The last few days of making the movie “Veijarit”.. I wasn’t there to photograph seaguls, but I did it anyway in between taking shots of the awesome people and beautiful scenes.
I wish all weeks could start like this. I wish all the people could start their weeks like this.
From Poets of the Fall:
Unfortunately we are forced to cancel at least Thursday’s gig on MS Isabella. Marko has inflammation of the larynx + high fever, which in practice means he has no voice at all.
Fri & Sat are still open, but at the moment it doesn’t look too good. Our deepest apologies, we were really looking forward to these gigs. We hope we can play on the sea at a later date! Stay tuned.
Aww. We girls were actually excited to spend 3 days on a boat, although in normal circumstances it would be a nightmare. But, you know. When you love someone / a group of someones..
Picture taken at Klubi / Tampere last Thursday. More coming up soon at their photo gallery.
..got ~1000 photos of the bands we went to see. And still missed a couple of happenings taking place on stage.
What an awesome trip, once again. I love my girls. I love my boys. I love sitting in the car, singing out loud; sleeping in Omppu, spending a hangover day at a spa, dodging drunken people who are about to push me over with my camera. I love life on weekends like this.
Tomorrow, Tavastia. And while waiting for the live photos of Phoenix Effect and Poets of the Fall, I give you a hooded crow. What an awesome character.
Added a few tags. This needed them all!
Sometimes I can handle more than 10 minutes outside just for fun. That only happens when I carry my camera and can actually pretend to have a reason to be outside.. in the snow.. and cold..
I’m sorry I haven’t been writing about my personal life anymore. I do realize how stupid it is to apologize for something like that, but for some silly reason I feel I have to. After sooo many years (has it been nine already?!) of blogging about everything I do, everything I feel, everything I’m going through in my life, it just feels.. rude? Why? I have no idea.
Maybe I’m finally trying to drop all the less important hobbies and concentrate on things I *really* wanna do in life. Like roam the savannah with Dave or some other nature maniac.
Yeah, I wish. I really do.
I circle around my own bellybutton (as we say in Finland) and will now present you my photo of the day, quite randomly selected.
The story behind this photo: I had to visit the zoo three times to see the leopard babies (endangered species, by the way) coming out with their mama. One night, 10 minutes before the closing… time, I FINALLY spotted them. I’m sure the mom waits for the zoo to quiet down, and even knows the time of the day when that will happen. I’ve witnessed at least horses and swans to learn the daily feeding times of the day, almost by the minute.
I also had to go through pretty violent feelings, spotted a couple of idiots banging on the glass wall & growling & yelling at the mama leopard. She got really upset and aggressive, and tried to get to them trough the glass (wish she did).
They were Russians, who apparently didn’t understand English at all.. I hope they at least got the “YOU IDIOT” part.
There. Rant rant rant & again with the love for the animals :)
..with a project. I’m suddenly so involved with this fun thing called Harakan Taivas, which would translate into Magpie’s Heaven beautifully. It’s a retro / second hand clothing store my friend decided to start, and wanted me to join the project…
So, for the last week or more, I’ve been painting the walls, planning the interior & doing all kinds of things related to the store itself and of course, the promotion of it. We have a blog too [click!], but it’s in Finnish – I’ll translate some of it to English at some point, but at least there are a lot of pictures of what we’re doing. In case you’re interested :)
Also, some nice news about my photography. I took part in this fun competition put up by an awesome nature photographer called Chris Weston, and ended up in the top three! But the best part of the whole thing was his commentary on my swan photo. Here’s a quote:
“In this image by Tiia Ohman, the photographer has made great use of the elements of design in order to capture a striking, graphic image of a relatively common subject. A perfect exposure has brought out in vivid detail the varying textures of the swan’s feathers, creating an almost 3-dimensional appearance to the photograph.”
“Seeing the detail, as in the Swan, is a perfect example of learning to see. A brilliant effort.”
-Chris Weston [see his website here.]
Imagine that! I think these comments are something I’ll cherish for the next few months – that is, if National Geography doesn’t call me up and ask if they can publish my photos. Ha ha ha. Maybe in a few more years… (what a dream!)
So, that’s that, all is well here, inspiration & long days.. Hope you’re all happy & well! Leave a comment before you leave!
Winter photos. Some of you might know how I feel about this time of the year, so you can imagine how much courage it took to spend 30minutes outside just to get these pictures.
The Gannet. She’s protecting to girl on her back, but the rest of the story.. you’ll just have to figure it out. This one’s for sale, too.
Me and a friend of mine are working on this big project, that will actually give me some more REAL work to do. We’re gonna start a blog about that later on, and you’ve been warned: I will promote that thing a LOT in the upcoming months! So excited!!! Wish us luck, we really need it.
So. I flew home from Sweden/Denmark tonight, but it actually took two take-offs from the Copenhagen airport to finally get to Helsinki. They had problems with something electrical equipment the pilots use to do their job (no idea what, “nothing serious”), and we had to turn back after 30 mins of flying. At the Copenhagen airport they even had firetrucks waiting for us – normal procedure, said the captain. Still, pretty exciting!
The funniest moment was when, after telling us something is wrong, the captain’s announcement started bzzz’ing and breaking off. The Finns burst into loud laughter and I couldn’t help but giggle too – says something about this nation. We’re not afraid to die as long as it’s funny!!
The week in Lund was peaceful, lovely, relaxing, fun – I also got to see Grand Avenue twice, which was a huge cherry on top of everything! On Thursday night me and Miikka (aka CK) met the band and some fun people backstage and continued to a small pub nearby. We got hammered, played at least 20 Beatles songs from the jukebox and some MC Hammer.. I also have a video clip on my cellphone with a lot of darkness, laughter, loud rattling noises and a few flashing streetlights. The video includes a shopping cart and some pain, too. Might not make it public anytime soon, although it is hilarious.
On Friday night I hopped on a train to go to Copenhagen (again! I crossed the border 6 times within the week) to see the band play in Albertslund. CK went home that morning, so I had to make it a solo adventure. And what an adventure it was, indeed. I got lost in the damn suburbian hellhole of a mall and missed several songs. Oh well, at least I got a few photos and a chance to say hi and bye to the guys afterwards. Totally worth the trouble. They are such amazing people, polite and fun, making sure a random foreign girl doesn’t get lost in the city and whatnot. I wish they get the attention and good things they deserve.
Again, makes me want to believe in karma and people getting what they deserve.
It was so nice to spend time with Aija. Really really nice. We haven’t been able to spend a lot of time together lately (her moving to Sweden might have something to do about it) and now we got a whole week – minus my fangirl action – and although we didn’t do anything that special, it was the best week. Watched a lot of good movies & series, made some christmas decorations and amigurumi for their home, took Siru the dog to long walks to a nearby pond, ate good veggie food and enjoyed life.
Aija might’ve not enjoyed ALL the time with me, since I was pretty violent during nights while sharing the double bed with her. One night I had a dream someone was trying to stab & kill me, so I kicked the killer real hard in the stomach. Well, it worked, I didn’t get stabbed since I woke up to Aija’s whining and cursing. I’d kicked her instead. I would’ve laughed at the situation, but I realized instantly it wasn’t a light touch of a foot that hit her.. embarrasing but, you have to admit, a bit funny.
Well, it’s almost 4am and I’m starting to feel a bit cross-eyed (as we say in Finnish, isn’t it the same in English too huh?).. might have to leave the photo editing until tomorrow.
If you have Spotify, please listen to my current favourite track from Grand Avenue: These Days. I love the whole album “Place to Fall“, but this song’s been playing in my head since yesterday.
And a couple of photos – Grand music and flying Einari. Hope you like ‘em.
