I spent the past three years making a photo book.
It’s over a hundred glossy pages, hard-covered and carefully curated — with photographs I truly care about and texts that span a decade of my life. The result is deeply personal, but also a visual reflection of a journey: one foot in the corporate world, the other in art. One in America, the other in Finland. Words on one page, images on the next. And the title, Both Sides Now, is no accident — I’ve always been a fan of Joni Mitchell.
But this book didn’t come out of nowhere. It came from a pile of old diaries, a rediscovery of memories, and a desire to make something meaningful.
From Silicon Valley to Slow Light
A few years ago, I stumbled across my old diaries — notes from my time working in Silicon Valley, where I led mobile software efforts for HP and Intel, built security solutions at McAfee, and worked with some of the most interesting minds in tech. These notebooks held stories about boardroom negotiations, product launches, and the human moments in between.
At the same time, I had begun photographing more seriously. Mostly analog. Manual cameras. Slow film. Real darkroom work. And I started to notice something: both the photographs and the diary entries triggered vivid memories — not just of events, but of entire atmospheres. The light, the air, the emotion of a moment.
That’s when the idea sparked: what if I told both stories at once?
Creating a Dialogue: Visual vs Verbal
The book pairs photos and diary excerpts — each spread showing two sides of one life. But this wasn’t as straightforward as it sounds. In fact, the first version of the book didn’t work very well. I saw deep connections between the texts and the images, but for others, those links weren’t always clear.
That’s where help came in.
My friend Kari Paukola, a brilliant photographer and longtime collaborator, was the first to say “You need to make this book.” His encouragement helped me take the project seriously. Then, I showed an early draft to Taneli Eskola — a Finnish artist and professor who has published many books himself. Taneli told me that the photographs were not the problem. It was the layout — the storytelling — that needed work. His advice helped shape the structure of the final version.
The design, though, came from closer to home: my daughter Annamari. A professional graphic designer, she created the original layout and gave the book its visual rhythm. I later tweaked it myself, learning InDesign along the way. But at its core, this is still her design — even the folder on my Mac is named after her first draft.
Memory as Medium
Shooting analog forces slowness. You think before pressing the shutter. You remember the light, the lens, the smell of the developer. That’s why I remember almost every photo in the book — where I was, what I felt.
Reading my old diary entries created a similar effect. One line could bring an entire memory flooding back. The two together — image and text — became a powerful combination.
But that power had to be refined. James Rice, an American photographer and thoughtful mentor, gave me some of the most valuable critique. “Make the story painfully obvious,” he said. “Or people won’t get it.” That led to a complete overhaul: I replaced pictures, rewrote texts, and made the narrative stronger. It was hard — but absolutely necessary.
Resisting the Obvious
Later, I shared the book with Itai Vonshak — a former colleague from HP who went on to lead design at Google. Itai reminded me not to overexplain. “Don’t be trivial,” he said. That pushed me to leave some ambiguity, some mystery in the flow of the book — allowing space for the reader’s own interpretation.
And finally, I asked Jon Rubinstein — my former boss, and yes, the man behind the iPod — to take a look. Jon wrote the foreword. He appears in a few of the stories too, but his support gave the project a kind of full-circle feeling: from tech, to art, and now into the hands of anyone curious enough to read it.
Imperfect and Finished
This book is a snapshot of a certain time, created with help from people I respect deeply. It contains parts I’m proud of, and parts I would now do differently. But that’s what makes it human. A little imperfect — and better because of it.
You can buy the book if you’d like. It’s available in my web shop. But honestly, this isn’t a sales pitch.
This is me sharing a piece of my life — and inviting you to see both sides now.
Links and credits:
Kari Paukola’s Instagram: @karipaukola
Taneli Eskola’s work: Valokuvataiteenmuseo
James Rice: jsricephotography.com
Itai Vonshak’s Instagram: @vonsh
About Jon Rubinstein: Wikipedia