Loving the Baltic Sea – Interview with awarded underwater photographer Pekka Tuuri

Loving the Baltic Sea – Interview with awarded underwater photographer Pekka Tuuri

Pekka Tuuri is an awarded underwater photographer from Espoo, Finland. His background is in engineering but nowadays he spends a big part of his life underwater capturing the beautiful, rarely seen world of the Baltic Sea and lakes in Finland.

His passion for photography started already as a kid when he was shooting the flowers in their family garden. For Pekka, photography is a way to enhance different experiences, to see more and capture memories.

Pekka Tuuri underwater photographer

Underwater photography started already in 1994 when Pekka was inspired by the pictures of Osku Puukila from the Red Sea. Diving Pekka started already in the year 1989. Nowadays Tuuri shoots mainly Finnish underwater nature which isn´t photographed so frequently. ”It is possible to get ”new” pictures in Finnish waters, something that hasn´t been photographed before. In Finland it´s possible to dive year round and photographing doesn´t need to be limited only to dive trips.” Pekka says.

Favorite places to dive and take pictures for Pekka is Hanko and the archipelago. There can be found the clearest waters and lots of marine life to take pictures of. Mainly the Baltic Sea teaches the diver to appreciate the small stuff since there is no big marine life or colorful corals. For Pekka, following and photographing nature fulfills his curiosity and it teaches peaceful ordinary life which doesn´t need to be fireworks every day. However, he mentions, that Baltic Sea is the world best place to dive wooden wrecks which can be something different and exciting.

Underwater Hanko

Baltic Sea means a lot to Pekka Tuuri. It is the most important place and scenery in his heart. The waves of the Baltic Sea, the rocky islands of the archipelago and the underwater nature is something that gets even this engineer emotional. This is why he wants to support the efforts of protecting and saving the Baltic Sea.

While diving Pekka has seen the problem with the eutrophication which has consequences in the sea. The amounts of some native marine life species have dramatically decreased and other species have increased. There have been good actions going on to decrease the eutrophication but more has to be done, says Pekka. Instead of the blue-green algae, he names the filamentous algae to be his worst enemy and it forces him to limit his sea diving to fall when there is less of these algae around.

Pekka encourages us as individuals to take more actions towards limiting our overall consumption and focusing more on sustainable ways of living. These don´t probably have a direct effect on the Baltic Sea but they will shift our focus in general to protecting nature and it will have an indirect effect to Baltic Sea. To really have an effect, he says that water cleaning systems need big improvements in the whole Baltic Sea area.

Thank you, Pekka for the interview and for supporting our Save the Baltic Sea project! You can see more of Pekka´s work on his website or in the Facebook group Underwater Finland.

Weekendbee supports the protection of the Baltic Sea. Shop our Baltic Sea Collection where 5€ of each purchase will be donated to the Baltic Sea Action Group.