Valkmusa national park - 90% swamp

Valkmusa marsh, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Cranberry, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Lycaenidae, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Valkmusa view, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Valkmusa view, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Here is a little story in photographs about Valkmusa National Park, which is situated between the cities Kotka and Kouvola near the coast in eastern Finland. It is a great place for looking at different swamp types (30 different). A lot of butterflies and other fauna and flora is found there.

This was our first visit to the area, and what a nice day it turned out to be. Lots of butterflies, and they were not afraid to sit on humans, so you could study them in leisure while they were sitting on your hand. And there was a lot of other colorful stuff to be seen as well.

The photographs are both in color and in b&w. I'm making a lot of experiments in b&w photography, but some things are starting to click in place.

An interesting aspect of b&w photography is that the LX3 battery seems to last longer when not shooting in color - I'm getting well over 600 photographs with one charge, when I used to get something between 500-600 images.