Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen is a Finnish-born photographer and filmmaker and a founder member of the Amber Film & Photography Collective and the Side Photographic Gallery based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Along with Byker, her other long term projects in photography and film include Writing in the Sand, Letters to Katja, The Coal Coast, Song For Billy, Step by Step, Keeping Time, Byker Revisited, Today I'm With You and Still Here.

In 2011 Konttinen’s photography and Amber’s films were inscribed in the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register as being of outstanding national value and importance to the United Kingdom.