Midnight Photos

Last night i went out to take couple of photos of this particular location with nearly 20 of these beautiful light posts. When sun finally set completely and it was almost midnight, i headed out. I arrived to the desired destination and the disappointment was huge because only 3 of those light posts had lights on and lights in general were burnt or broken so i took couple of shots since i was there but i really didn't get what i went there for. I will try again once they have all lights fixed and working!


These light posts at left on the photo were the reason i went there but as you can see they're almost all out :(

After couple of shots at the city centre i went to see if this local wharf had lights on and it did! This place is pretty awesome, there's hundreds of boats in this bay and it looks very awesome during night time so i took couple of photos there too before i went back home to see what i got.


There was some movement on those boats because water flows at this location but it was windless evening so water was calm and reflective :)

These are 2 best shots from those very few photos and i hope that i'll be able to get good weather again to try these shots. Thanks for watching! :)

Sailing in Finland at summer 2011

I had some epic journeys this summer, i was sailing, i went for few rock festivals, i traveled to Bulgaria which was pretty much best thing for looong time ;) This time i'm going share some experiences from the 1 week sailing trip this summer. It's a bit shame it was only for 1 week but because of Ruisrock 2011 i had to come off from seas... Epic journey started 2.7.11 when i went to see cycling Finnish championship race in Säkylä and after new Finnish champions were rewarded i headed to Turku. I spent a night in Turku at my friends place and at morning of 3.7 i took a ship to Mariehamn where my uncle was already waiting for me with his epic sailboat. Ship was M/S Galaxy which is relatively new ship owned by Silja Line and it was quite nice: it was clean, silent, relatively big compared to other ships cruising these waters so it was nice trip looking over reeling to the islands i was going to visit with that sail boat once i get there.


From the deck of M/S Galaxy

M/S Galaxy arrived to Mariehamn around 14 o' clock 3.7 and my uncle was waiting for me at the terminal and we walked to his sail boat.

Sail boat for the trip is S/S Alexandra, it's 12 meters long Scylla made by Ismo Lilja in Sådö - Luvia (i was born in Luvia). Alexandra was made at 1978 and it's hull is made from Pine, deck is made from teak and cabin is made from mahogany. This particular boat is considered as one of the most beautiful Scylla ever made so no matter where we went it gathered quite much attention :) Day when i arrived to Mariehamn was sunny, warm, windy and very beautiful day and pretty much after i got my things to the boat we set sails and changed ports from eastern port of Mariehamn to western port, where is free wharf for wooden boats.


Front deck of Alexandra


Still not tilted enough for teak to get wet :)


There's my uncle tightening some ropes for main sail


Old seaman's church at the wooden boat quarter in Mariehamn

Next day we had early morning and lots of nautical miles ahead of us so we set sails shortly after breakfast. It was windless, rainy and very cold day so we had to use the motor to get moving and for hours there was pretty much nothing except for sea and fog to watch. Since we were on ship lane it was refreshing to see those big ships appearing from fog like ghost ships: silently and very suddenly so i had to make sure that i wouldn't be directly in the middle of the ship lane and in the fog it's not easy at all. But i've been on the seas before so i know how to act and where to be with our boat and i had GPS to help me mostly with rocks because i didn't want to wreck that beautiful boat. Finally after 10 hours of watching fog and listening tedious sound of rather large diesel engine we arrived to Bomarsund which was biggest fortress of this archipelago at 1800 built by Russians. It was ruined by British navy because it was too big strategic fort and sign of power for Russians.


On our way to Bomarsund through this narrow channel


This is Alexandra resting on the shore of Bomarsund


Fortifications of Bomarsund


200 years old cannon overlooking to the gulf


It's ready to fire


Russian cannon


And a row of them


Ruined fortifications

We stayed the night in Bomarsund and we were hoping warm, sunny and windy next day so we could actually sail to our next location which was Jungfruskär. We lifted our anchor in even colder, windless weather, started engine and set course to Jungfruskär. It was tedious journey and it was soooo cold i was at the rudder for all that journey and i had pretty much all my clothes on me and i was still freezing. Finally after 10 hours of freezing we arrived at Jungfruskär and sun begun to shine so we decided to take tour around this island. Jungfruskär was base for Finnish army until 50's and soldiers there had to keep cows, goats, chickens and so on and there were still some people living there who had all those animals there. Jungfruskär is very remote island and next thing to west from it is Sweden so water there was very clear and very cold but i took a dip there anyways :)


This was how sunny and windy we got :D


Not even a slightest breath of wind


It was cold and i spent 10 hours on a rudder


Fresh sailor :D


Old cannon


Wild cow!

After a night in Jungfruskär we set sails in sunny weather and headed towards our next destination which was Pähkinäinen.Once again it was windless day so again we had to use the "iron sails" -.- But eventually there was some wind so we got to sail a bit and after few hours we arrived at Pähkinäinen. Pähkinäinen was a nut farm for Swedish royal family for decades and there still is nut farm. Since we arrived there early we decided to goto sauna because we've been in such remote places that all we had was cold salty sea water to wash ourselves so sauna felt pretty heavenly at that time and we had good time to explore the island a bit.


We were actually sailing there like 2 hours before i took this photo and now it was completely windless


This is M/S Galaxy i used to travel to Mariehamn. We saw this ship quite many times because we were pretty much using ship lanes to come to Pähkinäinen


Alexandra hanging around with other boats


This beautiful house is the main building in Pähkinäinen


Was nice to climb that hill


Coffee, cake and cookies :)


First sunset for this trip

After a good night sleep with good mood from sauna we departed from Pähkinäinen this time in windless but extremely hot weather so from freezer to frying pan it was... We headed for Seili, which was relatively close: only 2 hours away and it's awesome place because it has disturbing history. There was a mental hospital for only women and before that there was a leprosy hospital so that place has some interesting stories. However it was full and with such a big boat we had we couldn't go there :( So we found a peaceful place and anchored there for the hottest part of day. After day had cooled down a bit we took off and went to Kramppi where we anchored for the night. Kramppi is already pretty close to Turku, which was out next destination and final destination for me.


Calm and hot


Ridiculous looking sailor :D


Pretty nice view

Thank you for watching :)

Experimenting with welding glass

Hello.

I've had this idea for couple of months now and the idea basically is to attach a welding glass before my camera lens and take photos through it just to show how world looks for me when i'm earning my daily bread at work. In case you're not familiar with welding or tools used with it i'm going to give you short briefing for that. Welding glass is used to look through while welding, because welding is something you really need to see what you're doing or end result don't meet given standards. Welding glass is basically very dark piece of glass which purpose is to darken the insanely bright light coming from electric arc created by welding burner. Welding glass works pretty much the same way as a grey filter that you can add to your lens but quality of welding glass as a filter isn't even close to those 100€ filters made especially for photographing so i thought it'll be interesting to see what kind of photos i'll be able to do with it .

First problem was the shape of the glass: it's rectangular so i really can't just attach it like a regular filter. First i tried to attach it with clear tape straight to the lens but that wasn't good because i couldn't take the glass off to point the camera and focus it. Welding glass is so dark, it's impossible to point the camera when it's attached to the lens not to mention focusing the camera... So, after thinking a while and looking through all my tools i have home i got an idea! I took that clear tape and taped the glass to the lens hood so i could took it off to point and focus the camera and after those were done and done i could put the lens hood back to it's place and it worked.

My camera is Canon EOS 450D with gorilla pod and i used the regular kit lens 18-55 and because the glass is so dark i had wired remote with me for longer than 30 second exposures. I used ISO100 and f/3.5 @ 18mm and tried 30 second exposure. Then i tried with same options but with f/11 but even 5 minute exposure wasn't enough so i went back to f/3.5.

Here's some photos.


This my camera with the glass on it
























This is the lens hood with the glass


First shot. 30 seconds @ f/3.5


Placed the camera between these poles that are stucked to ground. 30seconds @ f/3,5


300 seconds or 5 minute exposure @ f/11


60 seconds @ f/3.5


30 seconds @ f/3.5


60 seconds @ f/3.5


30 seconds @ f/3.5


30 seconds @ f/3.5

Plants are blueberries if you didn't recognize them :) Thanks for watching :)

©Kalle Luotola 2011