customers that prefer a package option, and we also give the option of personalized photoshoots. After the photoshoot, customers get quick scans of the days film to choose their darkroom print from, and the darkroom print will be prepared within 24 hours. More detailed scanned files will be sent to the customers by google Drive within a week, usually faster.

Themes

Different time eras evoke different feelings in people and everyone has their preferred historical period. The historical center of Helsinki offers layers of architectural styles and periods which work as background for our photos. At the moment we do offer any pre-war period early photography themes for our Helsinki outdoor portrait photoshoot service. Instead, we concentrate on the optimism of the rebuilding period of the 1950s and 1960s.

Olympic tourist 1952

“Welcome to Finland” it said on the banners as the passengers unloaded from the ocean-liners docked at Helsinki’s docks in the 1950s. It was a time of opening for the country with never seen masses of tourists entering the country for the Olympics and the fame brought by Miss Universe 1952 Armi Kuusela, and the success of Finnish athletes in many fields at the time.

With this theme we want to evoke the feeling of tourists first entering Helsinki. This involves exploring the landmarks, enjoying the city parks and views, and doing window shopping in the city center.

Cold War Spy

A figure dressed in a long trench coat and a hat covering the face is sitting on a bench with a brown envelope on lap. Another similarly glad figure joins him. The envelope changes hands. In the background ships are going in and out the harbor and two russian-style churches raise their domes to the sky.

Did you know, that Helsinki has been used as the shooting location for many Cold War era spy movies? It was not possible to go behind the Iron Curtain to film, so many directors chose Helsinki as their “Russia outside of Russia”. Helsinki old town was built in the image of Saint Petersburg in the 19th century and in many places the resemblance can still be seen.

The Cold War spy theme is all about film noir, mystery and long trench coats.

Locations

Our recommended locations for the Helsinki outdoor portrait photoshoot service are all within Helsinki and accessible with public transport or by foot from our location at Temppeliaukio. We can shoot at other locations within the region as well, but these have to be negotiated separately for now.

Different film, different look

Classic professional films like the Kodak Portra-series or the Ilford Fp4+ give highly detailed low-grain results, and are an excellent choice for studio photos. Some cheaper film stocks, such as the Ilford Kentmere are also suitable for studio shoots, and especially when shot together with artificial lights (flash) they give a distingishly retro look. Some manufacturers also offer special “retro” films to archive certain types of retro looks with large grain and tonal shifts that can be pleasing in photos.

One of the many attraction points of analog photography is the ability to use different film stocks on the same camera. While in a digital camera the sensor and the camera’s software create the end image, in film photography the image is captured on the film itself. The end image is affected by the developing process, darkroom printing process and the digital darkroom process as well, but in essence the original image is unaltered. The number of different film stocks is diminishing every year and the existing ones are dwindling. There are however still a number of manufacturers and types of film available. Here at Atelier Temppeli we try to keep a wide range of film in stock for customers to choose their preferred style and to cover lighting conditions. We offer both black and white and color films at any time.

Extras

We offer a number of extra services for customers to customize their photoshoot experience. If the extras that you would like to add are not listed in the list below, please contact us and we can try to provide it. Please note that extras are paid in person by card at the time of the photoshoot.

Part of the film photography experience is receiving handmade darkroom prints, and we highly recommend getting at least one physical copy of the photographs. Framed photos also make an excellent gift for family members and other important people in one’s life.

After booking

After booking the Helsinki outdoor portrait photoshoot service and paying for the photoshoot fee, we will send you a confirmation email and a formulary on your preferences for photoshoot. In the formulary we will inquire the type of photoshoot that you want, whenever you will bring any props or change of clothing, need for makeup table and whenever you want to reserve extra services. After confirming this information we will contact you again to confirm that we are all on the same page, and we will send you the instructions for the shooting day by email.