We are having it hot once again, the day temperature raising well above 25 °C and staying there from 11 am to 9 pm. Maybe it is the heat which makes one feel exhausted. Here are some photographs taken nearby; I didn't have the energy to go for a longer walk.
Now that I have been commuting by bicycle several times a week, my feet have started to hurt. But it goes away if I take a break of several days. I have been thinking about this. Finally I concluded that the shoes I'm using are to blame: they are too small and narrow for my feet.
So, today I went (while I was commuting back home) to a bicycle shop and tried new shoes, aiming for a wider design. And the first pair I tried fitted perfectly: Specialized Sport Touring Shoe, size 47 (13 US/UK). I haven't yet tested them in actual use, except for putting in the Shimano cleats and checking them out.
Have to see how it goes. It is not good to have such pain in the feet; it hurts especially going up and down the stairs.
Today I got stuck in a traffic jam. Summer brings out the roadworks... To compensate for the streetside photograph, here are two more relaxing ones.
Yesterday I posted a photograph titled "Blue beauty" - a title of my own invention - the subject being Plebeius argus, one of the most common (and most beautiful) butterflies in Finland. Yesterday I couldn't spend much time with it, as I had to give first aid to our daughter who cut her finger on a sharp reed.
Today I went for a walk with the wife, and on a field we passed there were plenty of Plebeius argus, both sexes. Here you can see them in action. And the female ones were really busy - not feeding, as I first thought, but instead laying eggs. They allow a photographer to approach to within 5 cm without being disturbed.
We went with the children to a nearby pond to see what is there to be seen. And even though it was almost too bright and sunny, the occasional cloud helped in taking photographs. I think these didn't turn out too bad.
Water lily, Nymphaea alba, is such a beauty that I just had to have it as the main subject of a posting. All of the photographs were taken today at Myllyjärvi, "Mill Lake", in Espoo.
The word "nostalgic" refer here to two things: a mood and a setting on the LX3/LX5.
First, about the mood. These photographs were taken at Myllyjärvi, which is "Mill Lake" in English. There are at least three so named lakes in Espoo; this is the one which is near Bodom Lake. It is a quiet place, and rather beautiful, especially when wet.
Second, about the film mode "nostalgic" on the LX3/LX5. Andreas tried it on his LX5 and seems to like the results. I have used it on the LX3, and it works well. I think the name nostalgic is quite misleading in the film mode, if you don't mean that nostalgic is the same as "like the real world". All these photographs were taken with the same setting that Andreas tried on the LX5, and they work equally well on the LX3.
First I thought there is nothing much good in the "close" photograph here, but then I thought again. Maybe it is better than the one where the flowers are in focus?
Last year I made a photo book during Midsummer, from start to finish, for the SoFoBoMo 2010 project.
SoFoBoMo 2011 hasn't yet started, so there wasn't such an incentive this year, but I did take some photographs nevertheless. Having an event such as SoFoBoMo really can make a difference in going from individual photographs to a whole book; there is the community, and you feel you are not alone in what you do.
The 2010 SoFoBoMo book was titled Impressions of Midsummer's Eve (4 MB PDF file). It is the most popular of my SoFoBoMo books, having been read 566 times so far. And I'm rather satisfied with the result. Even though there are things one could improve, the spontaneous work from start to finish feels good even today.
If you want to know more about photo books, I wrote some instructions based on my SoFoBoMo experiences. And have a look at the SoFoBoMo 2011 site. Today 265 people have pledged to take part, and participants can start in 6 days.
We walked today up (and down) the hill at Malminkartano in Helsinki, which has a lot of things growing there. Here is a sample to enjoy.
After some time I once again experimented with motion blur. I feel I learned a bit about this today, here are three samples.
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