Last weekend we spent some lovely time amidst the Finnish autumn colours. I found a young woman from my close circles to model for us, and the few days with her were a lot of fun. My two-year-old toddler accompanied us, fed her toy cat and ate snacks while we were shooting. I was amazed that such a thing could be done with such a little one. Her favourite spot was Suomenlinna Castle, where we all threw autumn leaves in the air.

This photo session certainly had a purpose. At Valona, we’ve made some delicious new autumnal colours for our wooden jewellery. Emilia, our master of jewellery, has been tweaking and honing the colours to reach the desired shades. The end result is nothing short of amazing. Valona’s jewellery collection continues to hold onto the same style of minimalist classic shapes and colours, yet our colour palette has expanded considerably. Many of our products now come in shades of ochre yellow, burgundy, rose pink, warm pecan brown and deep green.

What a perfect time of the year to take model photos of our wooden jewellery on a sunny autumn weekend. Of course, I would have loved to have photographed these up North in Lapland. This year, there was no way we could make it North for the autumnal weeks of “ruska”. Fortunately, it’s beautiful in the South too.

In Suomenlinna where we ended up tossing autumn leaves in the air, other groups of photographers also started to gather. Suddenly, a Filipino tourist group, a family with children and a couple of other film crews, some in casual, some in festive outfits, were involved in our activity. My girl, of course, was rolling around in the leaves. There was even a little feeling of a playful leaf war in the air. I highly recommend it!