Christmas lights

Today's photographic exercise was to try and capture the different colors in our outdoor christmas lights on film (as they say). I went out first when there still was some daylight and practiced focusing at different distances. I'd again found the button in my camera that overrides the automatic focus, I had discovered it when I got the camera but then I forgot about how to use it and just now accidentally stumbled across it again. It's not terribly advanced but it does give you the option to choose where to focus.


Anyway, the pictures from earlier today went through some enhancements and it was quite fun to see what you can do with all the editing options. But of course, the real glow of the colors didn't come out until later in the evening when it was dark already. That's when the lights really started to shine.

Grayness

Gray day in Helsinki. Good day to practice taking pictures of the gray sea against the gray sky and then trying to find a detail here or a detail there to give color to it all.

The ship yard would have offered plenty of photo opportunities but I only took one photo. Maybe more another time. Personally I am more fascinated by the sea and the water surface than I am by the cranes or other structural elements there were. A girl thing perhaps?

My husband keeps telling me I should learn to use Photoshop. So far I have only used Picasa. Maybe one day.

Independence Day

Today we celebrate Finland's 90 years of independence. Since December 6th 1917.

The older I get, the more I understand how being an independent nation is something that cannot be taken for granted. I am able to celebrate independence today, knowing how close Finland has been in losing it, and I do so by lighting two candles on each window.

Paperwork

Today I feel swamped by paperwork. Need I say more?

Driving

More pictures taken through the windshield while driving home from work. There is something fascinating in the lights and colors, darkness actually, wet asphalt glowing in the dark. I need to practice this some more.

Morning vs afternoon

Here are two pictures from the same market place separated by 7 hours, a weather change and a difference in viewpoint. The first picture was taken in the morning, day was breaking and it was still dry and clear. I was up on a cliff overlooking the market place below. The second picture was taken in the afternoon traffic, rain and slush blurring the scenery. I like the idea of snapping pictures of the traffic, I will experiment more on it later, this was my first attempt.

And id you think snapping pictures while driving isn't clever, I can assure you I was stuck in traffic lights, no one was moving anywhere.

Brief glimpse of the sun

A short day today, and it will get even shorter. The pictures were taken at 2pm and the point was to celebrate the the fleeting appearance of the sun. It got up at 8.58 and sets at 3.21 so there is less than 6½ hours of daylight presently. Furthermore it was overcast today, and the sun only came out for a brief moment, peeking between the clouds before the dusk setting in, and I felt lucky in being able to see it at all.

The scenery out there was one thing. But when I uploaded the pictures to Picasa and started to finetune them for posting I got confused. What had the colors been exactly? Picasa wanted to adjust them into much bluer shade. I disagreed, I wanted to keep the yellowish tone. But was that how it had really been or was it just how my camera had captured it? I wasn't sure at all. I didn't change the colors but I did do some sharpening. Again I felt odd... there must have been a reason why it seemed blurrier in the original photo. Maybe it was blurry in real life, I mean there was mist perhaps in the air, light reflecting from it, producing the haze? Should I retain it? I didn't, though, I did correct the sharpness because it reminded me of how it had been when I got my eyeglasses, suddenly everything seemed much sharper and I knew the world had been sharp all along, it had just been my eyesight that had waned and deserved to be corrected.

But seriously. The questions are endless when you start thinking about it. How much to edit? What is real and what is not? The camera plays its tricks, and my eyes do too, how do I know what the objects really look like? And Picasa is just a basic tool. I don't even want to think what photoshop would do to my photos...

Maybe I'm making this too complicated for myself, it was nice to see the sun :-)