The photographs were taken after the Kiira storm which hit Helsinki on August 12th. Wind gusts were up to 30 m/s, felling trees. Compared to a hurrigane this storm was of course quite modest. But due to climate change extreme weather phenomena will become much more common. What used to happen rarely may become almost an everyday event.
(Posting title is from the song Children Of The Sea by Black Sabbath.)
When we left Stockholm on September 21st, thick clouds gathered on the sky. In the evening at sea there was thunder and lightning, but fortunately the wind stayed moderate, so the ship was quite stable. Quite a way to start the way back to Finland.
(Posting title is from the poem Love Me Little, Love Me Long.)
Here are four photographs taken during the storm in Tampere, near Pyynikinharju. Two pairs of photographs, a bit different feeling in them.
Update: I just realized that there is a path along the dark shore, and some people were running on this path, with head lamps, and pieces of the trajectories of these lamps are visible in the 8 second long exposures. See the second photograph.
With a sturdy tripod it would have been possible to try to catch longer trails of these lights on the shore, but of course that is just hindsight.
(Posting title is from the poem Four-Leaf Clover by Ella Higginson.)
Here are some less blurry photographs I took Tuesday evening at Tampere, by the beach near Pyynikinharju. It was stormy, and dark so that I had trouble seeing where it was safe to step. I really liked being outside even though my hands got gold when I was operating the camera.
(Posting title is from the poem A Channel Crossing by Algernon Charles Swinburne.)
I attended a two-day meeting in Tampere, and we had stormy weather during the first day. I went out for a short walk before dinner, and tried to take some long-exposure photographs by the lake nearby. The wind was so strong - 20 m/s or faster - that the camera wouldn't keep still when I put it on top of a rock or some other support, so I didn't get many sharp photographs.
However, some of the blurry photographs are rather artistic, there is a bit of painterly feeling in them, as if painted by the storm. The first one was taken handheld so it is even blurrier than the other two.
Do you think that these photographs work as photographs?
(Posting title is from Killing Him: A Radio Play by Yehuda Amichai, translated by Adam Seelig and Hadar Makov-Hasson.)
On December 26th we had quite a storm here in Finland, and a lot of trees fell down, causing disruptions in electricity, blocking road and rail traffic. Some problems still remain, even though almost a week has passed since then.
Today I made a long walk, walking from Kurkijärvi lake to east, towards Vestra. In Vestra I explored a forest where I haven't been before, and it was quite a place, as a lot of big trees had fallen, bringing other trees down.
We got quite a storm today, wind speeds up to 30 m/s, in gusts. At the same time the sky became blue, the wind sweeping the clouds away, and it was sunny, which was a pleasure even though the sun is low near horizon even at noon.
The storm fell a lot of trees across roads and on top of buildings, causing damage. I don't remember having such a storm in December.
Many people were outside, walking, with cameras, recording signs of damage. Quite a show!
Today we had rain and occasional strong wind, but when I went for a walk, there was none of that, although dark clouds seemed to be circling all around.
I have been reading a book about forestry in Finland, especially the practice of clear-cutting large areas of forest at one go. (The book is in Finnish, Metsänhoidollisia toimenpiteitä, and it really provokes the reader into thinking. I wrote a review, in Finnish.)
The book suggests that we should calculate the size of forests in minutes instead of hectares or square kilometers. By this the authors mean how many minutes does it take to walk across the forest? Is it a five-minute forest? Or ten minutes? Half an hour? Or maybe even a one-hour forest?
Also, the forest has to be a real forest, not something planted in a clear-cutting a few years before. In a real forest you feel the age of the forest. There is not much that is comparable to the beauty of a 150 year old ancient forest. When you are there, you feel it, and it is something that makes you breathe deep.
I started to think about it: what is the size of the forest nearby. Maybe ten minutes, maybe 15. And it isn't a real forest in the sense of having existed for a long time.
About 50 years ago Finland had a lot of ancient forests, but since then most of them have been cut down, in the interests of the forest industry. But maybe some day these forests may return?
It may be surprising to you that sometimes the best thing you can do is to take a 1 1/2 hour walk in a snow storm. But so it is, provided you cover your head, hands and feet properly. Walk fast enough, and you for sure won't get cold, especially if you walk against the wind.
One reason for the need for such extreme refreshment may be the short days we have - today length of day was 6 hours 1 minute. You won't see much sunlight this time of the year.
Because of the darkness, I today finally switched the LX3 to use ISO 400 in the custom settings. There is more noise visible, especially as I have nr set to -2, but I don't mind, it sort of adds to the atmosphere. And in fact, I feel that the photographs from today succeeded rather well. That, though, may be due to the good feeling you get by walking in a snow storm.
Here are three photographs from today, the first from an event at the Siuntio Wellness Center, and the last two from late in the evening when it had started raining in earnest.
I had my "body age" measured in the event, and I'm feeling rather old at the moment (all kinds of pains thanks to the exercise). Don't know the results yet, but I suspect my body age is much greater than my real years.
Today we had wind and rain, clouds and water. An autumn storm, first of this season. It was dark, but on the other hand, wetness emphasized the colors of the landscape.
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