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Remembered to take the camera

24 May

to work this morning. So, some photos from my paper route:

 

Untitled 1Untitled 2Untitled 5Untitled 7Untitled 9tie1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BTW, now that I have taken a better look at these, either there are a lot of ghosts on that lakefront, or a lot of dust. 🙂

 

(To those who do not know what I’m talking about – those orbs you sometimes see in photographs, the balls of faint light, are sometimes assumed to be ghosts, or some other kind of spirits, by the people who are interested of paranormal and study such phenomena. I think the assumption is that you see more of them in places which are supposed to have lots of spirit activity. The alternative explanation is that they are dust or insects caught by the camera – like that lake picture, I had the camera on automatic and it used the flash, and while there are not many insects around yet there is a lot of pollen now. And yes, I’m interested and have read a lot about ghosts, spirits, near death experiences etc, and I actually think there probably is something real behind at least some of that, and I have personally had a few experiences which would be hard to explain from a purely materialistic perspective. However if something can be explained that way I presume the most likely explanation, most times, is the mundane one)

Some photos

1 Nov

Oh well, since it’s this time of the year and all, and I still want to edit the fourth chapter a tad before I put it up, some pictures of the local graveyard.

And one of me. Yes, I said I wouldn’t show any recent ones, but this fits the theme.

hautuumaa 6 hautuumaa 9 hautuumaa 12hautuumaa 2hautuumaa 10kl black:white

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. I’ll put the fourth chapter up sometime during the next 24 hours – free day, so I have plenty of time to finish the editing now.

Standing by a tree

9 Dec

And some hand positions, plus by a random wall.

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Still life with some of the props

6 Dec

And some more sneaking around, we were playing with ideas for suitable images of ‘hero tries to find a way into the castle’. Those ruins are a bit boring in some ways, there isn’t much more left than doorways and straight walls, and most of the walls are rather low. It was demolished in 1528, and after that locals used what was left as a source for building stones, so perhaps it is bit of a miracle there is even that much left.

There is a still standing actual castle here too, but if I want to use the photos taken there anywhere public I need to buy a permit before shooting them. But since that permit doesn’t cost much more than the entrance fee I will do that sometime next year. In some ways that castle is kind of boring to wander in, it was bombed during the Continuation War and restored thoroughly after the war, but that means there are parts which look rather modern. I think the idea had been something like making different time periods visible – some rooms were built into looking like they used to be when that part of the castle had been built, but they thought the building should also show something of the time period when it was last touched, between 1946 and 1961. Makes sense, in a way, but means one can’t pretend it’s not a modern museum while in there, plus means that if I want photos which don’t look like something taken in a modern museum I have to either be very careful about where I point the camera or try to do some photo editing afterwards.

Well, I should learn more photo editing anyway…

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A few cat pictures…

2 Dec

I tried a bit more complicated drawing this time, but wasn’t happy with the end result, so here: cute cats.

The photo of the black cat was taken three years ago when I moved to this apartment, and she was already nearly 17 years old then. So for the last year I have had only that other one, Pörri. I think I need more. With just one I’m in the danger of losing my weird cat lady status. Well, maybe not the ‘weird’ part, being in the habit of going for long walks well past the midnight, and practicing with that sword in the nearby forest, and some other stuff like that I probably will keep qualifying as weird, but a cat lady definitely needs more than one cat.

Nightly walks and the sword actually go together, I don’t want anybody to call the police so I do the sword practice, during summers anyway, when there is nobody else around. Meaning at night. Since I live above the 60th parallel there is plenty enough light throughout the night for several months (I work then too, but that’s only for about three hours now), and hopefully any potential muggers or other problem makers will steer away if I look crazy enough. Well, not that they are much of a problem around where I live, I remember reading about one case close to here some six or seven years ago, there are a couple of big stores and a man threatened a shopper walking home from one of them with a knife and took her bag with the groceries and her wallet with him, but I think that’s the only incident that has happened here during the last decade.

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Photos

30 Nov

Some more art reference photos. As said earlier, for me one of the main reasons for this photo shoot with Nina was to get pictures I could use when I try to figure out how to paint or draw a full cloak. So she is wearing that green cloak in almost every one of the photos, and even so I realized I could use more, ones where she is doing things like kneeling. Well, maybe next time. Nina said she is willing to pose for me again, but it might take until spring, with bad luck. First of all we are now in that part of the year when we get only a few hours of sunlight in this part of Finland (and I live in the southernmost part…), and second, the weather has been lousy so even what little light there would be if it was clear has been hidden behind clouds and the days have been just one long morning twilight changing into a long evening twilight. Well, usually the weather starts to get better around February, when, with luck, we might get some nice sunny days with a good snow cover and the snowbanks glittering prettily in the light. Or not. In this part of the country having a whole winter of slushy, muddy snow alternating with no snow, just some ice in places where the slush got hardened by people walking on it – yeah, icy sidewalks are one of my banes, I rarely manage a winter without falling down several times, and I really hate that even if I have, so far, only broken my wrist once – is quite possible.

Oh yes, I have finally started painting again too, but since I paint with oils it will take a while before I can show anything. Finishing a small oil painting takes me somewhere between a month to a month and a half – oils need to dry a bit between layers, and I prefer to go slowly even so – and after that it will be several weeks before the painting is dry enough for scanning. But during this winter I intend to make enough for a portfolio I can show here, and some other places. And start advertising for commissions after that. Some of these first ones will become covers for my own stories, but if anybody wants to make a commission for something I’m open to offers even now. If you ask for something now, based only on my sketches, you can even have it for free (well, apart from mailing the original, I would want the mailing costs covered, and the right to show it in my portfolio if I happen to like it well enough myself so ‘nude portrait of my girlfriend’ might not be a good choice). 🙂

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holding a dagger

13 Oct

and sneaking around with a lantern.

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