My Best Shots In January

My daughter and I returned from Tampere where we spent the weekend with my parents a few hours ago. My wife was correcting papers at home. I only did a couple of posts worth of photography and I will post the photos later. Today, I will pick ten favourites out of the photos I took in January and publish them here.

We were returning from Tampere on January 3. We made a stop in Pälkäne about 35 km to the southeast of Tampere. It was about three in the afternoon. I love it how the sun makes the branches glow and how it creates a golden trail on the snow on top of the lake ice. I also love the colours of the sky. The branches creating the framing for the sun was a lucky accident.

This is part of the same set as the previous one. What I like about this is pretty much the same as in the previous one. But I also hills across the lake have different hues depending on their distance.Perhaps I should try and create a simpler composition out of this by cropping out everything but the forest.

Or perhaps this one is a better candidate for editing.

A swan couple photographed the following weekend.

That's a pretty ideal house.

This one was taken one morning a short time after the snow on the lake ice between myself (standing next to Sibelius Hall) and the district of Niemi across the bay became exposed to the sun. Snow chrystals turned into gas condensating into microscopic droplets of water in the frigid -15 C cold caused this fog. The whole lake was covered by this fog.

This is one of the series of portraits of our cat, Helmi.

She must have spotted a fruit fly on the wall or something.

I really like the composition and the somewhat unrealistic colors of this one. By overplaying the black levels I managed to bring out many hues of blue. What came out of the camera looked very bland and boring comparison. What you're looking at is the city center of Lahti shot from Mustakallionmäki hill in the east. Notice the radio masts on the crest of the ridge. The large building in the lower left is a threatre.

The low winter sun illuminating but not giving much warmth on a cross country skiing trail.

I couldn't help but take this one when I spotted it. You can make out the details of the ice chrystals here.

A peaceful winter scene close just outside the suburbs.

Let's end on a sweet note.