Weird moods

Darkness, cloudy sky and artificial lighting are good for sort of weird, unreal moods: strange tones of light and colours.

Still, I wouldn't mind at all if the dark time lasted about one month at maximum. Half a year is really rather exaggerated. I have to be optimistic though: it's only three months to late February when the sun already starts to come out during daylight time. If we're lucky there'll be snow and that will be REALLY bright.

The Villa

Sometimes - well, mostly, given the opportunity - I can't resist taking pictures like this. The sky is a bit bright if one wanted that "it was a dark and stormy night" feel, otherwise fairly successful. I reduced the brightness of the sky a bit already, but the trouble in cities is of course light pollution.

These villas aren't gloomy and dark at all. On the contrary, they are large, immensely beautiful wooden villas from the early part of the 20th century (I think), from the times when the wealthy still did that sort of thing - stayed in villas in the summer. This one is located in the part of Helsinki that is called Töölö, on a hill, overlooking a bay. Here is a satellite picture: LINK. It's the building immediately below the bridge that goes over the railroad tracks. The other buildings visible in the wooded area around the railroad tracks and along the bay are similar villas. I love walking this particular route, from the railway station (to the south in the satellite map), along the left side of the railroad tracks, along the bay, up on the hill and across the bridge. With sunny weather the view over the bay is magnificent, the way the sun glimmers on the water. Others have noticed it too, since a summer cafe operates there.

The Crash-Landing of Winter

The winter arrived with a real crash-landing this weekend. On Friday, it was Autumn in Helsinki. Me, my sister and brother with his entire family boarded the ferry that afternoon to go on my sister's birthday surprise trip, a weekend spa holiday in Tallinn, Estonia. Great great fun. On friday evening there was already snow in Tallinn but on sunday a HUGE snow storm arrived, I've never experienced anything the like before. Wind speed upwards of 25 meters per second (20 is storm limit), visibility zero, the snow feeling like millions of needles piercing the skin. Would have been nearly impossible to get to the ferry terminal for our ferry back that day, even though it was not a long distance to walk, had we not been extremely lucky and managed to get a cab. The ferry itself was five hours late because the ships were unable to get docked because of the wind (unlike, for instance, Helsinki, Tallinn has no islands so the port is subject to the full force of storms). It was supposed to leave at 5.30 pm and reach Helsinki at 7.30 but in the end took until 00.30 am.

In the meantime the snow storm, in somewhat weakened form, had reached Helsinki. It had snowed heavily for most of the day and it continued at night. The metro had stopped running, as had the day buses and trams, and of course there was no hope of getting a cab at the terminal. We had no option but to walk about a kilometer to get cabs - unpleasant for adults, all too much for the boys, no older than 9 and 3 respectively, already exhausted because of the long journey. In the end we were lucky to get cabs fairly easily on one of the big streets, so it ended well. My brother let me know that the boys were already cheered up and were able to laugh about the adventure when they had got into the cab. Myself I got home around 2 am without trouble, save for a bit when the cab got stuck in the snow and the driver had to get out to do some shovelling. He reduced the fare because of it, very fair of him.

It snowed through monday as well, the pictures are from that day. Apparently the snow is going to melt soon. In the city center much of the beautiful whiteness has indeed already turned into brown and grey slosh, while here in the suburb the snow retains its whiteness a bit longer. I can say, however, that the winter's grand entrance was impressive indeed. :-)

There's something about light...

... isn't there? Some more sun from yesterday.

Let there be light

At this time of year in Finland it pretty much begins to be the rule that if the temperature is more than one or two degrees above zero, it's cloudy and rainy, often foggy as well. Not to mention windy, of course. So it has been for what feels like most of November so far. Things changed for a bit on monday, as the temperature fell to zero and the sun came out.

I like the lil' bottles

Late autumn rains have some use after all... they encourage imagination indoors!

Red and Round

Actually one of the photos (see the rest of them here, latest seven photos) in a specific project. Sounds rather grand, that word, but Vastavalo, the photo bureau I'm a member of, has a section for customer requests: if someone is looking for a specific kind of picture, a request is posted in the section, asking photographers to offer such pictures among their work that fit the specifications. Then the list is sent to the customer, and he/she picks the picture/pictures he/she likes (if any). On monday, someone was looking for a picture to be used as an artwork on living room wall: preferably abstract but not absolutely necessary, two colours, grey and red, should have a largish, roundish thing in red. Quite a few photographers posted their suggestions. At first I thought I wouldn't have anything to offer, but then I got a large red cup, some tomatoes and some grey cardboard for background and started experimenting. Not exactly abstract but it was immensely enjoyable and quite inspiring too to play around with the "ingredients".

Using what is at hand

The two pictures in this blog post you might find depressing, but that is sort of the point: the idea was to capture that 70's concrete suburban mood. They were taken at the mall just across the big road nearby.


As it happens, I do live in a suburb but I don't find it at all depressing. On the contrary it's a brilliant place to live: the sea all around, the woods, places of historical interest in the form of an area with several old, ruined summer villas and a rather fine early 19th century manor not too far away (now a museum), good connections to the city - which will get better after the new tram line, supposed to run on a tall bridge across the water, is finished in 2014. The suburb doesn't have much concrete either. Just the mall is an authentic 70's mall - in outlay and general lack of colour even if some of the buildings are a bit more recent. Which gets me to my subject: I'm rather fond of the idea of letting the circumstances direct my choice of themes and methods of photography. It was cloudy, foggy and rainy today. Not a weather for, say, beautiful sea sceneries. PERFECT weather for depressing suburban scenes like these. Grey concrete isn't sufficient for creating the desired effect on its own if the sky isn't right. For example, brilliant sunlight and blue skies would change the mood completely, because not even the ugliest of human inventions, concrete, can resist the transmuting power of the sun.


Why do I want to take depressing suburban concrete pictures then? It's one form of reality - depressing suburbia. That's one reason. More important is... I'm not really interested in capturing "reality" in terms of documenting it. I'm more interested in trying to capture what whatever is it that catches my attention makes me think. As to what catches my attention, I try to keep an access-all-areas mind, not to get stuck with a limited range of things.

Hm, is this pretentious nonsense? Well if it is, so be it! I liked writing it.

A Shopping Cart's Odyssey

Dark woods

This I find quite successful in terms of how it uses the light and the strong darkness and the simple elements to create a mood - to my eyes a slightly ominous, "don't go into the woods" mood.

I neglected to mention that I got my first picture sold on Vastavalo, the Finnish photo bureau I'm a member of, on the weekend! Yay! Nothing major: it was one of the (work-related) images purchased for web usage, for someone's personal website. Also, it won't make me rich: the sale price is 30 euros, the photographer gets about 50%, then there's probably tax, so that leaves about 7 euros. But it's a start, a foot in the doorway so to speak! :-)

Night

Evening moods

Taken in a park close to my home sometime after 5 pm. I sure am glad I got the good tripod. No hope taking photos like these otherwise! Note: click on the pictures to view in larger size. The dark background of the blog makes dark pictures look a bit too... well, dark.

And now for some art

Here is an outdoors installation that I captured just a short while after the heavenly revelation of the rainbow. :-)