-33: Aki, with wine

Sometimes my friends can look so... sophisticated. Civilized, even.

We had an impromptu party yesterday. A small party, but alcoholic beverages were consumed (two lovely Bordeaux reds, and a bottle of french cider, organic too!) and good food was eaten.

I think I'm going to go back to Finnish for this blog, there seems to be so much that I feel like saying, that wouldn't make any sense to say in English. 

But fear not, I'm taking all this English stuff over to flickr. Once I get the link up there, it should be clear.

Tiedustelu

Mitenkähän se nyt on tämän kielikysymyksen kanssa? Suomi vs Englanti? 469stä kävijästä 23 oli ulkomailta, ja niistäkin ainakin osa suomalaisia tuttuja (Terveisiä Meksikoon Hannalle!) jotka asustaa muualla... Jotenkin turhalta tuntuu vääntää tuota englantia kuitenkin, vaikka se hauskaa onkin. On kuitenkin semmoinen olo että paremminhan sitä osaa itsensä ulkoistaa näin.

Kommentteja kaipaillaan, häpeällisen hiljaa olette, armaat lukijani.

I keep wondering about this language-issue, Finnish vs English. Out of 469 recent visitors, 23 were from outside of Finland, and most of those are expat friends of mine...

I'm asking for comments on the subjects, please, if you ARE for some weird reason reading this, and want to keep on doing so, chime in.

Oh, a picture, even though this isn't a post in the "365+44"? Sure, I think I can come up with something.

-34: Colder than yesterday

Victims of memory?

So we went to Masis' Godmother's house today, the girls had a "Let's make a dress"-kind of day, so I mostly got stuck with the kids. Which is okay, I guess, since I am on the daddyvacation.

I wanted to make a fire and grill some sausages, but it turned out that the fireplace was in so deep snow that I couldn't be bothered to get a shovel and dig it out.

The sun started setting quite fabulously, and I got that.

Sea of... shadows and snow?

-35: A Slow, Cold Day

Wow. Today was a LONG day. Up before 6 o'clock, with a cranky baby. All sorts of action, and I even got around to taking a 90-minute walk with Masi in the afternoon. Took some bad pictures, here's one that's less crap than the others.

-17C is quite enough for me. At least it wasn't windy.

My place. Right there.

On a cold day like this, this is as good as it gets for me as far as places go. My corner of the sofa, with my reading-lamp. Missing is my pillow and the Worlds Best Patchwork Quilt that Iri made for me years ago. It's blue(ish), very large, very soft and very cozy. I could most likely live in any shithole of this world if I had that blanket with me. I'll show it to you someday.

I've been pondering about rules for this project. Some people go with "only one picture per day", some say it's okay to post more than one, some say it's okay to post a picture from some other day, as long as it's from the correct time-frame, i.e. taken since the beginning of the project and so on...

I think limiting myself to just one pic per day is not... fun. This is supposed to be fun. Sure, there's going to be a "THE" picture of the day, but if I have something nice to show, why couldn't I? Or shouldn't?

Shit, it's MY 365, so MY RULES. I post what I want, when I want. Almost.

We've been planning the Berlin-trip for most of the night, going over maps and old notes. I realized that I really don't have a lot that I definitely want to do, C/O Berlin of course, but in addition to that, it's all bonus. I'm going to see the city. To look at it. Take pictures of it. To feel it, Feel Berlin, as they say. And   I'm all in flames over it all. Sure, I want to buy the coffee mugs and the grocery bag from KaDeWe, but after that... Just follow the others, and not follow them when it feels like it. 

Well, less than two weeks to go. I can wait. 

-36: The Boys

Mattias

Mikael

The Darling Wife requested more pictures of the little ones, so here we go. Might as well, today was a cold and miserable day filled with cleaning the house, running errands and generally being cranky at the everything. So I didn't get out much, did manage to take some pictures of the boys.

-37: A light snack to end my days with.

Wellwell. Couldn't decide again which one to go with, so put up both. I kind of like the "stripy water"-shots that I've been doing for a while now, but I'm not sure anyone else does... So a semi-funny one about the local "culture-hotel". I love how the camera corrects the distortions that I know the lens MUST be making. All the lines are pretty straight.

Also ran out of Twizzlers today. I had these normal ones, and then some lovely cherry-flavored ones. The cherry rocked, but the basic version wasn't half bad either.

I had been wondering about Twizzlers for a while now, as they haven't been available in Finland previously, and they are mentioned quite often in All Things American, lately a lot in "Warehouse 13". So of course when I bumped into them at Behnford's, I had to buy a fistful. And now I know.

What about the snack of the end-of-days that got mentioned at the top? Tonight it started with the fresh bread that I made earlier today. Sprinkle with olive oil, cut some chevre, and top it with fresh thyme, and into the oven. When the cheese has melted, take them out. The Most Important Ingredient is the honey that you lather on top of the cheese. Makes the whole deal come alive, it does!

Also made earlier the beets on the left, normal, basic whole beets in vinegar, cut up smaller, lots of garlic, some dried thyme (do I sense a pattern here?), olive oil. Into a jar, lid on, shake, do not stir. Goes in the fridge for a few hours, although rather good straight away too.

Visible in the back is some wannabe-Parma ham, Spanish it might have been. Don't really like them anymore, although this one wasn't as awful as most of them are. At least it was soft enough so I didn't have to stuff the whole slice into my mouth at once. The Darling Wife (and everyone else, apart from the Darling Wifes' Mother) loves it though, so I pleased her and ate a slice. 

Yummy goodness. 

And there you go, another day of active blogging gone by.

-38: Winter storms coming

A decent enough winter storm kicked in yesterday. There's a tree on my way to the shops that always seems to shed half its brances in little small pieces when a bit of wind comes our way. How it still has any left is beyond me. 

Also found six cranberries from my camera bag yesterday, just forgot to post them, sorry.

-39: The everyday descends upon me

Eating is not that messy anymore.

And so it begins; my father's leave. Well okay, it began last week, but now I've been home alone with the either one or both of the boys since Monday. And it was a bit scary at first.
But then it all comes back, and it seems really easy. Which it, of course, is not going to be.

-40: Empty window and Mattias

Woke up to a nice crisp morning, with a clear blue sky. Which didn't come out properly for some reason (forgot to turn off the lights inside, so the curtains are red and the sky is blue, blechh), so it's in black and white then.

And then for a bonus-picture, the first appearance of my second son, Mattias. Oh no, wait, he's been seen three times already. But he's such a big boy now, so it's okay.

My son Mattias.

-41: Happy Birthday, Maria V!

As always, the after-party was more than good.

And I got to capture the hand of the b-day girl.

-42: Hole in the ice in Nurmes

Rather cold for a swim.

So from Helsinki to Joensuu for the night, then straight on to Nurmes for Cousin Mammus' thirtieth birthday.
I had a horrible flu, constant runny nose. Which seemed to behave better when I was outside, so I braved the weather with Mattias, and went for a walk. Found an "avanto", which means "hole in the ice". Where you go swimming, you see.
Didn't go this time, but took a nice picture. I have a feeling that I've taken this exact picture before though.

-43: Lauttasaari

Went out for a walk while waiting for the Finnish Museum of Photography to open. Stayed at my father-in-laws sister's place in Lauttasaari. I've stayed there a couple of times a year for I don't know how many years, and I've always felt like going for a walk to the seashore, but never actually went. This time, however I did, since the family was back home, and I was a free man. As free as the birds in the sky. Like the ones above. I think it implies the sea somehow, even though it's not even visible.
I'm quite partial to the 1:1-crop in the camera, I set-upped (is it a word even?)  it so that when I turn the dial to C1, it automatically selects the square crop, ISO1000 for a nice, big grain, B/W mode with tweaks to the contrast and sharpness. Save to RAW and a small JPG.

A MASSIVE retrospective for Pentti Sammallahti at the Museum, I believe well over 350 pictures on show, and all of them excellent, if not the images, then the absolutely flawless printing.
Everyone should go and see this at least once, preferably twice.

-44: First exposure

My darling Annika

Right then, let's kick this off.
This is exposure number 00001 on the new camera. It's my very bestest friend Annika, at Cafe Esplanad in Helsinki, where I had to travel to get the camera. The very first squeeze of the trigger, the virgin snik of the shutter. Sure, the expression on her face is not perfect, but the new haircut is evident, is it not?
I ate a veryvery lovely salad, with corazones de alcachofas and marinated small Agaricus bisporus. Go educate yourselves.

Muutoksen Tuulia

ATTENTION: English on the bottom of this post!

"Ja to...os...ta se alkaa", niinkuin jo ammoin kotimainen kirjailija asian ilmaisi.

Osa kamerakannasta, D200 plus kakkulat on jo vaihtaneet paikkaa piiloonsa.

Ylläolevassa kuvassa on osa viimevuonna käytössä olleista kameroista ja linsseistä.
Allaolevassa kuvassa on kaikki ensi vuonna käytössä olevista kameroista ja linsseistä.

100% kameroista vuodelle 2011!

Juuri niin. Purin hammasta ja löin päätöksen lukkoon. Panasonic GF1 ja 20mm f:1.7. Näillä mennään nyt sitten. Toki työasiat kuvataan D3sella sun muilla hörsykkeillä, mutta ne on työhommia, ne ei tähän kuulu.
Onko tämäkin sitä downshiftausta, vaikka loput kamerat onkin vain laatikossa, ja rajatun ajan? On se kai.

Mitä tämä nyt sitten oikein on, kysyy joku. Minäkin kysyn. Se on jonkinlainen vaihtelu. Haastekin, vaikka ei tässä kaikki ole, ehei. Mukavuudenhalu? Varmasti.
Onko nyt kiva lähteä reissuun, yksi kamera, yksi linssi? Ei tarvitse edes pussia filmeille, niinkuin aiemmin Leican kanssa reissatessa.
On. Berliini odottaa parin viikon päässä, siellä sitten nähdään tositoimissa tämä.

Laitetaan vielä lähikuva laitteesta. Oli jo pakko vaihtaa neon-värinen alkuperäishihna Gordy's Camera Strapsin nahkahihnaan, ja teipata piiloon nuo mainokset. Nyt tuntuu jo tutummalta.

Tuulia, Tuulia Muutos on nimeni.

Juupajuu, vaan mitä on ne haasteet mistä aiemmin mainitsin? Niin. Tiivistyy näppärästi kolmeen numeroon:

365

Aivan oikein. Allekirjoittanutkin hyppää tuohon ah-niin-trendikkääseen aktivointiharjoitteeseen, eli KUVA PÄIVÄSSÄ. 

Tämähän toi yhden ongelman. Koska aloittaa? Näpit jo syyhyää, ja ajatus oli että "Uusi kamera, uusi haaste", vaan tyhmää on aloittaa 18.11.2010 tämmöinen. Siksipä teemmekin niin että 365-haaste alkaa 1.1.2011, ja siihen asti mennään countdownin-omaisesti, "T minus forty-four"-tyylillä. 

Haaste alkaa änyytee NYT, eikun kuusi päivää sitten.

Pieni disclaimeri kuitenkin, eli jos minua nyt ihan hemmetisti huvittaa ostaa se peruszoomi tuon kaveriksi niin minähän hemmetti sen ostan sitten. Mutta epäilenpä.

Aijuu, tämä blogi koettaa muuttaa toiselle kotimaiselle, eli englannille tästä eteenpäin.