Great rocks in Porkkala

In Porkkala you can find some rocks with an amazing pattern.Those stripes are just caused by different kind of minerals. The result is almost breath taking....feels like you are walking over some painted surface.
The rocks are also very smooth, caused by heavy layers of ice which have been grinding those stones for years and years during the Ice Age.

Inari

 

Still a few pictures from my last trip in Lapland during end May. Even Inari was covered in snow again for a few days. Winter is not giving up easily and spring time is struggeling to get started in the North of Finland

My white Hell

When I came back from the Norwegian Barents Sea, I had to drive through the mountains again. One day earlier when I arrived, the road was clean, so no problem. A day later on the way back,  it started to snow already at the coast. The snow was wet, so I was not worried. But when I came to the mountains, my "white hell" was starting. The wind got stronger and the snow got thicker all the time. The weather came that bad, that I hardly couldn't see where to drive. That north up in Norway there are no trees or bushes growing anymore, so everything was white. The sky, the ground, the road; just white. REAL WHITE. I had to use my sunglasses, my eyes were getting snow blind already. The wind was throwing snow to my side window, could not see a thing to my left...I hardly could drive faster then 20 - 30 km / hour. The roads were not cleaned and it had about 15 cm of snow, some places the wind had brought more and formed already snow hills on the road. I was thinking: Je..s, how the hell I will manage? In that area there is no mobile network, so you can't call if something goes wrong. Didn't see any other car for hours as well. I also could not turn the car, so the only option was to continue. Driving with the camper which is rather heavy, is a tricky thing when it's slippery. If you loose speed, the car will not move anymore through that thick snow. Few times I got almost stucked, but every time for some reason the tires (luckily still winter tires) found some grip again. This nightmare lasted for 40 long kilometers.... I was praying all the time, please let me see black asphalt! Please....! And then the first black piece came.... Thank god!

Almost like a painting

Can you believe this? End of may and lot's of snow still in Norway. During the snowstorm I had, I luckily could manage to take these pictures. They show something of the rough climate up there.

Oh and reindeers on the road

Sandfjord

Not a strange name for this fjord: Sandfjord. The river ends here in the ocean and has brought tons of sand.

Reindeers on the beach

This is something you will never see in Finland: reindeers on the beach. In Norway it's probably not so special but for us it's very unusual.

Humor from Norway

When I was driving a small road in the north of Norway, some weeks ago, I passed this farm. Suddenly I noticed that there was something strange with one building... and I started to laugh... Passing with high speed, I had to drive back to take some pictures. Well done Norway!

Traditional Lapland houses

In Lapland you can still find those traditional houses with grass on the roof.  The wooden walls have such a great structure, dried by the sun and the cold over the years.

Dog's first bike ride

In Lapland I came across this funny family. Their dog, a husky, got it's first ride on a bike. They told that it went good. Just when they stop and there are other people around, the dog wants to go and say hello to them. So a very social guy you can say.

Low water level

This doesn't look like Finland at all... The picture was taken in Lapland during May. The water level
in the lakes and rivers was extremely low, normally there should be much water after the melting of the snow. This year the snow just evaporated into the air. The low water level gave interesting shaped island in different colours.

Lady in Red

Mysterious Lady in Red. She is standing in the art place "Silent people" at Soumussalmi. There are about thousand figures standing. In the summer they have summer clothes and in the winter they get a jacket and scarf.

Evening light on a lake

The low light made the water of the lake look like alumonium foil. Almost like a painting...

Arty picture

This is some experiment where I changed a picture into a bit more arty style. Let me know if you like this or not.

What a tree

In Finland you can find some very strange shaped trees, like this one. That thing what is growing around the tree is really huge.

Island in the clouds

During a sunset two weeks ago, I was on top of a hill and looking down towards the lake. The wind was stopping and suddenly this island was looking very strange...like it was surrounded by clouds... It reminded almost like a spaceship. What a great view !

Angry trees?

These pollard willows looks almost angry. In the Dutch country site you see those trees a lot. They are cutting the branches every few years away. In the old days they were using those branches for baskets. Due to this cutting, the trees are getting a certain shape when they grow older. I think they get over the years angry and pissed off of all that cutting.

Tree of life?

This weeping willow, next to the river "Maas" was just starting to get leaves. The colours were very pastel-like and gave a warm touch to this scenery. The atmosphere was so peaceful and pure...

Beautiful ugliness

This sluice house was so ugly that I had to photograph it. The concrete has been white decades ago, but was now grey-greenish and looked rather dirty. It's giving this picture feeling. Because the sky wat grey, nearly white, and I left other details out of the picture; the result is a bit abstract. Sure that not everyone will like this, but that's also not the idea of this shot.

Models & Jewelry

During the photography training I did one day sesion with models and studio lights. The idea was to make some good pictures of jewelries which were worn by models. The beautiful jewelries were designed and made by Pearlfox. Pearlfox would use those pictures for promoting her work and for a website. 

To work with studio lights and real models was not easy. To find the right lightning technics was a challange, but also very interesting.

Old & New

An old windmill from the year 1600 surrounded by modern industry. This pictures shows a big contrast what has happend in a short period of time. First the old mill which needs only clean air to work. The mill is not giving polution or other waste to the nature. It's just using the wind, doing it's work and not giving any polution.
Then the modern monster next to him: it's consuming enormous amounts of  energy, doing it's work and giving
a lot of polution to the surroundings. And next to that it's also a damn ugly building.

The small fishing village "Marken"

"Marken" is a nice village with green wooden houses, completely different then the rest of Holland
which has basically only houses made of bricks. Marken used to be an island, but nowadays it's connected
 to the mainland by a causeway. In 1916 a big part of Marken was destroyed by a heavy storm.

Cheese farm

 

This was just a nice evening in the beginning of  March. The sun had gone down already and the blue moment was starting. The wind stopped and the water became a mirror. Sometimes this just happend when you are there, waiting for the right moment to shoot a picture. 

Tulip fields

Holland is famous for it's tulips. In April we had just great weather, so the tulips were on it's best already in mid April. The area of the "Nooroost polder" has enourmes tulips fields in different kind of colours. Just awesome!

Cows & countryside

Early spring weather in March next to the river "Maas".  That day had some great clouds, something what you don't get often in this time of year.

Feelings in a picture

Two pictures with quite a different feeling. The first could have been taken 100 years ago. The whole atmosphere is giving that feeling of the past; the light, bicycles, old tram rail, etc. The second one
has a modern touch due to the bguilding in the background.

City birds

In the city you can photograph birds in different kind of surroundings which can give a strange touch to a picture.