Dick on Flowers
Fire Dick is a pseudonym for Nick Tulinen, a photographer who’s been hustling photos full-time over a decade. Norm-core alchemist since birth, he’s been shooting with his distinguishable style in fields of journalism, music and fashion – and lately in big-ass branding and advertising stuff, too. Nick is a father of two sons and a devoted neighborhood freak, a true Hagrid of Helsinki.
Hello Nick! These photos look super cool, what are they?
—Frozen, melted, wizened, burned, refrozen flowers and flower bouquets. Pictures taken at different stages during the process of sculpting flowers.
What does nature photography mean to you?
—I’ve always been a people photographer. In my opinion, there has never been a good enough picture of nature or flowers. These things are simply too beautiful to take pictures of – and should be enjoyed IRL. In my opinion, people end up taking fake looking pictures of them and they don’t resemble the original object at all.
But opinions can change and so can points of views. These are – yes – pictures of flowers, but also kind of fictional movie-like mystic scenes born through a process of sculpting and playing around with them. These are pictures of the process, not pure flower photos.
What’s the inspiration and story behind this photo series?
— Around spring 2020, during the first quarantine, I started this“I have to come up with shit”-project.The epidemic had obviously prevented me from being in contact with people,
and I had nothing interesting to shoot. But what I did have, was shitloads of flower-bouquets I got from my previous exhibition, laying around the house. I took them out to our backyard, probably ended up doing something else, and forgot them in a plastic box. So, there they were, in the rain and freezing again and again. Bored as I was, I started to sculpt these moldy flower cubes. Since then, this has become a more controlled method of producing this kind of pictures. The process is still full of mystery and surprises, as the elements work in such a peculiar way.
Aesthetics of flowers?
—Plants, all kind of flowers has always been a meaningful part of my daily aesthetics. We have a very plant-filled home, and we regularly get bouquets from BUD to bring colors to our life. But the thing is, I also enjoy watching the end part of a bouquet’s life… It becomes another bouquet after being torn down, ready to be thrown away. So, keep em’! Forget them! Enjoy them again! I recently started this web shop of my pictures, so you can also get a print of these explorations, if you are a true flower person. Go check them out: www.firedick.shop
