Meeri Koutaniemi

Photojournalist Meeri Koutaniemi likes to get as close as possible to her subjects – and their stories. "I always think that an individual is the window for larger phenomena," she says. "It's my strength as a photographer to go near people, and I want to stay in the moment. Sometimes I am so fascinated by the person that I forget to take a few steps back, and it blinds me from what else is happening."

Based in Helsinki, Finland, Meeri focuses on human rights issues, often through the lens of identity and activism. Across more than 70 countries, she has documented compelling stories of resilience and survival, including covering the humanitarian side of conflict and displacement, from the Syrian civil war to Myanmar's Rohingya crisis.

If she were to sum up her wide-ranging work, Meeri says she gravitates towards questions around identity, along with freedom of expression, speech and movement. "Freedom and methods for survival and resistance are very important to me," she says.

"I always say that was the crossroads of my career," she says. "I understood at that early age that I could work as a journalist if I pursued it persistently, practised and studied, and didn't give up because of my age or gender." Later that year, she spent three months in Central America. Empowered by publishing work from her trips, despite her lack of formal experience, she applied to study journalism at Finland's Tampere University.

Throughout her studies, Meeri continued to travel and photograph global human rights issues. "Every year, I took a period free to do my own projects," she says. "It was always part of my process." This included documenting house demolitions in the West Bank. "The scale of human rights violations in Palestine is huge and serious, and influenced my own will to dedicate more time in the future to human rights and social issues as a photojournalist. The stories really affected me personally, and strengthened my activism."

The traditional path of rising through the ranks, from small newspaper to national news, was never Meeri's dream. She wanted the freedom to pursue her passions, and when she graduated she became a full-time freelancer. Having upgraded to the Canon EOS 5D on its release, Meeri's burgeoning career almost ended before it started, when she had all her equipment stolen on a train in Serbia. Determined not to give up, she borrowed money from her parents to replace her gear and make a go of photojournalism.

Focusing on women's rights, Meeri soon started to work in conflict zones. "I have never been a war photographer, but I've always been interested in the echo of violence in conflict," she says. This has taken her to the border of Syria, documenting the first significant numbers of refugees crossing into Lebanon and Jordan, and to photograph the peace processes in Somalia and Colombia.

A turning point came when she got a commission to cover female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kenya, spending a week in a safe house. "The theme really got under my skin," says Meeri. "I spent the days thinking about what else I could do." She decided to dedicate herself to the subject, creating a visual encyclopaedia around FGM. Over the past 11 years she has regularly returned to this long-term personal project, which now encompasses 12 countries and has become the core of her work.

Having exhibited her images in 50 shows around the world, Meeri has also won recognition at home and abroad, including being awarded Photographer of the Year in Finland in 2012 and 2013, and winning the Visa D'or Daily Press Award at Visa pour l'Image the following year. She was selected to participate in the Joop Swart and VII Masterclasses in the same year, has directed documentaries for Finnish TV, and is a writer and journalist for an arts programme.

Looking to the future, she wants to finalise her work on FGM, and then continue exploring human stories, getting as personal as possible.