Arno Rautavaara is a Helsinki-based retired biologist, non-fiction book editor and nature photographer who started photographing nature in 1963.

In Finland, he has primarily photographed birds, plants and landscapes in the archipelago. Since childhood, he has spent summers at the family’s summer place in Mussalo in Kotka, from where he has moved around on the eastern Gulf of Finland on his photography expeditions. He has grown especially fond of taking photographs in the Aspskär bird conservation area in Pernaja in Loviisa, which he has visited in different seasons for more than 50 years. Most of the photographs in this Vuosaari House exhibition were taken in Aspskär and the surrounding islands.

In addition to Finland, Rautavaara has also travelled the globe taking photographs, including to Svalbard, Iceland, Tanzania, the Galápagos Islands, Patagonia and Antarctica.

Rautavaara has had solo exhibitions in Finland and Estonia and he has participated in joint exhibitions. He has presented slideshows in Finland and Sweden and his images have been published in numerous books and magazines.

He is a founding and honorary member of the Suomen luonnonvalokuvaajat ry association for Finnish nature photographers and a member of the Suomen ammattiluontokuvaajat ry association for professional Finnish nature photographers. Rautavaara was awarded the State Prize for Photographic Art in 1984.

The slideshow is presented in the lobby of Vuosaari House. It is part of the programme for the spring’s process exhibition centred around migratory birds.

Arno Rautavaara will be giving a lecture on bird photography at Vuosaari House together with the chair of Suomen Luonnonvalokuvaajat SLV ry, Pirjo Lindfors, on 29 April at 14.00–15.00

Entry to the events is free of charge.