The last ferry and the first cars – the Hailuoto causeway opens

I shot the photographs and the video at the opening of the Hailuoto causeway at the end of June. The work came through the communications agency Kaiku, whose client Väylävirasto, the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, needed material from the day for several channels.

The fixed connection, over eight kilometres of causeway and two bridges, replaced the ferry link between the mainland and Hailuoto. The opening day was also the ferry’s last day, which made the shoot a matter of recording two things at once: what began and what ended.

I started at the ferry harbour. Meriluoto lay at the berth with its ramp down, and people had come to watch the last departures. I photographed the harbour, the queue and the empty car deck before moving onto the road, because that view would not be there the next day.

At the opening, the Minister of Transport and Communications, Lulu Ranne, opened the connection and crossed the causeway among the first. A red Volvo lorry from the sixties drove onto the bridge as well, and behind it came the public on bicycles, on foot and with prams. I worked in among the people and close in, so the pictures kept the feel of stepping onto a road rather than the stiffness of a ceremony.

With the drone I photographed the connection from above. Only from the air do you see what it is: the embankment curves out over the sea on its stone facing and disappears towards the horizon, with the bridge rising from the middle of it on its piers. One car on the road gives the scale, and no picture from ground level would.

Väylävirasto got both the photographs and the video footage for its communications. The set covers the same day from two directions, from ground level and from the air, and the same frames bend to news use and to presenting the project.

Do you need both photographs and video of your event from a single shoot? Get in touch, and let’s look together at what is worth keeping from the day.