trying out the ultimate boredom

Alright, I admit it. I can be boring company at (so many) times. Today, Olivia took a big chunk of it. I was alone with her waiting for the food to be ready in oven. She was desperately hungry, so i handed her a bread and got into reading the day's paper again. Next thing i noticed was - so rare, so wonderful - silence and when I looked up I saw her sound asleep.

She did not even slightly open the eyes when i picked her up, dressed and took her out to sleep.

Happy Valentine's Day

As up here in Finland, Valetine's Day is celebrated as the Day of Friendship, I'd like to give a word of gratitude from Sarita and I to all our friends reading this blog. It's been our great joy to have run across so many fascinating people along the years of our lives, and we are thankful from each and any who has been willing to stick with us.

Life entangles us all in so many ways, and it's impossible to keep in touch as frequent as we'd wish, but often times Sarita and I sit and chat, smile and laugh about all the occasions we've had together with great friends. We find it as our wealth to own these memories, and thank you for making them meaningful.

Happy Valetine's day our friend, near of far!

Boss's getting emotional

Couple of illegal diamonds from the muds of youtube - or better, one diamond shattered. Land of Hope and Dreams from Bruce Springsteen. Why in parts - well, you can't compete the price.

Plug in the headphones and hum along, it's got all the classic tricks for an crowd stirring rock ballad.

If you dig it, go buy it. Sounds fair.

(it might get deleted at some point, and the embedding stops working on this post too, but check it out whilst it's there...)

talking about the desperation of illigal immigrants...

This week, a drunk driving swed - chased by swedish cops, was rescued from the icy waters of Baltic sea, into which he had hopped himself, determined to swim over to Finland.

Given all that courage, I'm sure he'd have a great future as a cheer-up consultant over in Morocco. Compared to swimming in Baltic sea in january, no Mediterranian storm is nothing.

warm me up, sun

I found myself in a lately image. Like in the lone gull in burnout half a year ago, but now it's a lot better. Warm me up, sun. =)

I'm heading back to work in a month, and feel great about. Now it's mainly about (slow) re-orientation and catch-up with the folks who's been backing me up. It's been quite amazing, revealing, and - hopefully - educative 6months. But at this point - unlike at lots of points during the fall - I can honestly say that I feel good about the whole process which revealed me my uttermost limit, and the sets of borderlines before it. I'm planning to watch out for the borderlines in the future, and avoid seeing the final spot ever again.

Some other photos from this week.

The technique here is called HDR, which is a way to cover-up the biggest disadvantage of current digital tech over traditional film. In an scene that has strong highlights and deep shadows, and the photographer wants to capture details in both, digital cameras are way beyond film, and you end up with an image that has either washed out - "clipped" as they call it - highlights, or great highlights but flat black shadows.

The technique to get over this limit is to take multiple shots with varying exposure: e.g. -2 EV from the measured exposure to capture the highlights, "normal" shot for the average tones, and +2 EV to see inside the shadows. It's not complicated because most cameras can be set to do it automatically (bracketing) and with one click it takes a burst of three shots. Not much harder than a single shot, but just take care not to move the camera shot to shot, or you ruin the set.

With the set of three shots you then run back to your computer an open them in a program that does the trick. The shots are merged together perfect, and then it's only about adjusting it like you'd adjust any image.

Downside, you can't shoot people or animals because they move, and you can't get three similar compositions.
All the images on this post are done like that.

This turned out quite creepy. It's the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kotka, built in 1898. The image is treated with Paint Shop Pro X2's "Time Machine" which generates an photo to certain age photo techology's characteristic look. This is supposed to be a replica of Platinum film. I did not take photos back then so i don't know, but to me it's look like the church of the end time beast

(xx disclaimer: do not make any theological derivatives from the look of my photos. xx)