Christmas tree and presents
Merry Christmas!
Category Archives: Photographing
Culture
I have been way too lazy for the past month (or almost two). Do I decided stop wasting my time for doing nothing and start exploring at least Seoul. Some time ago I founded Seoul City Blog which lists events happening around Seoul. From there I spotted that in Seoul Arts Center there is going to be National Geographic Exhibition and decided to go to see it. So this weekend for a time for great photos.
Finding Seoul Arts Center was easy, getting off the right metro station and then just following good signs. But after we got there, there were small problems. They did advertised exhibition and nice enough, put even arrows so we knew which direction to go. But, that was all. There was a some notice putted on the posters but only English word there was “Notice” and that’s all. Well, after a while looking around we found a desk that looked like ticket selling point, asked for NG tickets and then we learned that those were sold outside. Well, good enough, short walking to outside and then realization that Seoul is a big city, there was a long line for buying a tickets. It started to look like that we weren’t going to get inside to see exhibition anytime fast. But then we got lucky. After queuing for a while, couple foreigners stopped to us and asked if we want to buy their tickets as they run out of time. And at that point I remembered the small fact that Koreans like queueing (clearly), in Expo, they were letting people inside Korean pavilion only certain amount of people at once, in Lantern Festival, same thing, and as you might guessed, same thing here. So after waiting to have a chance to buy ticket, then it was required to go to outside of exhibition entrance to get queuing number to get actually inside. And a this point buying tickets from those two foreigners who had already both tickets and queueing number started to be more than great opportunity, so we bought them and left a queue.
It still meant that we needed to wait about an hour to actually get inside. But when we got in, it was worth it. I knew that NG photos are one of the best ones of nature but seeing those there, they were just great. One after another, just amazing photos. And it was nice to spot a photo from Finland (from Lapland, with Aurora Borealis and snow of course). Some photos were of course much better than others, my favorite was definitely one really cute photo with polar bear with it babies. One really funny photo was a photo of bear who was getting its dinner by just waiting salmon to jump to its mouth 
All photos were just great and I’m happy that I spotted this opportunity and more, that I took and used this opportunity to see great photos. Seeing all these photos also gave me a little bit more motivation which hopefully leads to better photos. Not NG level but who knows…
Photo per day
I hope that some of you still remembers my small project that took in place between April 2008 and April 2009 – the small project when I posted one photo everyday. Well, for some reason I really liked this project and have been feeling a little bit empty not having it around all the time so I am going to do it again next year, but with small modifications. First, this time it is going to start right from the January 1st and not in the April and second, last time I posted mostly photos that I took in the last weekend, this time I am trying really hard to post only photos that I have taken in the very same day.
I hope that you are going to enjoy my photos during this project, the project is going to take it’s place in http://www.mikian.com/365photos.
-15°C
Finally we have real winter weather, really cold weather. It is so nice after a year again feel freezing wind on your face, all problems when you are trying to take photos while wearing so much clothes that you just cannot handle camera properly… But it is always so worth of it, the photos are always just so amazing…
Some scenery near my home
Some frozen plants
Some christmas lights from the city center
Small city photographing
It has been a long time since last time I have just taking my camera with me and just left to somewhere. Way too long… But yesterday I got good enough reason just left Tampere and I ended up in Valkeakoski bus station with my camera; that was my first visit to that city and it was interesting place. There was not so much anything but somehow it felt nice little city after all. But I found it really interesting how all finnish smaller cities that I have been somehow seems so similar, buildings are little bit same looking and same kind and the spirit you get when walking there for the very first time is quite same. They all seems so peaceful nice small cities 
I really should get out from Tampere more often – not just for some nice photos but for some nice experiences too. Specially if they all could be as great and nice as yesterday was… 
Valkeakoski bus station
Apparently there has been olympic athletic in cross-country skiing that is from Valkeakoski…
Sports were in really big part of Valkeakoski, there was football stadiums everywhere, only the size changed from smaller ones to that big one (where the lightning hit one player few years ago…). The sports seemed to be though the only thing that was bringing maybe some tourist to there, I somehow suspect that it is not so big tourist place…
The real sunset on the lake
What would be my photo traveling without the photo from the sunset. This time I was watching sunset on the lake, sitting on the shore and looking over the frozen surface of the lake. The snow on the ice was full of small sparkles of ice and while watching the sunset it was possible to see rainbow on the ice.
First snow
We got finally our first real snowing on friday. On thursday night we got some snow already but it wasn’t until friday evening when we got what I have been waiting for – the real snowing. When the air is nothing but falling snowflakes, it is dark, little bit windy and all you can see is snowflakes flickering in the street lights.
It is weird how I always forget during the other seasons – during the summer how I always miss that view. But then when first snowflake is slowly floating towards the ground – it all just comes back to my mind. All the reasons why I still think that winter is the best season. And the best part is when you are on your bicycle and trying to not to fall down… It is not so easy task to do when you have still your old summer tires on the bike… But it was fun
Old railway
I like Tampere that in the area that currently holds small industrial and stores you can find old rails. It is always a great time to cycle there and think when was the last time there actually went a train. A quite a while I think because tracks was all rusty and in those place where rails crosses a street, no cars slowed down at all. And today I noticed sad thing, they were removing tracks from streets so no trains at all anymore. It looked like they are still going to keep rails elsewhere, but it is still only a matter of time until they are removed also, i think.
Old junction is growing trees nowadays, I think that train would have some problems to get through…
Old signal in the junction. These can’t be seen in the modern rails anymore which is a shame.
Old rail goes over a bridge and is still connected (probably) to the current rails.
And thats what tracks look at the moment next to street.
A year later
One year ago (and one day) I decided to start a little project, I decided to post one photo every day. I had a small dream that I would even be able to take one photo every day but soon this was forgotten and I didn’t even post a photo every day. But in the end, last day of March I posted last photo for the project and now I have 365 different photos that most of are taken near the posting date (usually previous weekend). More about the ending of the project can be read from http://www.mikian.com/photoyear/2009/04/01/end-of-story/ and in that blog you can also watch all photos by month, by category or by tags. Or if you like you can watch all photos in slideshow starting from the very first photo year ago and watch how the year is passing by in http://www.mikian.com/photoyear/viewer
This project was actually really interesting. More about how project went is on that last entry in Photoyear blog. But now when I think about last year and watching those photos, it seems that it has been a long time ago. Somehow I barely remember my decision to start the project, it feels like it happened many, many years ago. Well, last year was quite interesting and quite much happened, but interesting still, because usually I just have feeling that time just goes really fast. But nice thing is that I am actually really proud most of the photos, I managed to pick really great photos (if you just see all those photos I rejected from that project ). What project gave me, more inspiration to take photos, more motivation. I think that I am going to continue the project, but not as one photo per day, but still I am going to post more photos here than earlier. But only great photos
Definitely spring
Since last post it has finally started to feel more and more like spring. Okey, yesterday it tried to snow a little bit but this time it was only trying to snow, just like it should do in spring
Streets are already dry and sun is starting to be really warm when it shines and it does a lot now. And finally, it has to be spring when yesterday I saw three porsches on streets and today one more.
Fox and the City
I was just playing a few moments ago when I just happen to raise my sight from monitor to outside and what I saw… In the middle of the city there was a fox running through our yard! That was something that I didn’t expect to see. That was actually a first fox I have seen in the wild and it was beautiful animal. Too bad that it was so busy running away that I didn’t have a opportunity to take a photo 
Have to hope that it wasn’t only visiting shortly but would come again someday; and this time I will be waiting with my camera…