Spo's photos

This reminds me of a song by a Finnish singer Edu Kettunen. The song is about generations, about a family outing from which the father chooses not to return - instead, he turns himself into a tree on the seashore. (Yes, believe me, the sea is right there behind the man.) It is a finely crafted song but so abysmally sad that I cannot listen to it too often.

No, it is not a dream, and it is not a fire either; it is morning sun reflecting from water under a bridge.

Yellow posts were so funny that I left the color, whereas the greens were so burnt and futile that I removed them altogether. Result is quite weird and, err, pointless: you cannot tell why the picture was taken or why it is colored like this. :)

I'd surely say "What ever will come of boys who play with guns!" - if I had not done it myself as a kid. I like the image because it reminds me of being a boy. Not just because of the guns or the boys, but because of the place: this is how it used to be. I took this picture in the middle of Helsinki, and, as you may guess, there are not too many streets like this left.

... Read an interesting book about western propaganda in post-war Finland. After WW2 GB and the US were worried about Finland falling prey to Soviet propaganda, so they started their own here. Their offices in Helsinki flooded us with their books and magazines, radio news, tv-shows and movies and granted generous scholarships in their universities; so successful was their campaign that us Finns still don’t understand why we all absolutely love english language, Reader’s Digest, Donald Duck, John Wayne and indeed anything coming from the west – even that other Donald. (According to a recent study, our interaction with US has never been livelier than during the Trump's first administration.) That love applies to Hornet (pictured) as well, our number one war machine against the Evil Empires, Rogue States and whatever Axes of Evil the west has pointed us with its long and wise finger. Surely that eternal love will also apply to the Hornet’s successor F-35, which was officially chosen of five fighter candidates – even though everyone was so sure there really was no other option than the most expensive one, F-35, that our former Chief of Defence went to work for Lockheed Martin, maker of F-35, before the deal was fixed. Who ever said love was free? I, err… shot her at the Malmi Airshow. Our beloved one is sooo beautiful, capable of doing sooo pretty things, isn’t she?

We had watched the dark sky and listened to the distant thunder for hours, but when we saw this roll-cloud rising, we jumped on our bikes and stormed off. We had six kilometers to go for safety, and we made it only barely.

Taking A-train.

We had this fine halo effect this morning right after the sunrise.

Not upside down or anything: sun is reflecting from water under a bridge.

In addition to Ursa Major and Minor, there were earthly ursi around as well that night, we were told. Vertical lights near the horizon came from Area 51, where t-h-e-y were having their nightly drill. He-he. Without a tripod I had to place my camera on whatever solid things I found (read: stumbled on) on the ground, so I could not quite get the framing I wanted. Thanks Joan+ for the title.

For an urbanist like me, a night in the countyside is definitely an experience. It can be quite scary too: when you go out, it is so pitch black first that you cannot see your own hands. That night we had the stars: after many rainy days the sun had managed to peek just before the sunset, but I was totally unaware of the spectacle waiting for me up there when I first went out after dark. I think I actually cried out loud in astonishment at the stairs, me, who had not seen the full Big Dipper in decades. The awe was not diminished by the grandpa from the neigborhood, who had just told us that they had seen a bear with two clubs out there. It was ursa all over the place! If you look closely, there are other kinds of trespassers in the sky.

Tap water frozen by two flashes behind it. It looks so un-wet that I'd rather believe my naked eye than this.

A film group of the epoch movie Härmä (Once Upon a Time in the North) left this sign behind in 2012. The tree is portrayed in the opening scene of the film (and I think it should have reappeared in the end, to close the cycle). It is a brilliant movie, though. "Please don't fell" the sign says in local dialect - probably because the crew had rigorous training on the dialect at the location; to get into the feel they even spent their nights at the local museum. There is only two words in the sign, because there is no such word as "please" in Finnish, expecially not in *this* dialect! I'd say this attitude is what the film is about.

If there is fate predefined, it lies ahead behind that ridge, unseen. Does it turn to the left, does it turn to the right; does it thin out and vanish, does it build up to a highway? Or does it always take form only to the next ridge and according to the rules we've already set – by ourselves? Which one would you prefer?

Turku castle in the early 90's. I had just bought a 20 mm lens for my Canon F-1.

As much as I've always enjoyed calendar autumns - the disappearing of excessive light and the dissipation of the numbing heat, the amazement of wearing clothes again - just as much I have always hated the mental autumn , the idea that slowly but inevitably, everything around us starts to wither and die, and that there is nothing I can do about it. The magnitude of this annihilation falls heavy on me, every year. In this annulment, progress gets too deeply buried – but not quite. That year, the fall fell to a full halt in one long and incessant, unscrupulous slide, starting right here, with the taking of this picture. The smell of the void is already there, you can almost feel the land standing still inside of it in the thin and limpid air, timidly waiting for the permafrost. Golden birds have flown home, the only movement left is the darting of the clouds – the passage of days, swift as arrows. So, you may imagine my astonishment when I found the tree – in Google Maps. Without the tree I would have never, ever been able to place the picture on the map, not even close – I would have put it much further south, away from Ylläs. But then again, this is wide angle. This is with many calendar autumns passed. View to the west towards Ylläs from Lainiotie 301.