At the age of 7, my family moved from Southern Finland to my mother's homestead in Puolanka, Kainuu. In the eyes of a fresh first-grader, the lush green groves and sturdy pine forests of South Karelia gave way to the mysterious spruce trees of the north and the breathtaking landscapes of the high fells. As a little boy, I was immediately drawn to the new nature around me and the adventures it offered me. Through my scouting hobby and later my military service in the Kainuu Border Guard, I eventually built up my wilderness skills to the point where being out in nature became a natural and permanent part of my life. In the 1980s, with money saved from my summer job, I bought my first second-hand SLR camera from a local newspaper editor and started capturing the landscapes around me on film. I had to learn the camera settings the hard way because the results were only visible after a delay of a week or two after the film roll was finished and the film was sent to the developer by post . Photographic equipment was also not readily or cheaply available and I remember building my first height-adjustable camera tripod from suitably nested iron tubes in school crafts lessons.

In the 80s, a library van used to stop regularly at the end of the dirt road at my house. I was an eager reader and my favourite books included Lord Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys and Olli Aulio's Suuri retkeilykirja. But the book that most captured my imagination was The Gnomes by the Dutch duo Wil Huygen (author) and Rien Poortvliet (illustrator), which introduced me to the secret world of elves in the woods through realistic pictures and detailed text. After devouring The Gnomes as a primary school pupil (eventually dozens of times), the northern forests were never the same for me. The hollows in the mountain slopes were for me the entrances to the elves' homes, and the blueberry patch had been visited by others than just my neighbours.

Like many others, my studies and work gradually took me away from Kainuu. When I grew up, I didn't dare to get excited about elves any more as I had to find my place in the world. My photography hobby was put aside for years and the next time I picked up a camera was in the 2000s. While studying media at Tampere University of Applied Sciences and later visual effects for films at Bournemouth University, England, I rediscovered photography. During my studies, we shot special effects backgrounds with digital cameras and later added objects modelled with 3D graphics using computer software or people shot in a studio against a green screen.

When I was studying visual effects, I had done coursework on the pioneers of the field, who decades before computers and 3D graphics made special effects for classics like Star Wars entirely by hand. Ray Harryhausen, in particular, became famous for his stop motion science fiction films with animated characters. Instead of using digital 3D characters, I wanted to try my luck at creating an elf in my photographs using the techniques of stop motion animation. After countless evenings and weekends spent at my desk, Elwin the Elf was born. Elwin started travelling on my camera back on my photo trips and I began to refine my shooting techniques and equipment. With each trip, stories began to emerge as I filmed Elwin and eventually my first book, Elf the Elf - Lost in the Wilderness, took shape. Elwin and the northern wildlife as the storytellers - me as the photographer.