Sweet sweet summer rain!
Finally got around to editing and posting some of the pictures I took on our trip to Lapland a few weeks ago. The weather wasn't especially good but to be honest, I'd almost rather have a drizzle of rain over the current heat-wave but I'm weird like that - being warm-blooded and all that. Anyway.. Some highlights, link to set at the end.
More pictures here:
Everyone needs to create a few over-processed HDR-images to get it out of our systems before calming down and using it right :). Here are a few of mine, taken early this morning when the light was all reddish and weird.
To be fair, the rainbow-picture didn't need much post-processing to begin with, here is a more reasonable (normal) picture of it with only some minimal color-editing and cropping: 
I used the free and very easy to use HDRtist from http://www.ohanaware.com/hdrtist/ - you just drag and drop pictures onto the app and choose the strength of HDR. Really easy way to maul perfectly good pictures :).
It's hot in Finland, thankfully the beer is cold. I will return with more pictures and stuff sometime when my brain works again, take care people and do go read this excellent blog-post about what drowning looks like for real (hint: its not like in the movies) : http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/drowning/?10981 Very good to know in these hot times, stay safe!
Picture of the smoke coming from a warehouse fire on Puusepänkatu. More information (in finnish):
Suurehko varastorakennus on syttynyt tuleen Turun Puusepänkadulla. Palo syttyi noin kello 18.20, ja varasto on parhaillaan ilmiliekeissä. Aurajokirantaan nousi palon sytyttyä korkea savupilvi, joka herätti ihmisten huomion. Poliisin mukaan rakennuksen ulkopuolella on majaillut toistakymmentä romanikerjäläistä. Tässä vaiheessa ei tiedetä, onko sisällä ketään.
After many months, even years, of agonizing over camera specs, own priorities, needs and wants I finally caved in and ordered a new camera. The problem was mainly that I wanted DSLR-quality pictures and infinite tweakability but I'm really lazy when it comes to carrying a camera around. This has finally been solved with the new class of very small DSLR-like cameras, I say "like" because technically they aren't a Digital Single-Lens Reflex camera but reach almost the same picture-quality. In fact, my new purchase, the Panasonic GF1 is an EVIL-camera, Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens. Enough about the geeky semantics though, here is how it looks:
It weighs just under 500 g (475 g to be exact) when setup like on the picture, battery inserted, memory-card, 20 mm lens and strap. It's clearly larger than most point and shoots but super-zooms can be bulkier. The main difference is that with the super-zoom's you are stuck with the built-in lens while EVIL cameras, like this based on the Micro 4/3:s format, have interchangeable lenses like the acronyms suggests.
I picked it up from the post office just today so clearly I'm in no position to criticize or praise the camera too much but I'll give a few initial thoughts here since I was asked to and I want to share!
Basically it does what I wanted it to do, first of all it takes great pictures while still keeping the size down. It focuses fast, it takes 720p video and in general feels great to handle and carry. It feels well built but not too heavy.
The downsides are that it still is almost 500 g and it doesn't have big comfy grip like super-zooms and DSLR:s have, it makes a loud clicking sounds which will feel great for the DSLR-fans, and I agree that it sounds satisfying, but at the same time it would be nice if it kept quiet.
Anyway, I won't make any more judgments about it now, instead I'll post a few sample pictures (click to reach Flickr for full-resolution version if you are of the pixel-peeping kind). I haven't edited the pictures at all, just loaded them off the camera (in RAW-format) and uploaded using iPhoto. Will be looking into digital darkroom software soon. Oh and there's a video too.
Doing a little summer-picture roundup in anticipation of the midsummer, I'll be mostly offline and in Kokkola during the weekend, take care everyone!
As my twitter or flickr-followers might've noticed, I've been a much more prolific photographer this summer. Somehow been very visually inspired. Granted, much of my photography has been done on my walk to work but that's not necessarily a bad thing, is it? We need more pictures of the mundane and everyday, and that happens to be a very beautiful and inspiring everyday when it comes to summer in Turku! Here are some of my recent favorites:
The pile of rubble in the background is the old seed-repository being torn down, its been abandoned for as long as I've lived in Turku and last summer a kid died there while doing some urban exploring with his friends. Finally they found the money to tear it down. I have more pictures of it in this set:
What's summer without some rain? 
And pretty clouds:
Kakola prison was closed down some years ago and hasn't been in use since, according to the guide its the only prison in the world that is not a museum but you can visit. Its a pretty popular tour and costs more than most tours so plan ahead, you can find more information here: http://www.turku.fi/Public/default.aspx?contentid=81657&nodeid=8726
The popular style of prison design you see in many movies is called the Philadelphia design:
It allows the guards to have a good overview of what is happening and if you have rules about being silent its easy and fast to notice trouble. Kakola also has some older cells of a more finnish design:
The tour was extremely interesting and the guide very knowledgeable without being annoying about too much details, highly recommend you take the Kakola-tour if possible! The tours are only done during the summer but the prison is also a popular place to film movies so, for instance, this summer it'll be closed for two weeks while at least three movies are filmed there.
On my way home from the more social part of the summer-party I stopped to take a few long-exposure pictures too, some even came out nice:
I'm currently on my third week of doing productive things for others, also known as working. I won't be talking very much about what I do at work since that would involve figuring what I can and can't say about it and that would require thinking and that's a lot of work. That said, I am having fun and doing interesting and demanding things.
On my quiet 20-25 minute walk into work each morning I listen to podcasts and carry a camera so I'll be collecting a, hopefully, award-winning picture series called "Walking to (and from) Work". Here are my first works of art:
The problem with my P&S camera (Fujifilm F200EXR) is that it takes quite good pictures, especially outdoors in the summer, so I haven't been able to talk myself into buying a new camera yet. Also waiting for reviews of Sony's new NEX-5 which seems like a camera I might like.
As always, pictures are first uploaded to my Flickr-page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hagge/ so follow that if you have an insatiable need for pictures I take (or the better alternative might be to get somekind of professional help..?)
I spent an long weekend in Kokkola to recharge before I started at my "summer job". Using quotes since what I do feels more serious than a regular summer job but is over the summer and a bit into the autumn.
Here are some pictures from the latest trip to Kokkola. As usual, click through to Flickr for more details, geotags etc. Met with friends, relatives and enjoyed some record-breaking heats (the Kokkola-region was the hottest place in Finland during the weekend). In short, had an excellent time!Summer had broken out in Turku too and after a little rain it seems like the chlorophyll is just exploding out of the ground over here, and if you needed more proof that the summer is finally here I will leave you with this picture taken yesterday:
Long time chemical engineering student back to get his degree. General IT specialist and people person.
