I mean the menagerie in the utmost dark

Pond 1

Pond 2

Pond 3

I didn't go for a walk today, even though the weather was fine, -2 °C. There was just too much things to do at home, and then shopping with the children. But yesterday I managed to go out walking twice, during afternoon and then in the evening after sunset.

These photographs were taken on November 23rd, in a place from which I took quite a few photographs with the LX3/LX5. After sunset it is so dark that I had to use a mini-tripod to take photographs with the LX3/LX5. In fact, it was so dark that I couldn't see the ducks that were floating on the pond. (Here you see a photograph taken at this same place a year ago with the LX5.)

But with the LX100 I took these photographs handheld. In the first photograph I used ISO 1600, and the exposure was 1/6 second. In the two other photographs I used ISO 800, and exposure was 0.4 second, and the OIS proved that it works well, as 3/4 of the photographs I took were reasonably free of camera shake.

The photographs don't really correspond with reality, as the human eye is not able to see in such a darkness. But I like these photographs anyway.

(Posting title is from the poem The Pond Museum by Brandon Shimoda.)

Don’t try to bind

Berries

Berry

Leaf

Leaves

One thing which the LX100 allows, in contrast to the LX3/LX5, is the use of DOF to isolate subjects close to the camera. I'm not really into this kind of photography, and the wide DOF has been in fact one good point of the small-sensor cameras, making it possible to take handheld close-up photographs.

Here is how the photographs taken with the LX100 look at f/2.8 and 34 mm (75 mm equiv.). One could grow to like the look of the photographs.

Quite soon I realized that to be able to get exactly the right focus, I need to have different settings from the normal ones, and thus I have set the "one-focus-point" mode to the custom settings C2. In addition, I set ISO 400 as the sensitivity to C2 to limit the effects of camera shake. Not that the OIS system on the LX100 wouldn't work well, it is just the with subjects close to the camera OIS is not a guarantee of shake-free results.

(Posting title is from the poem Everything Is Free by George Elliott Clarke.)

I imagined each thought, each step

Red

Fern

Yellow

Today I went for a two-hour walk. There was enough snow so that the landscape looked like winter. Perhaps some of it will remain tomorrow.

I commuted by bicycle on two days this week. So far I have got about six hours of exercise, which is not bad. Lack of sleep bothered yesterday, and I got a headache, but today I'm feeling much better.

The photographs were taken on November 16th.

(Posting title is from the poem Letter from Swan’s Island by Elizabeth Spires.)

Tucked in a white wing

Snow 1

Snow 2

Snow 3

There is a little bit of snow on the ground now, but temperature is at +1 °C, so it is melting away already. But perhaps the landscape will be a bit like winter today.

These photographs were taken a week ago in Tremanskärr, when we got 5 cm of snow, and for a day the landscape was white.

(Posting title is from the poem White-Eyes by Mary Oliver.)

They close my eyes. I close their eyes.

Red 1

Red 2

Last Saturday we got some snow, but it melted away the next day. Now it is very dark outside, but maybe we'll get some snow once again during the weekend.

This was an excessively busy week, loaded with things to do. But now I'm happy because so much got done.

(Posting title is from the poem Little Song by Rowan Ricardo Phillips.)

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore

Lamp

Path

Two photographs taken in the dark, on November 14th. I have commuted by bicycle on only one day this week, but perhaps tomorrow is the second time. Also, I have had too little sleep, which makes me do silly mistakes. Thats isn't always funny.

(Posting title is from the poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.)

There is sometimes a walk afterward

Dark 1

Dark 2

Dark 3

These photographs were taken in Helsinki on Monday evening, walking by the seaside towards Uspenski Cathedral.

I had a look at the Flickr stats, and since November 1st there have been over 120,000 views of the photographs. I thought the number of views would go down as the interest in the LX100 peters off, but the opposite seems to be the case. Of my top 20 photographs at Flickr, ranked by the all-time view count, 14 were taken with the LX100.

I'm not yet quite used to the look of photographs taken with the LX100. And there are surprises, most of them rather positive. I have tweaked the settings a bit. In the beginning I used the silent mode, but now I'm using the normal shutter, with the sounds turned off and autofocus lamp off. The shutter sound is rather silent, and pleasant to hear. Also, I set the nr to -5 in the film mode, which means that there is a little bit of more noise visible in the high-ISO photographs, but less noise reduction artifacts. I like it better this way.

(Posting title is from the poem Arcade: The Search for a Sufficient Landscape by Bin Ramke.)

And my searches for the final answer

Ships 1

Ships 2

Ships 3

Ships 4

Ships 5

On Monday I attended a dinner in Helsinki. It was rather dark, and wet, and thus perfect for taking photographs of ships. After the dinner I got a rather blurry feeling...

(Posting title is from the poem Great Ships by Adam Zagajewski.)

Why are my eyes filling up with these lonely tears

Swamp 1

Swamp 2

Swamp 3

One of my favorite places in the whole wide world are the swamps at Meiko. Thus, photographs.

(Posting title is from the song Whole Wide World by Wreckless Eric.)

Politely keeping the big secret

Ditch

Reeds

Stream

On November 15th I went for a walk in Meiko, to lake Kommelpott and back. It was quiet, and I didn't meet anyone while walking.

(Posting title is from the poem Don’t Tell Anyone by Tony Hoagland.)

A feast for the eyes

Green

Blue

Orange

Gray

Well, the rain promised in the weather forecast never appeared, and thus we have about 4 cm of snow on the ground, only 1 cm less than yesterday. It feels like winter.

Thanks to getting the LX100, I have been taking a lot of photographs, over 1000 each week. These photographs were taken between November 11th and 14th in Helsinki.

(Posting title is from the poem The Love of an Orange by Dahlia Ravikovitch, translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld.)

Could see, and not seeing what we could not see

Walk 1

Walk 2

Walk 3

Walk 4

Walk 5

Walk 6

Yesterday I posted some b&w photographs. Here are some in color, taken at sunset time in Tremanskärr. There were some man-made tracks in the snow, and plenty of deer, hare, dog etc. tracks. Someone shouted the name "Leevi" a couple of times, probably a dog had gone wandering in the forest.

I installed studded winter tires to the bicycle yesterday. That may have been a bit premature, as the weather forecast promises rain for today, which means that the snow we have will probably disappear. But at least the bicycle is now ready for winter.

(Posting title is from the poem Wonder as Wander by Sharon Olds.)

The frolic architecture of the snow

Snow 1

Snow 2

Snow 3

Snow 4

Snow 5

Snow 6

Snow 7

Snow 8

I like b&w photographs, but I'm not able to take them, there is just something missing in the way I see the world. However, I tried out the "dynamic b&w" mode of the LX100, and the results were not so bad as I feared they would be. So, here is a gallery of winter photographs, in black and white.

(Posting title is from the poem The Snow-Storm by Ralph Waldo Emerson.)

Snow has left its own white geometry

Snow 1

Snow 2

Snow 3

Snow 4

We got a nice amount of snow yesterday, and the landscape was renewed. Darkness doesn't feel quite as dark any more. I went for a walk with my daughter, enjoying the snow.

(Posting title is from the poem Snow Signs by Charles Tomlinson.)