A couple of spring pictures (northern Finland)

[Fingers]

Took a few pictures of water as I walked by the river today... Tiny pocket-sized camera (Canon IXUS iZoom).

This one's fun, shows how the water level has dropped and left the ice hanging..
http://www.digital-eel.com/ikphotos/misc/hoverice.jpg

Flowing water...
http://www.digital-eel.com/ikphotos/misc/rapidz.jpg

Still water with interesting sunlight...
http://www.digital-eel.com/ikphotos/misc/floodrays.jpg

[samsite999]

Still water with interesting sunlight...> very nice photo, the stillness of the water and the sun light makes it look very gostly, i think i owuld like a B&W image of this...

[Fingers]

Thanks for the tip, it does look nice in black & white... Used just the red channel for this and bumped up the contrast a bit:

http://www.digital-eel.com/ikphotos/misc/floodrays_bw.jpg

[samsite999]

Fingers > http://www.cybia.co.uk/bwplus.htm

Very nice plug in for photo shop that does a B&W conversion

[samsite999]

forgot to add, again some real nice work here, thanks for showing it

[Rhynome]

Really fantastic pictures. The first is just slightly abnormal, due to the ice and green in the same shot. Ice and green should never be seen together, dammit! Well, in my mind at least, but that needs remedying.

I prefer the silver birch picture in colour. The reason for that being that it's slightly easier to see where shapes begin and end, though mainly as they're 'silver' birches. And the colour emphasises that. They're like spirits standing out amongst a woodland water. I think many [if not all] people add a sort of personality to objects they've lived with for a while. I don't do it with things like keys, or gates, but when it comes to certain trees, or mounds of earth, etc. it happens to me. The colour silver birch picture, in my mind, emphasises that.
Many people have a side to them that leans towards animism. Animism being the idea of placing spirits in everything. I like the contrast of the picture on its own, but I like very much the way that it hints at this placing of spirits within objects. You begin to see the thoughts behind it. Each of those trees is a life, maybe not sentient but it is still a life. Even the one that isn't silver.

What sort of animal wildlife hangs about North Finland at the time of taking these pictures? I ask because when I finally get a camera sorted I'd like to see if I can take pictures of Muntjacks (a small sort of deer) and whether you can suggest anything about how to take photographs of them to not look to bad. I'm sure I could work most of it out, but any gems of wisdom would be nice. That and I'm just interested in what sort of wildlife there is.

[Fingers]

The trees in water did have a mystical quality to them... In person it was even stronger than what I could get out of the picture. The surface of the water looked like an old, dusty mirror... Almost not liquid at all.

I've never done real wildlife shooting, so can't help you on that... The things don't come too close to town around here, so you'd have to go deep into the woods which I haven't done (Heh, these pictures were at the center of town in fact). You can sometimes find tracks of hares and foxes near your house but never see them in daylight. The only "wild" animals I've got halfway decent pictures of are birds (swans and other waterfowl). Then there's reindeer but they're basically domesticated even though they roam freely. If you drive a car around here you'll hit one of these sooner or later.

[Rhynome]

These pictures were taken in a town?

What's Finland's view on immigration? I'll learn the language; even if it is a bitch!

[Fingers]

A town of about 6000 people, but still... The good thing about photographs is you don't have to show what's behind you or to the sides :) The flowing water picture is practically underneath a railroad bridge, and the same railroad is on top of the rise behind the birches.

Dunno about the immigration policies but Finnish is said to be one of the hardest languages to learn, so watch out! :)

[mollyduker]

The bright side of finnish is that it is one hundred percent phonetic! But, you change nouns and verbs.
I'm considering doing a year abroad there. We'll see!

The first pic is my favorite cuz that ice is SO cool! Keep shotting and posting!