Who would have thought that my first blog would be full of snowy photo’s? I certainly didn't.
So, take yourself a hot cup of tea, put on some nice music and imagine yourself in winter wonderland !
No two days are the same
Tuesday September the 14th started as typically autumn day; Grey, rainy and a cold wind. Thanks to the coffee, I was able to attend the “Wildlife management and game animal ecology” course, just the same as every Tuesday since I am in Finland.
Until suddenly some noise arises among the Erasmus students while watching the course.
They pointed enthusiastically outside, and yes, miraculously it has started to snow!
At the first sight it seems to be remained to be melting snow. But even melting snow on the 14th of September in special for a Belgian guy!
My concentration is quickly gone, and I start to look more and more outside. It is the first I see such big snowflakes, it is fantastic! Lucky the weather forecast tells me that it is going to snow the whole day, so I don’t have to hurry, and I can enjoy my cheap 2,70euro’s lunch at the university’s restaurant. At 2 pm I have agreed with 3 other students to take a walk around the lake behind the campus, even for Finns the first snow is came early this year!
Creative explosion
The combination of snow, autumn colour and water are truly fantastic. It was snowing so heavily we could barely see the other side of the lake. We were not the only ones who are surprised by the early snow, countless trees are weighted down by the amount of fresh snow on the branches.
These enchanting conditions caused a true creative explosion. From impressionistic to minimalistic, I tried everything. But making a special, eye-catching shot in a real challenge. I find it often difficult to find a real subject, something that draws the viewer's eyes to. Sometimes this is not necessary, in this case you have usually succeeded in making a good abstraction of reality.
My search for a subject preferably ends with a bird when I take landscape photos. I think it is a very nice challenge to display birds in their landscape.
Luckily, I live near a lake (well, who doesn't live near a lake in Finland) so this is no problem at all. Both merganser, whooper swans and goldeneyes pass in review. This walk definitely woke up my creative "me". I'm already looking forward to the next snow to get started with fresh ideas! And the real autumn colours have yet to really start here in Oulu... It are busy days, and yes, of course we also must go to university!
A short course in Finnish
Okay, then a short course in Finnish. I don't understand it at this moment, but the words sometimes spontaneously put a smile on my face. But that's not the main point. Finnish has a lot of words for snow. Räntä is the wet snow and loska in the slush that lies on the ground (you know, the snow that feels more like mud, rather than make crackling sound). Lumi and Lunta on the other hand stand for the more qualitative "cracking" snow. Isn't it lovely, those different words for snow? In the meantime I have also started a Finnish course, without too much effect for the time being ;)
There you go, this was the first blog from Finland, a bit unexpected but a nice surprise. In the next blog I will also try to show some pictures from behind the scenes, I promise!