Lavonardo

This week’s Photo Friday challenge is religion.

My take is the attached image of a Greek-Orthodox church in Vyborg. The photo is snapped with the n95, and the shortcomings of the phone as a camera are not at all apparent in the image.

This week’s Photo Thursday challenge heads for abstract waters once again with this week’s topic: whisper.

My take is one of the oddest discoveries recently when walking around Pikku Huopalahti with a camera. Despite the waves of nostalgia inspired by this loose piece of Brio railroad, I failed to heed the whisper to take it home - thus doing my part in not spoiling some kid’s future efforts in being the railroad tycoon of the living room carpet.

This week’s Thursday Challenge is rocks.

My take is a picture from yesterday’s trip to Vyborg, a shot of the crumbling castle walls. The castle is a nice enough attraction to visit, sadly the main tower was undergoing repairs and was scaffolded (though the view from the walkway on the top was unobstructed).

Beach is not exactly a mood, but that’s the topic for this week’s Moody Monday Challenge.

My take is a scene from a drowsy Cape Cod town, already abandoned by the tourists in early September.

Only the lifeguard’s chair and the milling seagulls remain.

Sony has produced a camera that has a brand-new feature: Happy Face Retouch - the camera is able able to turn the subjects frowns into smiles. And the width of the added smile is selectable from a scale of one to five (I expect the last value to be somewhere in Julia Roberts territory).

I’m known for not smiling in pictures and consider this to be a rather invasive tool to adding joy into photography.

Few people have said it better than Harvey Keitel, as the clean-up man extraordinaire in Pulp Fiction:

JIMMIE
Smile, Winston.

THE WOLF
I don’t smile in pictures.

[ via kasa. ]

This week’s Macro Day challenge is about having a close-up image of handwriting.

My take is the attached image, a detail off a facsimile declaration of independence bought in Philadelphia. Sadly, there seem to be no secret masonic message on the back as shown in National Treasure.

This week’s Photo Thursday challenge is a very finnish concept: a night without a night. This refers to the summer nights that are not exactly dark on account of the planet’s axial tilt - while the sun does set below the polar circle, it never gets actually dark.

The image is a month off the solstice, and as such the darkness has started to creep in already. The location is Nivala, Pohjanmaa - and the location pretty much exactly the same used for a previous challenge (#40: Most Beautiful Word in the World).

This week’s Photo Friday challenge mandates imges from great outdoors.

My take is from one of the greatest wildernesses I’ve visited thus far, the Red Center of Australia - of Kata Tjuta on sunset to be exact.

This week’s Macro Day challenge is about fingers.

Seems that creative juices were running really low today, and I ended up with the attached image, of my own left index finger. Thought about using a plush cthulhu or a cat conveniently lounging nearby, but the former would have been a rehash of last week’s “nose”, and the latter proved ultimately unco-operative.

Next week, with “handwriting” things ought to pick up.

This week’s Photo Friday challenge commands the participants to display movement.

My take on the subject is the attached image, a picture of a tunnel ceiling racing by below the streets of ’s-Hertogenbosch in Holland. The speed of the canal boat is not great, but the exposure time certainly is a bit longer than expected, hence the heavily blurred image.

This week’s Thursday Challenge is bright.

My take is one of the brightest-colored flowers I’ve seen, a random orchid.

This week’s photo thursday challenge is all about encountering chance.

My take is a picture of a peacock that absolutely refused to flaunt his tail, being satisfied just to walk around with the flashiest bits folded away.

I can’t resist the idea of classic photographs, re-interpreted in Lego.

This week’s Macro Day challenge points towards noses.

My choice is the most fearsome lagomorph in the known universe, famous from its role in the first Monty Python movie.

Yeah, I seriously thought I’d have a proper picture for this week’s entry, but the sudden onset of a summer flu forced a fallback on an alternate subject.

Bruce Schneier, the official whistleblower on modern security, has written a very good article on why photographers should not be considered to security threats.

The security theatre has not reached Finland. At least not yet. But thanks to this analysis, there’s plenty of decent arguments to use when being told off on account of phony scares.

This week’s photo thursday challenge is all about human factor.

My take is one of the most saddest images I’ve ever taken - a metal tricycle scorched in the Hiroshima nuclear attack in 1945. Even if the atomic offensive shortened the pacific war, the number of civilian casualties was staggering - including the kid riding the bike as the new sun opened up in the morning sky.

The photograph is from the remembrance museum in downtown Hiroshima - a very sobering experience that takes ages to wear off. No idea what the object on the left actually is, looks like a helmet of some sort.

Indeed, as broadly hinted yesterday, upgraded the camera.

Bought a Canon EOS 450D (Digital Rebel Xsi in the states) with the kit lens (a 18-55 mm zoom). I’ve got my heart on a couple of other objectives (a 100 mm macro and a decent telezoom for starters), but will get to the grips with the camera using just a single lens first. While the manual is not formidably thick, there seems to be plenty of knobs to twiddle and settings to adjust.

The data emergency has now been cleared with a four gigabyte device, turns out that SDHC cards were in short supply in Helsinki.

Stay tuned for images, soonest. This one, obviously, is taken with the old camera.

This week’s Macro Day challenge is all about toys, dolls or action figures to be exact.

The HQ is not really packed with either (plush penguins do not count, I suppose), so I had to delve into an NBA-themed lego-pack bought absolutely ages ago. Sadly, there were no guys in green jerseys to celebrate Celtics proud return to the finals.

Upgraded my photographic equipment today.

But no new images off the new gear, since I stupidly forgot to pick up an SD card.

Thankfully the shops will be open tomorrow.

A proper image of the new camera when it’s ready for action, this is just a teaser.

And nope, didn’t update the laptop. Gromit the MacBook is there just to provide an even matte background for the strap.

I’m again late with this week’s Macro Day challenge. The subject is laundry.

My take on the topic: the attached image of stacked yellow/orange t-shirts fresh off the clothesline.