All day he draws and imagines

Salla 1

Salla 2

Salla 3

Salla 4

The photographs were taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

While traveling to London with the children I have got three to five hours of walking each day. In six days I learned Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park and Holland Park quite well.

One thing which felt a bit strange was the people who rode the bicycle within the car traffic, changing lanes rapidly, not even minding the wet road surface making it slippery. I wonder how many traffic accidents hit the cyclists each year.

(Posting title is from the poem Apparition of the Exile by Bruce Weigl.)

The two absent ones: you and I

Bug

The photograph was taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

I have explored the parks in London. Today morning I visited Holland Park, having a look at Kyoto Garden. This is a place I really liked. After noon it started to rain, and this will continue for some time. I guess it might be worthwhile to take a walk when the rain eases a bit.

(Posting title is from the poem The Horse Fell Off the Poem by Mahmoud Darwish.)

Praise the great windows where immigrants from the kitchen

Salla 1

Salla 2

The photographs were taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

Once again I walked around Hyde Park in the morning, looking at riders, runners, cyclists and other walkers. At noon we explored Kensington Gardens. Later today there are Harry Potter things to see.

(Posting title is from the poem Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 by Martín Espada.)

How many reels exhaust the image history of the person

Salla 1

Salla 2

The photographs were taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

Early this morning I had a look at horse riding at Rotten Row, getting 1 1/2 hours of walking. Then we went to London Zoo, checking out especially the reptiles. Some of them reminded me of Trump and his minions. No, not really, it is unfair to compare reptiles with the awfullness of the Orange One.

(Posting title is from the poem “I Came Out of Habitations Where Warmth Filled My Feet and Loins” by Calvin Bedient.)

Would expose the holes in the soles of his shoes

Salla 1

Salla 2

The photographs were taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

Today I got quite a lot on walking in London, early in the morning at Hyde park, and later on visiting Sea Life aquarium, and King's Cross (Harry Potter stuff, of course). Two batteries of the LX100 were exhausted in the process.

(Posting title is from the poem What is this about losing respect? by Mark Rudman.)

When we embrace, we are not an island

Salla 1

Salla 2

The photographs were taken on July 1st while visiting the Sallatunturi fells in Salla, Lapland.

I'm currently in London, traveling with the children. We did some shopping and sightseeing. I plan to take some photographs later today.

(Posting title is from the poem Confluence by Yusef Komunyakaa.)

When he found one note that rang true

Moss

It has rained a lot during the last week, as much as during the earlier summer (May 1st...August 6th) alltogether. And it has been quite dark. During the summer one got used to seeing sun more or less regularly, but now sun has been visible less and less.

Maybe this is why this morning I drank a cup of coffee, which I haven't resorted to since a long time. The previous cup of coffee happened on May 1st.

The wet photograph was taken at Sallatunturit fells on July 22nd. I'm quite behind in processing my newer photographs, but there is just so much other things to do.

(Posting title is from the poem My Uncle’s Favorite Coffee Shop by Naomi Shihab Nye.)

What have they done to deserve this beauty?

Keselmäjärvi

Keselmäjärvi

Pier

Here are some lake views from Lapland, taken at lake Keselmäjärvi near Sallatunturit fells.

Today I need to get my bicycle back from the repair shop, I hope it stays fixed now for a longer time. Next week I'll try commute by bicycle once again.

During the vacation I haven't used the bicycle much, so it may be that the muscles needed for that will get a bit cramped at first. Maybe I'll do a short test ride today to see how the bicycle works, and how it feels to ride.

(Posting title is from the poem Gautier D’Agoty’s Ecorchés by Leslie Adrienne Miller.)

Immediacy is retro

View

Rocky

Rocks

Here are photographs taken at the top of Sallatunturit fells, where I climbed with the children. In the last photograph you see my new running shoes, the only ones in the shop that fitted my feet. I'm growing used to the color. I got a comment that the shoes are "retro style", but I don't remember this color ever been in fashion. But then, I don't follow fashion.

I got yesterday the new battery for my MacBook, from the second shop I tried. (I'm still discussing getting the refund from the first shop.) So far so good, have to see how it goes. The old battery had 207 charge cycles at the end, not terribly many, but it was quite swollen already, preventing the touchpad from working properly and making the bottom of the MacBook bulge. Now that is fixed.

There is still 1 hour 10 minutes left of the first charge, the endurance of the battery feels like luxury. The old battery lasted well under two hours in use.

(Posting title is from the poem Paragraph by Rae Armantrout.)

Now such a feeling for the way they touch and shift

Swamp 1

Bridge

River 1

River 2

Swamp 2

Here are some photographs which didn't make the cut into the photo book of the trip to Salla, Lapland, titled Climbing hills and fells: Vuokatinvaara and Sallatunturit. See the Scribd version or the Blurb version.

I wrote about the book-making project in five installments: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.

In retrospect I should have paid more attention to what I was doing, but there was so much other things going on that my attention wasn't quite focused on the task. And thus I needed to iterate a bit more, which resulted in mistakes, which required extra work, etc. But in the end I'm rather pleased with the results, with the errors and all. It is a bit too simplistic as a book, the layout could have been much more creative, but I'm happy with it as it is now.

And having a printed book always feels good. Last year I didn't make any, so it was time to refresh the skills a bit.

(Posting title is from the poem Cut Out For It by Kay Ryan.)

In one eyeblink to the horizon

Sallatunturi panorama

I have gone through 3/4 of the photographs from the trip to Lapland. But there is still a lot to do. I have almost concluded that it would be worthwhile to make a photo book out of these photographs, but the concept needs some planning still.

It would of course have been better to know in advance that there is a book to be made. Now the photographs don't really belong to a specific theme or fit especially well together.

Below you find screen captures of my work in progress, going through the photographs in Aperture, trying to select those which are the best or otherwise worth saving.

(Posting title is from the poem My Sad Self by Allen Ginsberg.)

Laundry of that lovely absurd summer we wanted so

Sign

Field

Dry

Poles

While going through the photographs from the memory cards I realized there were some taken before the trip to Lapland. These were taken at Petikko on July 16th, the day before we started the journey northwards.

I'm thinking that perhaps I should make a photo book from the photographs from the trip to northern Finland, using the same process and format as in my SoFoBoMo photo books. It would require a bit of extra effort, but having a printed book in hand would be nice, and of course there would be an on-line (PDF etc.) version as well.

But what would be a good title for the book? "Up north and up hills - Vuokatinvaara and Sallatunturit" would be a possibility. Or just "Walking up hills in northern Finland". I think I would focus on the photographs taken while walking at the hills of Vuokatinvaara, and those taken at the hills of Sallatunturit. However, maybe the book could contain some of the other photographs from the trip as well, but I'm not sure how they would fit the theme.

I have so far gone through about 1/3 of the photographs, but there is still plenty to go through. After this phase I should be able to decide whether to try making a photo book or not.

(Posting title is from the poem O. by Robin Blaser.)