No forest animal in Finland will ever go hungry as long as Konsta Punkka has anything to say about it. This 20-year-old Finnish photographer and, in his words, “squirrel whisperer” makes simple trades with the wild animals he meets – for a little snack, they'll pose so he can take adorable photos!
This post may include affiliate links.
He's got tons of beautiful photos of Finnish animals and nature that he takes both with his 18-55mm and 105mm lenses and with his iPhone, so check out his website! For more info about how he gets these pictures, read his interview with Bored Panda below.
"I have several different spots in Finland, where I photograph these guys," Konsta Punkka told Bored Panda. "Some of the places are near my home where I walk and I need to go by car for some of the fox places"
"The feeding thing in my photographs is more like a thing I want to show to the people, that the animals trust me and they allow me to get really close to them. I don't feed these guys much, just a few peanuts to get them stay close to me to take the shots"
"I always think first when I feed the animals, 'does this put the animal in danger?' If there's a fox walking in the middle of the city I won't feed it, because it will come back and that can be dangerous for the fox, for example"
"But in the woods at winter time I think that a few peanuts for the birds and squirrels is not bad for them, because it's already hard to find food in winter, so a little amount of peanuts in uninhabited areas won't do any harm"
"I always photograph the portraits of my animals with my DSLR and the videos with iPhone. Sometimes I photograph landscapes with iPhone as well, if the circumstance makes the iPhone a better camera than DSLR. For example, when photographing in hard positions near puddles and water, it's easier to handle the angle with an iPhone than with a DSLR"
Thank you, Konsta Punkka, for telling Bored Panda more about your work!