June, July and August are probably going to be the most quiet times on this blog.
Not really sorry, but I’m going to apologize for enjoying the summer and totally neglecting writing anyway.
Especially being in Finland, where “summer” is defined somewhat different than elsewhere in the world.
Especially when we’re going on our 6th consecutive day of sun and 20+ degrees Celcius. That’s quite an achievement.

Suffice to say I’m out…
Enjoy the summer, as I will, and I’ll be writing whenever it might be raining

D200, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/8, Sigma 10-20mm

Not my own post, but something rather hilarious everyone should read:

http://www.shapelessmass.com/index.html/?p=578#comment-104

One of the pictures apparently has been doing the round already for quite awhile, but I bumped into this blog post only now.
And after reading and after I had recovered from my initial surprise I giggled myself silly.

It’s about an artist who had put up some pictures on his website. Another guy had made a website for his business and bluntly hotlinked -not even copied- the images to his own website and also used it in other things.
Then after awhile the artist took down the website or the images from the website and prompt got a mail from the other guy who threatened to sue the artist with legal actions if he didn’t put back the pictures, because he had used them in all his business material and had no longer access to them and this would damage his business.

I know… hard to believe, but geesh, did it crack me up

The other day I came across a rum ad by Donq. I don’t drink alcohol myself, so I have no clue what kind of rum it is, how it tastes or what Donq is, but I do know that they should have a little chit-chat with their ad agency.

Donq

Of course… The bottles were put on the beach. They’re not really there, and they’re not really that big either. But that was a fairly ok job, except for the very Web2.0 reflections of the two bottles in the water, that seem to not be interfered by the waves rolling in on the beach.
Funny thing is… this Donq must make really special glass, because there’s no diffraction of the island’s trees or beach line you can see through the transparent bottle in the middle. Nor in the round cap of the bottle on the right.
And I guess that green bottle is coated somehow, so you can’t see anything through there. But those two bottles on the left are normal glass. And even if I don’t know anything about rum, I do know that -although it being a pissy yellow- it’s still transparent and should’ve shown island and sea as well.

Owwell… Maybe the graphic had a bit too much before he worked this ad

Two of my good friends asked me to take some pictures of them during their pregnancy.
We got together about a week before they were officially due and had a great morning together.
Lovely mom-to-be was just radiating happiness
And of course lovely daddy-to-be did just the same
And I’m The Godfather [insert tacky one-liner here ). WOOOHOOO!!  

D200, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/8, Tamron 90mm

D200, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/2.8, Tamron 28-75mm

D200, ISO100, 1/60 sec @ f/2, Nikkor 50mm

This is something that’s been bugging me already for a looooong time.
You hear it all the time, in every bar, with every party. And it’s all screwed up.
Wikipedia writes this:

Going Dutch is a slang term indicating that each person participating in a shared activity pays for himself or herself, rather than any one person paying for anyone else. It is also called Dutch date and Dutch Treat.

I’m not quite sure where they got that, or where this whole impression comes from, but it’s seriously lopsided.
It would make a lot more sense if they would call it “Going Finnish”.
One of the first times I came to visit my better half - when we were still living in separate countries - we went out to a bar with her friends. I stepped up to get a drink and asked everyone what they wanted to drink, wallet at the ready. All of them, not one single exception save for my better half, looked at me like I had too much space cake.
“Hmm, well… ummm… we’ll come along to the counter and see” was the reply, as everyone stood up and took out their own wallet.

Is it because I’m from the east of Holland? Do they do things different there?
I don’t think so. My friends back in Holland live all over the country and every time it’s the same. I buy a round and the rest of the night it’s everyone else’s turn.

What do you mean “Going Dutch”?
It’s screwed up. Dutch people are one of the most generous people on the face of the earth!

ARGHH!
Someone needs to rewrite the dictionaries!

I had the privilege to shoot the wedding of two great individuals.
Refreshingly easy-going with their own creative ideas, but not stuck them (or on their mothers-in-law’s ideas)

Helsinki has a stack of great locations to do weddings and aside the more traditional, like Hotel Kämp with its gorgeous red carpeted stairs we also went to the little less traditional former jail - now hotel / restaurant- Jailbird with an old isolation cell still in tact.

Traditional:

D200, ISO100, 1/90 sec @ f/8, Tamron 28-75mm, two remote flashes SB-800 with Photoflex softbox

D200, ISO100, 1/60 sec @ f/5.6, Tamron 28-75mm, two remote flashes SB-800 with Photoflex softbox

D200, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/2.8, Nikkor 50mm, on-camera flash

Less traditional:

D200, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/11, Sigma 10-20mm, two remote flashes SB-800 with Photoflex softbox

D200, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/11, Tamron 28-75mm, remote flash SB-800 with Photoflex softbox

D200, ISO100, 1/180 sec @ f/11, Tamron 90mm macro, remote flash SB-800 with Photoflex softbox

Awhile ago I wrote something about this expecting it to be a lot more frequent that I’d update this. Maybe people have gotten more my taste, or then I haven’t really been paying attention enough

Anyway…
The other day I was walking with my better half through Helsinki city when I ran into this sad piece of work.
Like many of these kind of things I couldn’t help but giggle myself silly again.

I don’t think I need to elaborate on this
Not to completely discard the owner’s privacy I didn’t take any images of the inside, which was as sadly over-done as the outside with a fluffy, hairy steering-wheel cover and a wooden butt and back massage “carpet” (among others).

Lada

Lada

Lada

Again: tastes differ…

I dug out the macro lens again after not having used it for some time.
Missed it. Cassandra was the first victim, but didn’t seem to care much.
Interesting stuff…
My better half has been telling me to shoot a series of pictures like this and frame them as a collage. I really should!

D200, ISO100, 1/90 sec @ f/4.8, Tamron 90 mm macro, on-camera flash

D200, ISO100, 1/90 sec @ f/4.5, Tamron 90 mm macro, on-camera flash

D200, ISO100, 1/90 sec @ f/4.0, Tamron 90 mm macro, on-camera flash

D200, ISO100, 1/90 sec @ f/4.5, Tamron 90 mm macro, on-camera flash

Oh, before you start yelling that the eye has to be in focus…
This was done on purpose, for another purpose

Värileikki

I’m having an exhibition with a fellow artist the coming two weeks. It runs from May 12th-May 24th.

The official opening is on Sunday May 10th, from 18:00-19:30 in Kässän Taidetalo in Virkkala (Tynninharjuntie 21).
If you’re from around, you’re around and you feel like popping in: welcome!

I stand corrected. At least partly.

I attended an Adobe seminar a couple of weeks ago and I during the break had the privilege to speak with Adobe guru Julieanne Kost. Where she confirmed the complaint about images not being linked to different catalogs, and the smart catalog things I wrote about, and the identity plate, and some other things, she showed me the simplest way of making the presets accessible throughout all catalogs (should’ve been able to figure that out myself, though).

There’s a setting in the preferences, of which the box is by default checked. This tells Lightroom to save all presets you make with the current catalog.

Lightroom presets

If you uncheck this box, all the presets you make after that (restart Lightroom, just to be sure!) are stored in the global presets folder and accessible by all catalogs.

Saves you some ranting