A Finnish photoblog
I took these 20-21st of May at Repovesi. Enjoy. And a thousand thanks to these spiders. They were as helpful as they were delicious.
Spiders share the food
Spider idling.
Spiderhattan. Where spiders live.
A spider hugging an aphid
Well, honestly, it’s not really lost. It just sucks. Therefore I got this idea of finishing my “Dear Eve” project interactively with.. well, you! How cool is that? Watch the clip and write a script for it. The winner gets eternal life and a unique Blu-Ray or DVD copy of the final film.
Here is the original synopsis: A guy called Juha sends a letter to Eve, the mother of the whole human race. Eve replies, even thou she has passed away like 200 000 years ago. Juha wants to find comfort, as he has no friends or close relations with his parents. But Eve is cold too: he jus tells that Juha should take care of his own problems. Eventually he finds out that he has written the replies himself – and Eve is just a figment of his imagination.
The script is based on 6 letters: 3 from Juha, 3 from Eve. Those are marked in the video above. Write those and find happiness and success in your life! Cause if no one does… I have contacts with Santa Claus and no one of you will get any presents!
And for your inspiration: remember that you build a whole new story. Those 6 letters don’t have to tell a story about a boy and a dead woman. Boy can be 85 years old his visual appearance only tells about his childish mind. The story can be drama, black comedy or.. anything! Free your mind and write.
Send your script with comment field or to my mailbox: sourander@gmail.com
And same in Finnish:
Kuvasin viime vuoden lopulla Rakas Eeva -lyhytelokuvan Canon 7D:n testimateriaalina. Nyt elokuvaparalta puuttuu dialogi, äänimaailma ja värimäärittely/jälkituotanto. Juuri Sinä voit keksiä dialogin! Interaktiivista ja jännää, eikö totta?
Alkuperäinen synopsis näyttää tältä: Poika/mies nimeltään Juha lähettää kirjeen Eevalle, koko ihmiskunnan kantaäidille. Hän saa vastauksen, vaikka Eeva on kuollut noin 200 000 vuotta sitten. Juha etsii Eevasta lohtua, sillä hänellä ei ole ystäviä ja vanhempansa ovat etäiset. Hän kuitenkin joutuu pettymään, sillä myös Eeva paljastuu kylmäksi; hänen mielestään Juhan tulisi ottaa itseään niskasta kiinni. Pettymykset eivät jää siihen, sillä lopulta Juha älyää, että hän on itse kirjoittanut myös Eevan kirjeet. Eeva on vain mielikuvituksen tuote.
Käsikirjoitus perustuu 6 todella lyhyeen kirjeeseen. 3 kirjettä Juhalta, 3 Eevalta. Kirjeiden määrää et voi muuttaa, mutta niiden sisällön saat keksiä täysin itse. Ja jos kukaan teistä ei keksi mitään, niin joudun valittavasti soittamaan joulupukille. Jäätte kaikki ilman lahjoja!
Muistathan, että luovuutesi saa kukkia vapaasti. Tarinan ei tarvitse kertoa nuoresta pojasta ja kuolleesta kantaäidistä. Poika voi olla vaikkapa vanhus, jonka ulkokuori kuvastaa vain hänen lapsellista mieltään. Tai poika voi olla jokin ei-fyysinen ilmiö, kuten sääukko tai kuolema. Teos voi olla draama, musta komedia tai aivan mitä tahansa. Vapauta mielesi ja kirjoita!
Käsikirjoitus voi olla suomeksi tai englanniksi. Vastaa joko tähän kommenttina tai laita sähköpostia osoitteeseen sourander@gmail.com
I photographed the whole event, including the evening partayh. This years theme was “Nostalgia”. If you weren’t there, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Fill the black gap in your soul with these four picks.
Veijo Hietala was one of the lecturers. Others were Riitta Väisänen, Tuomas Onttonen, Pekka Lehtosaari and Jarkko Repo.
We had fun and games.
Video installation. Find two SB-600's and win a pony.
Silly costumes at the evening partayh.
Northern star and.. some other stars.
Southern sky and some light pollution
Eero trekking on top of the ice with snowshoes.
Black alder (maybe) presenting the lens flare effect.
Trees
Same trees backlit by the sun.
Window frost
An icicle. Notice the eight note (in the upper left corner).
Portrait of Eero, Jani and another Jani on a lake
A crack in ice.
Hapsiainen approaches a tree deviously.
The tree stands defeated. Hapsiainen took another victory.
We had this schoolwork where one was supposed to make a photo set about the four times of the day (morning, noon, evening, night). Instead, I decided to do it about the four seasons. More accurately: what hobby does Kekkonen have in each of the seasons? These photos are quickly photoshopped, but anyways, I decided to share the set with my beloved readers.
In spring, Kekkonen melts the ice with his laser sight by removing his glasses.
In summer, Kekkonen lifts weights and helps the chronologically gifted to cross the streets safely.
In fall, Kekkonen walks on water.
In winter, Kekkonen gives presents to the economically marginalized.
Strap
If you’re gear bag’s strap starts to look like one in the photo above, maybe it’s time to fix it or buy a new one. I hate Lowepro and Tamrac bags that are made out of synthetic nylon fibre. It’s not an enviromental issue for me. I just hate the feel of those materias. I liked my old Domke J-2, but.. well, look at it. It’s dead. The strap isn’t the only problem. The whole bag has lost its posture.
But I found a good successor for Domke. National Geographic satchel (W2160) is a great bag for a photo journalist like me. Kata manufactures those of cotton and hemp and all my photo gear fits into it perfectly. Only problem is that there are too many zipper-sealed flaps, so I just cut one of, as can be seen in the photo below. The main flap I’ll just roll and arrest with velcro. Flaps are good for those who use a camera bag as a strorage. I don’t. I change camera objectives frequently since I use prime lenses. My camera bag’s must be within easy reach.
Detached flap
But Domke, you’ll always live in my memories… on a red carpet. We’ll always have Paris..
Domke J-2, rest in peace.
A Google car at Valkeala
About a year ago, in April 2009, I posted an image of a google car in my old blog. But I wasn’t the only one taking a photograph. Watch this photo which the Google car took of me:
A photograph of me by the Google car (c) Google maps
If you enjoy movie trivia, here’s a completely useless piece of information you won’t find anywhere else: I made a movie prop for the Backwood Philosopher (Havukka-ahon ajattelija) by Kari Väänänen last summer when I was working for Kainuun Sanomat newspaper. The movie was shot in Kuhmo and Puolanka in the Kainuu region.
The paper, as seen in the photo above, is dated 8th of August 1952. I started the restoration by removing the coffee stains and wrinkles. As the movie is dated in the 1950s, the newspaper needed to look new. I then replaced one of the news articles with a fake article to match the story of the movie. The final product was printed using a large format printer by Mainospalvelu Kurkinen Oy (advertising agency). You can see the result in a close-up scene in the movie. The movie isn’t the best one ever produced, but it’s still surely worth watching. It’s still rolling in the cinemas (in Finland).
I’ve worked for Kainuun Sanomat for three last summers, but this summer I will work for Keskisuomalainen.
In school, we had to do art with fruits and vegetables. Somehow me and Eero Vihavainen ended up making Kiwi-Sackboy. I ran home, took the Canon 7D (which I had for test purposes) and we shot the video. The whole process took like 5 minutes, so please, be merciful with your comments.
And the song playing on the background is: Moby – A Freak. A thousand thanks to Moby for the permission to use the song.
As I meantioned in previous post, I was given a Canon 7D for test purposes. Above you can watch an Youtube HD clip (which is nothing compared to real Full HD quality of the film).
The short film is now at post-production phase. All the sound will be narrated or otherways recorded afterwards. 7D has an internal microphone and a stereo jack for external mic, but this project needs more. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work, and so on.
Editing 1080p video can be a real pain in the ass. Even if your computer is “good enought for everything normal”, you’ll probably find yourself realising that you’ve run out of nerd power. But don’t worry, there’s a remedy called editing with proxy files.
Editing with proxy files means that you shrink your 1080p clips. Then you use these small files as “placeholders” for the real videos while editing. Then, right before exporting the media, you just replace the placeholders/proxy files with the BIG ones.
This link contains more specific instructions for Adobe Premiere.
Now someone might ask, why anyone wants to shoot Full HD at all? Well, cause it looks great. And I really mean it. 7D is a still camera, but its video quality is ansolutely stunning. At least when you are not panning. While panning, the image staggers a bit. You can see it in the video above, but better example can be found from here.
NOTE: Youtube seems to add some staggering effects. Well encoded H.264 staggers so little, that it is hard to notice. The rolling shutter effect, which makes the vertical lines to wobble, is visible only with really fast panning.
I’ve used Canon EF-S 15-85/3.5-5.6 IS USM for filming. The 7D itself is very sturdy, so the lens feels a bit rickety compared to the camera. If you aim down with it, the zoom will slowly slide out. I had to use tape to lock the ring while shooting from a bird’s-eye view.
