A year in the life of my backyard. All photos LITERALLY taken within 30 steps of my home. Ive travelled around the world many times, and the most beautiful things I've ever seen have been the ones looking at me all along.

My Scholarship entry - 20 steps from home. A year in the life of my backyard.

Canada | Monday, November 3, 2014 | 5 photos

Light. Harsh, diffused, golden, use any qualitative words you'd like, light is the most crucial part of photography. It IS photography. And learning to master this beautiful gift from nature is my objective everyday. My name is Kari Luhtasaari and I'm a 29 year old forest fire fighter and photographer from a village in Northern Canada. I spend my summers protecting our beautiful Boreal forest from fire, and my winters travelling around the world being inspired by beautiful light and landscapes. I feel like i should be chosen because of my passion and dedication to photography. The reason I LOVE photography so much is the fact that I have the ability to create something that may never be recreated again and share it with the world. I put a piece of myself in all of my images, and I feel like the viewer can feel that as well, with feel being the keyword in that sentence. I don't want my audience to merely look at a photograph, I want them to FEEL the photograph, Emotions, tones, colours, composition, sense of space are all tools that I use to help my audience feel like they are in my landscapes rather than just looking at them aesthetically. If chosen, I will make a difference.