I'm just looking backward to see

Morning

Fast

Blurred

Today I didn't go out for a walk, and as it is raining, I'm planning to stay inside. It is dark out there.

Yesterday I wrote some words about the local library system. I'm a big customer: since April 22, 2008, I have borrowed 1420 items, mostly books, but also some cds.

There is a limit of 40 items one can borrow. And there is also a limit of 30 reservations. I have been most of the time maxing out on these, going to the library at least once a week to return items and borrow some more. It is not bad, but sometimes I wish the limits would be a little higher.

But anyway, the independence day in Finland is coming up, and weekend ahead. If only the weather would be better for spending some time outside.

Garbage, snow, orienteering, comics

Web

Blue anemone

Storm coming

Ditch

Field

Birches

We had active weather also today, in an even drastic form: in addition to sushine and rain, we got a little bit of snow as well. And hard wind.

Yesterday I wrote about people throwing garbage on the roadside, but it seems that there are also opposing forces: the Green Earth society will organize a campaign on May 6th to clean up Finland. This sounds good!

I have continued learning the Nokia E7 phone. One of the good points is the map service, which so far has mostly worked all right, although right at the beginning I was quite confused by the user interface. But it works, and it is in fact quite nice to be able to look at where you are when you are out in the forests on a walk.

But even though the satellite map shows some indication where you are, a real orienteering map would be much better in a forest. However, it seems that those are not easily available, at least not in a systematic way.

Coming back to photography, or at least the visual arts, I'm currently reading Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud. This is a comic book about comic books as an art form, and McCloud explains the details of how comics work - clearly, deeply, humorously.

And this book also provides something to think about for a photographer, for example the topic of abstract vs. realistic. It is fascinating that as human beings we know ourselves in the abstract whereas we see other people in plenty of realistic detail.

Active shoes and weather

Path

Boards

Trees

Fresh green

Blur

Green

Field

Red barn

I wrote earlier about "active weather", and today we had it: sunshine, clouds, rain, sunshine, rain, clouds, sunshine, ... For a photographer, it was great indeed.

And then about shoes: as I have written a few times, I bought in March new hiking shoes made by Sievi. Now after six weeks and 150-200 km of use, I feel quite good about them.

The Sievi shoes are sturdy, waterproof, and very good on rough terrain. But only when the weather is cool enough, 10 °C or less. I wore them one day when it was wet and +18 °C, and it wasn't so nice then. But today it was cool, only about +8 °C, after the rain.

While walking together with the wife, we saw some things not good at all: someone is using the roadside for dumping their old home electronics. Not nice. (Maybe be this is what the Basic Finns party means when they say that "green is out".)

And one more word about the Nokia E7: I found another use for the device. It is good for taking self-portraits when out in the forest, thanks to the reflective display.

Active weather

Lily

Blue anemone

Gonepteryx rhamni

Gonepteryx rhamni

Lammaslampi

Birches

Alain Briot praised "active weather" in his book Mastering Photographic Composition, Creativity, and Personal Style, of which I wrote some comments. Today we had just such weather, it rained in the morning, but then the sun came out, occasionally hidden by the clouds. And there was even a little bit of fog in deep forests where some snow still remain.

Yesterday I mentioned blue anemones as a sign of spring. Today I saw and managed to capture in a photograph Gonepteryx rhamni, one of the earliest spring butterflies here in Finland. First it was warming up in the sun, but then it hid under a twig and was hard to see there. But it allowed the camera to come very close, so I got quite a good photograph of it.

Low water

Water, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Karjala, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

It has been hot - today 33 °C - and there hasn't been much rain, so the water level is getting low on lakes and streams. And there is a lot of dirt floating on top of the water. Tomorrow, they forecast hot weather again, it may even be that we get a new record for this summer.

Hot and even hotter

Field, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Water, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Blue, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

The heath wave continues, and continues. It is almost unbelievable - for Finland - that the temperature hovers around 30 °C for days now. Swimming is one way of escaping the heat. Another is to go outside early in the morning or late evening.

Here is the forecast for next five days, according to the Finnish Meteorological Instutute:



A note about cameras: Dpreview has published their much anticipated review of the Samsung EX1 (TL500). A good camera, but not better than the LX3, which is almost two years old. I would have thought some improvement would have happened in this time. Well, perhaps Panasonic does better with the (rumored) LX5.