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Last night I did my first sports gig for SK. It was a game of floor ball. First division game between the local team SBS Pori and Westend Indians from Espoo. The game is really fast and it was rather hard to keep up with it. I haven’t done any sports shooting.. umm.. well.. ever :D It was fun even though I felt like I shot a lot but still got nothing :D

After getting back to office and going through the shots I found some that are ok, or so I think. I could have done better, yes, but I could have done a lot worse too. The image that was chosen for the paper wasn’t my fav, and what made it look worse than it really is was the crop they made. Oh well.. you win some and lose some, right? Still, I have to say that I like winning a lot more :P I wonder if they’ll give me any sports gigs after this one..

I had a really long day yesterday, with two jobs (Eurajoki and SK) and all. And today felt really long too. I’m doing a lot of shoots at Kankaanpää now, because my boss is still on sick leave. Three shoots today. Tomorrow I promised to do a shooting gig for SK after Kankaanpää. The gig is at Kankaanpää and the writer is a friend so it should be fun. I just hope it all goes well and doesn’t take the whole night because I’ve got a shoot next morning. I’m so waiting for Sunday!

I can’t believe how full of work my calendar is. I suck at saying no. Mostly it’s because I’m interested in doing all those things but I should still sometimes try saying no.. Part of the reason for not being able to say no is probably the fact that it wasn’t so long ago when all the work I could find was cleaning gigs.. now that I’m being offered photography related jobs or gigs from different directions I still find it very hard to say no even though I’ve already got my hands full of the good stuff. It’s so strange how everything happens at the same time. First I got absolutely nothing at all and than all of a sudden I have more jobs than I can handle. Weird world.

Next week I have only one free day and that’s Sunday. I was stupid enough to promise to teach another course (a short one) at Eurajoki. It eats up some of my free Mondays and that sucks.. But those are short days and it’s good experience and I like teaching and blaablaablaa.. I’m good at explaining things to myself when I fail to say no :D

Wow, that was a lot of text. Too much me thinks. Time to go to bed and get some rest. Two more days to go..

I bought a macro lense today, yay :) Nice to finally get something from all the hard work I’ve been doing lately. I would have liked to shoot fall stuff outside but it was soooo windy and the light was boring so I came inside instead. Now I should get back to work.. I’ve been avoiding work today quite successfully. But can’t help it now, stuff needs to get done *sigh*

The above (and below ) shots are tests thingies with the new macro lense. The wooden ring was a real find from my recent “day at Tukholma” cruise. I hope I don’t break it too soon, the wood is rather soft and it has some marks already. And I already once lost it but luckily found it soon after :D

The tortoise thingie is from Tallinna, love it too. Reminds me of Mona :)
I had a nice day today. I even got to go to yoga. I haven’t been able to go in weeks. It felt so good to practice today. I wish I can go again this week, but I’m afraid it’s impossible because of all the work stuff that’s piling up again. And speaking of work.. I need to start now or I’ll never get to bed :D

Poor little Nestori died on Wednesday. We buried him at Sami’s backyard under a big fir tree on Friday. It broke my heart.

FINALLY it happened! We got more light to our kitchen. I love it. Thank you Miikka for doing it! It’s nice to read the paper in the morning when one can actually see something. And it’s pretty! At least I like it. The carpets are newish too. And there’s stuff that’s going to be added/changed when we get the time to do it, but the lamp was the most important thing, that’s for sure. When I came home the next day (after Miikka put the lamp up there) I had to put it on just to see it on and believe that it’s really there even though I didn’t need the light at that moment :D *silly*

It’s here, no matter what you call it. Fall. Autumn. Syksy. I love fall, but now it seems a bit unfair since summer really didn’t happen here. And it’s so cold now in the mornings.. I don’t know how I’m going to survive winter because I’m freezing already and temperatures are still above zero.

I hate updating as rarely as I’m updating now.. it’s not that I don’t want to but more like I can’t find the time and energy to do it. I really really like teaching but building all the classes and materials from scracth is a lot of work. And a while ago when my boss from my main job got into a hospital for a week all my normal free days were cancelled.. and now she’s on a two month sick leave. We made some temporary arrangements so we can get through that time, but until those arrengements really start to work out as they should I’m doing some long weeks.. So that’s why I’ve been so silent lately. Feels like getting through a week alive and doing my job(s) takes all the energy I have. I’m dreaming about having two days off of work in a row! Ok, I’ve had something like that recently, when we went to Tallinna, but I mean two days when I don’t have to go anywhere, when I can rest and do something small at home..

Now I’m  going to go and watch some telly. Dexter is on next. It’s nice to just lay in bed and switch brains off and watch telly. I think I’ll have a cider too. And then go to sleep. Two more mornings and than Sunday, yay! Though I do have to work on Sunday too. Make the next teaching day. I was planning a little shooting trip with my students but turns out neither of the places I though we could go is open. Buhuuu… now I need to figure out something else. But that’s Sunday’s problem, not tonight’s!

The weekend went pretty well :) I don’t really have the energy to write or go through the snapshots now. I just felt like posting little something to tell that I’m still alive. The above shot(s) are from the ship. Such a nice weather :) On the way back I was so tired that I didn’t even go to the deck. And the sun wasn’t shining either so..

I’m so tired! I had my first day as a teacher to this new group today. I worked on the materials last night, and got to bed way too late. Maybe I was a bit stressed about how it would go and now that I’m not anymore all the fatigue really attacks. And having a really sore throat and runny nose doesn’t help either. I got soaking wet on my way from work to bus on Wednesday and the one hour buss drive in wet cold clothes really made me feel miserable. And cold. So very cold. No wonder I’ve got a sore throat. I go to watch some telly now, House is on next.. and after that Dexter. If I’ll stay awake that long that is.

Snapped these shots last week when I was having another SK day. These people work for the Satakunta museum (or something like that). This summer they’ve been doing an inventory of this older wood house part of the city. Or something like that. I’m not good at explaining stuff tonight, my brain is not as it should be. Can’t seem to think at all now. Even at work I was like a zombie, couldn’t remember anything - like what I was doing or where I was taking stuff or what was the name of the customer. Made me feel like a total idiot. It’s just sleep deprivation, but still pretty annoying.

This weekend we’re going to Tallinn. Me, Miikka, my mom, dad, little brother Vesku and her girlfriend Satu. Should be interesting, and fun too. We’re going to celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday. He wanted us all to spent some time together so we figured that we might as well do it there. I’m probably the only finn that hasn’t been to Tallinn yet. So it’s all going to be new to me :) I’m taking my camera with me, let’s hope that the weather is good :)

Or more like life, universe and not much. Or too much! Work at least. Anyway, last weekend was wonderful. Don’t even know how to really describe it. Gave me so much energy and gave me a lot to think about. And I got to know me a little better. That’s good. Scary too, in a way, but still good. After the weekend I’ve worked my ass off. My only free day is today. And there’s still 41 minutes left of it! Or 40 now :|

I know I should go to bed and rest because I’ve been pretty tired these past few days, but there’s so much to do and so little time. The whole week I’ve had the feeling that I want to do everything, be everywhere and try everything.. I want to work on and finish all those projects and little thingies I have buried somewhere to wait for a better timing. Why can’t that time be right now?

Today I spent some of my precious free time to browse through websites and blogs that I used to check more often when I had time and I really got the urge to do stuff. Most of it was photography related, very inspiring!

Sounds silly to say that I want to do everything and be everywhere and just do stuff because when I sort of had the chance - or at least the time - I didn’t do much. I wonder if I’d do any of the things I dream about now if I suddenly didn’t have to go to work every day. I’d like to think that I’d have the energy but I can’t be sure. Still, it’s different to have free time from work and to be unemployed. Being unemployed is stressing and not just because of money issues. Free time (like a day off) on the other hand is time when I usually get a lot done. Go figure.

Umh. It is getting late. I go to SK tomorrow. Nice :) Or at least I hope so! I was there on Tuesday this week too. On Wednesday there was an evening thingie for summer employees, and even though I’m not one they asked me to go too. It was nice, I’m glad I went even though I had to leave early (I had to go to work early in the morning).

Today there were some pics on the Sunday supplement of SK that I shot in June. I thought that they had maybe forgotten the whole story but I was glad to see it out now. They had waited for one more thing to happen to get it in the story I guess. I’ll post those shots some day.. maybe. Can’t make any promises since I still have lots of other pics to publish too :P

Traveling to Kankaanpää every day takes amazingly much time. My eight hour work day takes me (from my door in the morning back to my door in the evening) almost eleven hours. That sucks big time. SK days give me much wanted variety, but those also eat away my free time since I use my weekly free days to go there.. The whole summer I’ve been at Kankaanpää five days a week and SK days have been added to that.

From the beginning of September I start to teach photography and Photoshop at Eurajoki. One day a week. Should be interesting :) That cuts one day off from Kankaanpää. So it’s going to be four days at Kankaanpää and one day at Eurajoki. And a day here and there at SK (Pori).

Sounds like one hell of an autumn to me :D I don’t know how I’m going to make this all work, but I didn’t want to say no to Eurajoki since I liked doing the short course there in the spring. I don’t know why I find teaching so interesting. It just feels like something that I want to try :P Hope it works! I’m a tad stressed about it because I’d really need some time to plan the course and do some materials etc.. but I’m sure it’ll work out somehow. Life has it’s way to make things work. But now I need to go to bed - flash batteries aren’t the only thingies here that need loading right now :P

I shot these for Kuluttaja-lehti at the end of June. The story was/is about moped cars (is that how they’re called in english?), and this girl was interviewed for the story. The weather was crappy and during the shoot I felt like I got nothing decent on the card. After getting home and going through the shots I chose these three. One with the girl, Eveliina, in main role, one of the moped car and her together and one detail shot of the rear of the “car”. I chose this detail shot because that triangle sign has to be there. It’s one of things that makes recognizing them easy.

Not much else to say about these.. The third shot needed some photoshopping because of the bad weather. Though if I had played it better technically I wouldn’t have to blame the weather. Oh well.. can’t win them all! And all is well that ends well, right? The images were liked a lot at the paper. I’m happy about that. And as a whole - all things taken into consideration - I’m pleased with these shots. Not that they couldn’t be better - they definitely could - but making through that day and getting some acceptable images done felt like a victory.

Humhh.. I haven’t updated in a while. So much to do and so little time. This weekend I’m going to a reiki meeting. Interesting stuff to talk about, nice people, good food and sauna on a lake shore. Sounds to me like a great way to spend a weekend after a busy workfull week :) Hope the weather is good!

I shot this nice couple for Satakunnan Kansa some time ago and on Thursday the story got published. These people were really into the music style of the fifties. This was the gig I mentioned earlier - the one where I was running low on ideas because nothing was the way I and the editor thought it would be before going there. I could write longishly about this gig, but I’m too tired now.. Maybe some other day I’ll add to this entry or write a new one.

I’ve had a long long week. And I have to go back to work on Monday! I sure hope I can have a day off next week! Or even  two since I had to work on six days this week. Tomorrow I’m going for a flea market tour with Milla and then maybe some regular shopping and just hanging out. Should be fun. Then we’ll go to movies with Miikka and Samu to watch the new batman thingie. Sounds like a nice day :)

Today after work I’ve been busy at home.. first I went to grocery store and than I cooked and washed a monstrous mountain of dishes. After that I arranged lots of stuff that’s just been laying in the wrong place. There’s still plenty of that to do. And than I worked on a certain birthday gift.. but that’s all I’m saying about that now since it’s a surprise! Though I have to admit that I’ve got the worst memory.. I forgot to buy gift wrapping paper, so I had to wrap the pressie in Christmas paper.. Feels rather silly to give someone something wrapped in merry snowmen in the middle of the summer :D