Chemistry vs. photography

It's been forever since my last post. In large part it's because of the stress that my postgraduate studies bring. I tend to work at least an hour overtime each day and when things don't go well, it shows in not having too much 'power' to do other things.

Well things gave been improving recently for several reasons. Firstly I managed to take a week off and go for a holiday in Crete. I spent the week relaxing and photographing a very different environment compared to Finland. And I really think I got several WOW-shots.





And things are looking good at work. I've managed to prepare a synthesis for covalently photopolymerizing fullerenes into sol-gel matrices. There's a lot of questions before understanding that phrase, but with the links you might have an idea what I'm doing.
What is especially nice is that if I manage to do it, it'll be the first time ever in the world. Granted that the field is quite narrow, but first ever is still first ever.

Assuming that things go well, I'll be traveling to the University of Trieste to improve my skills in organic synthesis for a month or two. And I'm sure I'll get some wonderful opportunities for photography as well.

A Dry Spell

During the past month I haven't been too occupied with photography. Only on couple of occasions I've managed to venture out and take pictures. One such occasion was yesterday, when a friend of mine invited me to take photographs of him doing stunts with his motorcycle.

Here are two of the more successful pictures:








Most of my energy has gone to my (post) graduate studies, as I'm on a trial period until the end of the year and if I don't manage to impress my professor, I might find myself without a job. As it is I tend to work nine to ten hours a day just in case. And at the end of the day I'm often too exhausted to go out and take pictures.

On a lighter note I'm glad to say that the friend of mine, who was applying for art college, got in. As there were 500 applicants and only 20 got in, I can say that he, if anyone, 'has it'.

And the most labour intensive photography project I've been involved with to date, shooting for the "Noviisi" magazine, has reached its conclusion as the magazine has been published. I'll post a link to an internet version, if there ever will be one.

Back to work

I've been suffering from constant crashes on my computer, which has put me off of writing for a long time. I've rarely photoshopped any of my pictures, to a stark contrast compared to last year.

I did purchase the Sigma 105 mm F2.8 Macro lens, but haven't used it to shoot macro too much. I somehow lack inspiration. And worst of all my summer holiday will draw to its end in a week, as I continue in my university and start working on my PhD. Probably rewarding, but loads of hard work. Hopefully I'll find time for photography as well.

If I'll get this computer to work properly I'll probably be adding loads of new pictures on the pages.

On Commission

My summer holiday has finally started and gradually it's beginning to sink in. My official graduation is in three days and depending on whether I'll go to the graduation ceremony I'll get the papers out either very soon or on the 22nd of June.

The summer will be spent taking photographs, possibly traveling and helping out in various projects, such as the Noviisi Magazine that'll be delivered to all new students in Tampere in the autumn.

I'll probably contact my university early next week to inquire whether I'll get the PhD post or not. If not, I should be starting to seek for a job.

Here's a potential magazine cover for the Noviisi Magazine. The couple will be in the cover, but there are quite a few possibilities to choose from.

The breath of summer!

I've submitted the last of my lab reports and finished all the paperwork for graduation. Now I'll just have to wait a couple of weeks and I'll officially become a MEng (or DI in Finland). It's been five short years and quite a lot of studying, but well worth it.

I can't wait until the summer break starts and I can invest more of my time into photography and possibly even traveling abroad to see friends. Time will tell.

Here's a glimpse of a nice spring sunset:

Updates -what are they?

Updates should be long due. I've taken a lot more photographs, some of them quite good, but I find it hard to find time to upload them onto my site, or even process them in Photoshop at all.

Well there's only two and a half weeks until the summer holidays start and I should have plenty of time then. Until then I'll just post this petite post of a bench on a pier by the lake Aulanko.



by the way you can view the picture bigger (and most others as well) by clicking them.

Now we're cooking with charcoal again!

I finally received the 12-24 mm F 4.5-5.6 Sigma, and I've even had time to test it.
Even though it weighs a ton and is quite dark (4.5-5.6) it doesn't matter that much, as it's not meant to be a sports zoom. Even when shooting inside you can easily handhold it, as the wide angle means that camera shake doesn't affect it as much. The colour reproduction is great and it's much sharper than my previous lenses. It might not be as sharp is it could, as I've heard their quality varies.

I've been shooting for a christian paper in my university, and the paper will be sent to every new student next autumn. It's a fun project and I hope I'll get proper enough pictures. It'll mostly be people photography, but I'll give it a feel of nature as well.

Work is going along fine -the kids seem to like me as much, if not more, as their real teacher. I won't apply for the post when it opens this autumn, as I wouldn't feel comfortable teaching computers all the time.

I've managed to do all of my lab work for my final module at the uni and I'm sure there's nothing delaying my graduation on the 8th of June.

Here's an example of what the new zoom can do with me handling it (it's a double exposure by the way).

Winding down

I'm really tired, even though I've spent this evening relaxing - a rare occurrence for me. Most of my days have consisted of dawn to dusk work, with very little sleep. I've been taking some photographs, some of them very good in my opinion at least, but find it very hard to find time to process them. Final studies, graduation, work (in two places) and volunteer work seem to be a bit too much for me.

I think the pace won't slow down completely until the 8th of June when I officially graduate, but things are winding down a bit.

I've also received a confirmation that the sigma wideangle zoom is on its way, which is good news. Here's a picture that was possible even without the zoom:

All Work. Soon Play

I've been teaching for the past few weeks and boy am I exhausted! I've been taking the train to Kuopio too many times and at worst I left Tampere at 23:30 and arrived in Kuopio around 4:30. Thankfully my hotel was in the train station. Let me tell you it wasn't a bed of roses waking up at 8:00 on a saturday morning after a very stressful week. Otherwise things have been quite nice -the course is going okay so I have a sense of satisfaction.

I've been taking some photos -not as many is would like, though. I've decided to fork in the dough for the sigma 12-24 mm wideangle in early may so It'll only show in my June Visa bill. Hopefully it'll be worth it.

Here's a new photo of Näsijärvi. I found a sweet spot just a couple of hundred meters from my apartment.

Busy, busy

I've been teaching chemistry on a prep course for people applying for med school -on top of my studies. This means that I've had very little time to work on my photographs, although I've had some time to take some photos.
I've missed some great photo opportunities, but have managed to take some nice shots as well. Being on a tight schedule has forced me to look for alternative subjects to shoot: e.g when I'm in the town of Kuopio to teach, I have the opportunity to shoot it in the morning light. But as I don't know of all the 'sweet spots' there, I'm concentrating more on details.

Here's an example of the spring pictures I've taken here in Tampere:

A new and an improved site!

I finally finished the reconstruction process, and things are looking mighty fine. Just a few touches in the non-gallery pages and they'll last many months -or until I feel the urge to improve!

Major reconstruction

I haven't posted in a while, as I've been reconstructing my site. The front page is already up and running, but the hard part is working with the sub-pages. As the site comprises of almost 700 pictures, I've decided to sub-divide the galleries, so filing through them to find pictures you like is easier.

I've also included fancier thumbnails. Hopefully they're appreciated -I've had to combine two gallery creating softwares and personal html-editing to have the look that I like, and let me tell you it's a right nightmare to tweak ten galleries that have one to nine sub-galleries, some with several pages!

Photo Project

These past few months I've been helping a friend with a photography assignment for his college entrance exam/assignment. He's an extremely talented artist, but has very little experience in photography, so I've been assisting him.

He was to take five photographs depicting a meaningful even for him. At first I helped quite a bit in visualising the series as a story, with a beginning, middle and end. I tried to be loose in a way so as not to make the project look like me, but like him. Little by little I was able to decrease my impact and increase his, up until the moment, when we did the principal photography.

He had sketched a story of his realisation of how God guides his life and how the realisation dramatically altered his perception of life. He started with modelling a clay grotesque (he prefers creating such images), then placing the grotesque in different positions in regards to a crucifix (depicting his relation with Christ).

At first Christ was in his life, but not affecting him much:


Blindfold and an out of focus crucifix in his shadow.

Then he notices God's presence in his life:


Blindfolded, but facing the crucifix.

Then he acknowledges his power and good will:


Kneeling, no blindfold, focus on the crucifix.

Then he strives to do God's will:


Climbing to the heavenly lit crucifix.


Finally he's at peace with God:


Holding the blindfold, reaching a hand towards the heavenly lit crucifix.

I have to say that with all the work he has put into the project, not only in this, but in painting (which is his strongest field) and other work as well, it'd be a right shame if he didn't get in.

Website Update!

Even though I haven't had the time to add any new pictures or change the look of the galleries, I've made the step of radically altering the look of the front page.
I think it lends itself better to the web medium, as a it can be viewed as a whole with a 1154 x 768 pixel monitor (although without the contact info).

If you wish, you can comment on the look, either in English or in Finnish (or in Swedish, German, or even Norwegian if you so prefer).

Here's the front page picture. I decided not to have a prominent photograph in the front for this updated site.

Quick Addition

I just got a call that I received that post as a teacher! Now all I have to worry about is how on earth can I move between Tampere and Kuopio: the public transport system in Finland between west and east is really awful!

Free again!

I'm free again! I've been organising all manner of things and getting ready for this and that. Our christian student group, Pilke, organised two event: a talk be the evangelist Kalevi Lehtinen and a viewing of "The Passion of the Christ" and I've been one of the main organisers in both and let me tell you I'm so releaved to have finally gotten them out of my way.

I was also at a job interview yesterday -if all things go well I'll be teaching chemistry to med school applicants (here in Finland you have to pass an entry exam to get into almost anything). That would be nice. Then I'd be able to buy that 12-24 mm Sigma wideangle zoom.

I've also had a ton of exams and I have only one to go, so graduation here I come!

On a lighter note I've been also taking photos whenever I've had the time and weather's been permitting. See the results for yourself:

Updates

I'm well on my way on updating my site once again. I've got some really nice pictures taken just recently one some of the last pictures from my archives. There's only a couple of images left from noise reduction (when you take photos with ISO 1600 or with long exposures you have to trim down the noise).

I've also been asked whether I could take photos of an aquaintance for her graduation. I'm not yet sure whether I will as I'm not really a people photographer (well depending on what's meant by really that is: I've photographed several weddings events and what have you, but I don't feel like I'm any good at it).

I also have some new photos that I should photoshop pretty soon. Here's peek preview of couple of pictures:

Photo retouch

A friend of mine asked me to renovate a picture of his grandmother and while I hadn't done that kind of photo retouch before I felt confident enough to try. Here's a comparison: click the picture to see it a bit bigger (the original was around 7000x10000 pixels).

Dang this Blogspot -the cyberspace ate my post! I probably won't write the same message again, so I'll try something new!

I finally feel that things are going fine and that everything's okay in all aspects of life. Most of my essays are finished, I've read all the books for my exams and I even had my professor approve the time I spent for my master's thesis (DI-työ) for my student training (a mandatory thing for engineers here in Finland).

I even got round to going shooting some picture tonigh, even though the sunset was past its prime when I arrived at Pispala peak (a very nice place for sunset photography, but very straining to cycle there). Soon I'll be adding more pictures -like there weren't too many already (~500).

Come, spring

I'm quite anxious about spring and everything it has in store. Not only will I be able to delve a bit deeper into photography I will also finally finish my studies and do something worthwhile (not that this isn't...). Every day that it's nice and sunny I feel tired and decide to stay inside and whenever I've got the mood for a photo excursion the weather is bound to be bleak and dull. But I do have high hopes on the spring.

BTW still no pictures sold :(

First steps!

This is the start of my PhotoBlog! I'm not sure whether I'll make it a daily or a monthly habit of adding stuff here, but I hope I can reach people who are interested in a whole new way!

This Blog is linked to my site www.lintinen.fi and I'll be posting on my new ventures, photo trips, changes in my life and so on. At the moment I've been so involved in finishing my master's studies in chemistry and in finding a job that I haven't had enough energy to take as many pictures as I would like.
I'm also hoping that my finance will improve and that I'll be able to invest on new equipment. Then on the other hand if I do get a job, it may also hinder my photography in posing constraints in schedules.

But if all goes well by june I'll be a diploma engineer in chemistry and a qualified teacher and will start working on my PhD (well actually doctorate in technology) in light chemistry.