Nina Saarinen's Photography Exhibition: "Survived with Tenderness"

Nina Saarinen is a self-taught photographer from Helsinki who primarily photographs nature. Macro photography fascinates her because it forces her to pause and see things that are easily overlooked in everyday life - in close-up, the ordinary transforms into something extraordinary.

In the series "Survived with Tenderness", Saarinen has focused on things considered fragile. Tenderness is often associated with fragility, but the images tell a different story: delicate leaves and needles bear heavier burdens than themselves, frost encases the tender flower in an icy shell - and yet these things endure from season to season. Perhaps tenderness is not fragility at all, but a quiet strength that withstands the fiercest storms and frosts and still reaches toward the light again and again.