Patiently waiting for what happened next

Hotel 1

Hotel 2

Hotel 3

The photographs were taken in Porvoo at Sannäs Manor on May 24th.

(Posting title is from the poem River by Ginger Murchison.)

Embraced in being

Koli 1

Koli 2

Koli 3

Koli 4

These photographs were taken on July 26th at Koli.

I have been using Flickr for storing my photographs since 2008. Currently I have over 45,000 photographs stored, 130 GB in total. Recently Flick changed the terms for "unlimited" Flickr Pro accounts, and I'm bit unsure what that means in the future. A price increase quite possibly. But at least my Flickr stream remains ad-free.

Flickr Pro offers a new kind of statistics display for view counts, but I'm a bit unsure whether I have any use for it, or whether such things are in fact harmful to know. Today I had a look anyway. During the summer the daily view count dropped to 300, but it is now coming back up to 3000...4000 daily views. It seems that Flickr users are systematically going through the photographs, generating a lot of views. Another source is searches with the search term "lx100", which generates hundreds of views every once in a while.

(Posting title is from the poem Holding On by Richard O. Moore.)

I put my hands to my face

Koli 1

Koli 2

Koli 3

Koli 4

Koli 5

This morning I walked for two hours at Tremanskärr, exploring swamps and forests in the east part of the area, taking photographs and eating some raspberries and blueberries. It was quiet, and I found new places to explore later on.

At noon I had eye and tooth checked, needing to breath deeply and cover eyes with a hand, and it was ok.

During this summer I have started to use non-square aspect ratios, all the way to 16:9, especially while traveling in the middle of Finland. Perhaps the wide landscape was the reason, or then I just can't see things as squares any more. It used to be that over 90% of the photographs I took were square, but now less than half are. And I'm using the aspect ratio switch more and more, exploring the possibilities.

These photographs were taken at Koli on July 26th.

(Posting title is from the poem Makeup on Empty Space by Anne Waldman.)

The fly surrenders its life into the waiter’s clean hands

Koli 1

Koli 2

Koli 3

Koli 4

Koli 5

Koli 6

These photographs were taken at Koli on July 26th.

(Posting title is from the poem Mocking Bird Hotel by Valzhyna Mort.)

I hear a snap and a sound like falling rain

Tahko 1

Tahko 2

Tahko 3

Tahko 4

Apparently I got enough exercise during the vacation, as the bicycle commute to work felt easy today.

These photographs were taken on July 23rd at Tahko. It was rainy in the evening.

(Posting title is from the poem The Albatross by Kate Bass.)

Studying the defects of their structure

Hotel

Lights

Window

Flowers

Flower

Corridor

Suit

These photographs show glimpses of the hotel in which we stayed at Imatra. There was a tunnel connecting two buildings with each other, and on the walls of the tunnel there were big photographs of japanese gardens. Not bad photographs at all, even though viewing them was difficult because of the reflective glass.

(Posting title is from the poem Normalization by Czeslaw Milosz.)

More hotel esthetics

Corner, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Lamp, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Self, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

I like taking photographs of hotel rooms. They are the same but different, ever changing but always the same.

Self-portraiture

Reflect, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Last photograph from the trip to Dublin, a kind of self-portrait. Shiny new hotel bathroom.

Hotel esthetics

Bowl, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Lamp, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Hotel rooms are all the same - and yet different. I like taking photographs in them, and not only to relax after the trip or a meeting. Here are two photographs from the trip to Dublin.

Subject vs. composition - where is the beef?

Glass and tiles, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Majvik, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Pines, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

On various blogs there has been an eager discussion on the topic of subject vs. composition in photography - see Paul Butzi for a view on the matter.

I can't help feeling that this is a variation of the chicken and egg problem - which is not very constructive. Perhaps a better question would be: Which should be first, chicken or the idea of the chicken? In any case, I feel that both the subject and a potential composition can act as an inspiration for a photograph. So what? For me, photography is a process of searching for a meaning in the world, of seeing.

Here are three photographs taken today, at hotel Majvik, all three containing aspects of "subject" and "composition". Whether they are meaningful photographs, I can't say.

For some photographs, the composition is the source of inspiration, for some, the subject, for some, both.

PS. All three photographs are examples of low-light, handheld situation. I'm still debating the merits of the Olympus E-P1, perhaps closer to a decision...

Conferencing

Majvik, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Steps, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Today and tomorrow I'm in a seminar. Here are two photographs, one from early morning and one from the lunch break. The place is Majvik, a rather good looking hotel in a beautiful environment near Helsinki.