Photographing local people as theme may be either documenting their native life, reconstructing the heritage of their ancient culture or having them pose as models in fantasy photo shoots. In both cases it is always a matter of gaining their trust and acceptance. It often requires Fiann to spend long time amongst them to earn it.

The photograph depicts 125 years old yogi in the Himalayas. Fiann says: "What you see in front of him, on the sand, is a lock of his own white hair: a 3m long dreadlock. He was still practicing yoga at his advanced age when I met him. I have a whole set of photographs with him on which some people commented: “very energetically inspirational photographs"

Sometimes Fiann describes the style he portraits the indigenous people as "Spiritual Portrait". -"Although of different magnitude of talent I would allude to the attempt of reasonable reality distortion by Picasso. He portrayed Western man reasonably turning him into less attractive I portray indigenous man reasonably turning him into more attractive. (photographing, not digitalizing)."

Fantasy photo shoots: Fiann personally takes care of the majority of the tasks here. These include: production, styling, costumes, props and scenography. In 60% of the cases the only other person present during the photo shoot is his assistant, otherwise Fiann does it all by himself.

Although the backgrounds we see in these images appear to be cosy and colourful places, the temperatures are usually around 0 degrees Celsius (freezing point) and are usually accompanied by strong winds so models are literally freezing. Even the temperatures showing "summer" shots are between 0 and 6 degrees Celsius so characters you see in all the photographs do brave the cold and persevere for art’s sake. Some really do pose nude in cold waters and only occasionally it is the geothermal water. Some pose nude on ice and some suffer altitude sickness where photographs are taken in locations 4000+ meters above sea level.

"Fantasy photo shoots are only for tough models and are way different than any fashion shoots: these are definitely not for Icelandic skinka although in both cases you endeavour to show your body :) "

Fiann hardly ever uses models from the modelling agencies.

When browsing through a small gallery of some of the challenging photo shoots, bear in mind they were all shot at the locations as seen. Obviously mermaid tail was pasted later. Under each picture you will also see a short description of weather conditions during the photo shoot. Below you can find photographs of costumes, weapons and props: all these items were designed by Fiann.