From behind the eyelashes

Lake 1

Lake 2

The photographs were taken on June 19th at lake Häkläjärvi.

Yesterday late in the afternoon we visited Suomenlinna island fortress. It was quite a warm day, and there were a lot of people visiting the island.

Today is a rainy day. In the morning I went for a walk in Vaakkoi. I saw one young Gavia stellata with a parent. A couple of weeks ago there were two. The blueberries tasted good, they were sweet and big.

I'm getting frustrated with durability of electronic devices. The LX100 has dust spots in the lens, the control wheel in the back doesn't work properly, the zoom switch on top of camera doesn't always work, and now the lens doesn't always retract when switching off the camera. Well, there are rumors that the LX200 would be announced in September, 2016, and maybe the LX100 lasts until then.

Another thing that didn't last long was the HP Photosmart 6510 printer. I have had trouble with the black ink for quite a while. Previously trying the various hints made the printer behave after a while, but this time nothing worked, black ink was missing. I bought the HP printer four years ago in the summer discount sale for 99 euro, and thought it was quite a nice purchase, getting printer, copier and scanner in one device. I have bought quite a few ink cartridges, worth over 200 euro, and I would have thought that it is in the interest of HP to make devices that keep on consuming ink.

My previous printer was a Canon i455 inkjet, bought in 2004, and it lasted for eight years. I still think fondly of this printer, which lasted until the print head broke down.

This time I did quite a lot of web searches for advice on what printer to buy for my modest needs. Finally I bought the Epson XP-760, which was on sale at 100 euro. The scanner is much faster and better than on the HP 6510, and the print quality on normal paper is better than it ever was with the HP 6510. I haven't yet tried printing photographs on photo paper. There are six ink cartridges in the XP-760, and I expect that I will be buying quite a lot of them during the next years, provided that the printer lasts. But so far so good.

Anyway, there are some things that do last. I bought my Berghaus jacket in 2002, just after Finnish markka was replaced with euro (€). At that time I still mentally changed euro to markka, and I remember that the price of the jacket was 930 markka. I have done a lot of outdoor walking with the jacket. It shows signs of wear, but still holds water, and even though the front zipper no longer works, the inner zipper works well, as well as the coat buttons. I wore the jacket this morning in the rain.

(Posting title is from the poem Meeting at an Airport by Taha Muhammad Ali.)

Though there is not one reason I should want to

Lake 1

Lake 2

Lake 3

Lake 4

Lake 5

These photographs were taken at lake Myllyjärvi and lake Häkläjärvi on December 22nd, early in the morning, starting to walk well before sunrise. The day is now 27 minutes longer than at the shortest, so there is more sunlight for taking photographs.

When it has been really cold (below -20 °C) I have had problems with the LX100 camera, batteries freezing and the camera lens getting stuck. I don't remember similar problems from last winter, perhaps it wasn't quite so cold then. In principle the batteries should be quite all right, as there have been less than 100 recharges with either of them.

In November I replaced the car battery with a new one, and it has worked perfectly. There have been articles about cars getting stuck due to batteries not working, but I haven't had any trouble since installing a new one. This morning the temperature was at -26 °C, but now it is warmer, -15 °C. I'm planning to visit a river during the weekend, to see whether there are interesting ice formations to be found.

(Posting title is from the poem Disregard by Ai.)

This was the image he gave them to dream of change

Autumn 1

Autumn 2

Autumn 3

Autumn 4

Autumn 5

Autumn 6

These photographs were taken at lake Häkläjärvi on September 27th.

(Posting title is from the poem Elegy in an Abandoned Boatyard by Dave Smith.)

But if memory, as if to illustrate

Summer 1

Summer 2

Summer 3

Summer 4

Summer 5

Summer 6

Today I walked for almost three hours in the south parts of Luukki. It used to be so that I started to get tired after one hour of walking in the woods, but these days walking starts to feel fine after half an hour, and after two hours I'm getting only a little tired, in a positive way.

Recently I have been exploring the unfamiliar corners of forests in Petikko, Luukki and Nuuksio, places away from the wide marked paths, using map and compass for orienteering.

On Thursday I walked to lake Lillträsk and lake Igelträsk south of lake Kaitalampi in Luukki, where I hadn't been before. Today I started at lake Myllyjärvi near Pirttimäki, and walked towards north, visiting four lakes I haven't seen before - Mustalampi, Sorvalampi, Häkläjärvi and Hepolampi - and going all the way to lake Igelträsk.

The photographs were taken on July 7th.

(Posting title is from the poem Apiary 40 by Carol Frost.)