Sources of inspiration

Willow, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Daffodil, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Water, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Mesh, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Only some days ago I wrote that I'm not interested in black-and-white photography, and here are two of them. For some reason I decided to try out my "other" custom settings on the LX3: the other meant for black-and-white, and the other for square aspect ratio.

Of the two black-and-white images, I like the second one best, because I overcome my impulse to shoot only color (nice hues of yellow), and turned on black-and-white. A discovery, I feel.

On the other hand, sometimes the photograph is all about color, such as in the image of water here. And for me the biggest motivation for taking photographs is usually color, not texture, form or light/shadows.

Once in a while, I try the square aspect ratio. But it is difficult to get something good out of it. Have to keep trying.

On the usability of cameras (NEX-5, LX3)

Little Parliament, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Today I made a short talk in a TUTKAS seminar, audience consisting of Finnish researchers and Members of the Parliament (MPs). Didn't have much time for photography, except when walking from the parking hall to the "new wing" of the parliament. Then I had a little bit of time before the seminar started. The photograph shows a reflection of the parliament main building from the glass wall of the new wing building (or "Little Parliament").

In my presentation, I used one of my old photographs, namely in the final slide I showed a photograph which I had taken at Anjalankoski. The chair of the seminar, MP Kimmo Kiljunen, complimented on the nice photo which contained such clean-looking landscape.

The topic of the seminar was research infrastructure, and my talk discussed how we can build such things in a sustainable manner, especially related to the use of biological research data. The MP Sirpa Liisa Asko-Seljavaara asked in her comment, whether people really would like to live forever, in case all illnesses can be cured. Well, that was not quite what I meant by sustainability.

Well, back to photography (and gear of course).

The competent review of the Sony NEX-5 at Luminous Landscape contains the collowing remarkable observation: "The NEX-5's user interface may well be one of the most frustrating that I have ever encountered."

Given the common usability issues with digital cameras, this is really quite something. Of course, often you manage to cope with the problems, some of which may in fact turn out to be "features", but in this case it seems that the problems are such that it is quite hard to do much anything with the camera. Which is a pity because technology-wise the camera seems to be a competent one, producing good images in such a small package.

When I bought the Panasonic LX3, I was used to a Canon point-and-shoot (Digital IXUS 400), and it took a while until I learned how to use the LX3 properly. And it took much longer to really know what is good in the camera - what works and what doesn't.

Currently, there is very little that I change in my custom settings, except for exposure compensation, which I put at +2/3 when there is snow and at -2/3 when it is summer. I may change the auto-ISO setting once in a while, but not permanently. (Usually I leave ISO at 100.) The differences in the three custom settings are minor: one has b&w mode switched on ("Dynamic b&w") and another has the square aspect ratio. Otherwise, everything stays as it is good to have it.

Some say that you should read the manual when you get a new camera. Well, perhaps, at least it may not hurt much. But I feel the best is to approach the camera with an attitude of rationality: find out those things which help to do what you want the camera to do (storing custom settings etc.) and try one thing at a time until you get it right.

1001th posting - about obsessions and lots of walking

Fir, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Ladybug, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Calla, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Fallen, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

After the 1000th posting, I was quite busy and didn't have much ideas for writing here are Light Scrape. But I didn't stop taking photographs - indeed, I took about 1100 photographs in three days. There is so much to see. Summer is proceeding, and it has been beautiful: both rain and sunshine. Now the lenght of day is 18 hours 24 minutes, so there is plenty of light available.

Andreas postulated that continuing a photography blog past one year means it becomes an obsession. I have been thinking about this (though not obsessively) and can't decide whether it is so or not. Perhaps the word "habit" might fit better, or "routine". Although they are too weak, I guess. Is there a word for something you do, between an obsession and a habit?

Another matter which I remembered only after thinking about this for a while is walking. In fact, I at one point used to write more about walking than photography here. And it is indeed unclear whether I go for a walk and take photographs, or take photographs and walk. I did a quick estimate, and in two years I must have walked between 1500 and 2000 kilometers while taking all these photographs. (And done a little bit of cross-country skiing also.)

Returning to photography, I liked Letter to George at TOP. The posting generated a lot of comments. Some didn't get the joke. In any case, the posting was rather good characterization of gear-driven photography, so I was planning to write a response, tentatively titled "How I bought a 400 € digicamera and survived with it for over 20 months". But didn't have time for this.

In any case, I have managed to survive 20 moths with the LX3 as my main and only camera. In the beginning I did a lot of exploring of various settings of the LX3, but now I'm more or less set permanently. In fact, I would like to glue the mode dial in place so that it never moves by mistake. What I still do is tweak some settings based on the season - spring, summer, autumn, winter - but that is all. Otherwise, I'm happy with my three custom settings stored under C2.

Returning to walking, recent research suggests the following: "Higher parental TV viewing was associated with an increased risk of high levels of TV viewing for both boys and girls." So, getting off the couch helps to avoid becoming a couch potato. And walking is one way of being somewhere else than on the couch.

Also, I guess I should have pointed to the very first posting at this blog, dated July 13th, 2008. For the first week or so, the photographs were quite small, but a little later I switched more or less to the current format. And the very first comment arrived on July 20th. And on July 21st, I wrote the first item about the Panasonic LX3, which I bought two monts later.