Pappilanjoki River on a sunny spring day

Pappilanjoki

This image was pulled from the previous version of this blog. I took it in Rantasalmi, my home town, a few years ago on a sunny spring day. There’s a small river called Pappilanjoki (Parsonage’s river) that connects two lakes, Lake Kosulanlampi and Pieni Raudanvesi.

Both Lake Kosulanlampi and the river have become eutrophic due to the surrounding agriculture and municipal waste waters. On the right behind the trees, there’s an old parsonage built in 1870. Because of quality of water in the river and the lake, there’s a lot of vegetation on the shores and riverbanks, which has made this area an important resting stop for many species of migratory birds.

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A bohemian waxwing eating a rowan berry

A bohemian waxwing eating a rowan berry

To continue the bird theme of the previous image I posted, here’s an older one from last winter. Unlike the last one, this image hasn’t been modified if you don’t count slight cropping. A flock of waxwings were feeding right next to the road one morning last October and provided a good opportunity to get some close-ups. I haven’t seen any this year, but perhaps it’s still too early. This autumn, there haven’t been as many rowan berries as last year either, but hopefully there’s enough to attract a few waxwings to our neighborhood.

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A train at Pieksämäki Station

Pieksämäki Station

I visited my home town recently to meet some friends. On the way back to Jyväskylä I had to wait for the train at Pieksämäki station, and having nothing better to do, I snapped a few photos with my phone. I’ve actually posted a couple of those photos on Tumblr, including another version of this image, but I like this one better.

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Black-headed gull diving into water

Black-headed gull diving into water

I see these gulls circling over the lake almost every day and had planned on spending some time with them. Last May I finally took a moment to photograph them at a bay near our house. Not a perfect shot, but probably the best out of the bunch. Next time I have to reserve more memory cards and time, though.

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Skiing into the sunset

Skiing into the sunset

I went out to photograph the sunset on a cold January afternoon because it looked like there might some nice colors in the sky. As I was looking for a good position, this man skied past me and I knew I had to get him in the frame with the sun. I had my camera hanging on my neck, but I wasn’t really prepared to take any photos. Luckily he wasn’t too fast and I was able to adjust my camera settings and take this photo. Looking back, I think this was the best photo I took that day.

For those of you who are interested in tech stuff, the image is a blend of two differently exposed versions of the same file. Blending allowed me to adjust the exposure of the snow and the sky more easily to my liking.

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A great tit with snow on its beak

A great tit with snow on its beak

I took this photo of a great tit last December on one of the last days of the year. We spent a day away from the city near Pieksämäki. It was a fairly cold day, but very productive in terms of bird photography. I haven’t had the time to go through all the images yet, but I know there are at least a couple of photos I like.

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Crows over a lake

Winter Sunset

This image is also from 2007. It was taken just a little after the one I posted earlier. Well, actually it’s a composite of a few photos, but the base image was taken in 2007. This year I plan to do more processing than before, so some of these experiments might go a bit over the top. I try to keep them tasteful though.

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Walker

Walker

Here’s another image from 2007. Google was kind enough to give me a free copy of Nik’s plugin bundle and this was the first image tested it on. I used a very randomly selected set of filters from Color Efex to get this look and the image instantly became one of my favorites.

As a side note, I’ve created a Facebook page for my images. If you don’t like RSS feeds, you can now keep keep up to date with this blog by liking the page. If you like the images there (or here), feel free to share them to your friends.

I’ve still got loads of exciting news to share, but I’ll try to keep my posts short, so more on those next time.

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Winter sunset

Winter Sunset
Winter Sunset

Lately I’ve been going through old photos again and trying new processing techniques on them. I haven’t used textures before, but I think after this experiment I’m going to try to use them more often. The original photo was taken in 2007 on a frozen lake in Eastern Finland.

By the way, I have a mobile phone / scrapbook blog in Tumblr. In addition to phoneography, I also use the blog to post alternative takes on images and unique Creative Commons content. Tumblr updates don’t show on the front page so if you want to keep up with my mobile photography, be sure to follow me on Tumblr or subscribe to the feed on the Mobile page.

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