Oh dear how long has it been since the last time I wrote to my blog. My website has been dead-quiet for such a long time you might even think I’ve stopped taking pictures. Well that is not the case – it’s quite the opposite actually!
I have been handling so many irons in fire for the last few months that even updating my portfolio has had to wait – and it still does. Working on magazine covers, editorial assignments, on field…Preliminary assignments for (hopefully) my further photography education in college, school exams (I’m graduating from high school this spring), travelling (New York!!!)… Even my future military service has recently been a lot in my thoughts – and for a reason.
Last year I decided to apply for Finnish airborne (paratrooper) forces. After sending my medical papers and other certifications in I got an invitation to tryouts in Utti consisting of various physical and psychological tests. There they made us run, jump, crawl, swim, ski, fill in answer sheets containing hundreds and hundreds of questions etc.
It seems that the months of intensive training were definitely worth it though as I actually received an approval to the paratrooper school just a few days ago! There were 265 applicants in total and only 51 of us got through and managed to claim an invitation to ourselves. My one-year-long training in Utti Jaeger Regiment begins in July 13th.
But enough of this babbling. Here are a couple of teasers on coming updates on my portfolio (I’ll try and actually write about some of my recent photo shoots in my blog so stay tuned.):
For my whole life I’ve been a PC user so you may just guess how frustrated I have been at times while at it. Change-over to any other platform has not been an option to me though as formerly I’ve been very into computer games and still am doing minor programming and stuff like that which in my opinion just aren’t very well supported for example on Mac.
In the near future I’ll be travelling a lot so I thought a laptop would be a neat thingie to have. Just imagine how much time would it spare if one had the opportunity of browsing through his or her photos while being on the run. Also when I’m on a serious(ish) assignment after that one striking picture it’s important to me to actually see how the work is coming out. Especially after I’ve experienced some catastrophical photo shoots because the photo looked sharp on the camera’s teeny weeny LCD screen.
I was actually becoming very keen to the David Tejada’s idea of using an external DVD player as a bigger screen as seen in his blog entry here but eventually was turned down by the lack of all right DVD players’ availability. They were always too good or too bad. Having just a portable screen with me would be a bit restricting too I thought but that’s another story.
So this year my christmas present came very early to me and oh boy how excited I was. It was the Apple MacBook 13″ 2.4GHz with 2 GB memory and 160 GB hard drive and the reason I was in such a hurry with it was its irresistible price. Less than 900€ – what a bargain! So obviously they were sold out in just a couple of days.
My first impression on MacBook was totally positive. It’s light, powerful and has a bright, clear screen which is just perfect for my needs. Portability is a must for me and I have a bigger screen at home if needed so the 13″ (33 cm) screen size is just fine. The computer starts up and is ready to use in a blink of an eye compared to anything else in the price range and it stays alive quite a while too as the battery should last at least for 4 hours.
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard succeeded to impress me with its simpliness and lightweight which leaves more resources to the programs I’m using and less confusion to me. Using Lightroom is absolutely painless as what goes to the performance. Pointing the cursor using the trackpad only is of course clumsy and takes patience if you’re in the need of accuracy but I’m ok with that as far as I don’t have to carry a mouse with me.
Have been trying out shooting in tethered mode too, straight into Lightroom by having folder watching function enabled. I had some serious problems using Canon’s CameraWindow with Mac software as it just gave me an error: “Cannot detect camera.” So if you confront this same issue make sure you upgrade into EOS Utilities which is downloadable from Canon’s website. That worked for me and now I’m able to burst away with my camera and watch how my work of art simply pops up onto the vivid screen of this beauty. It can’t get much more simple than this!
So yeah… So far I’m loving it!
(Yes, I code my websites manually… ; )
Hi ya all!
As you have probably already recognised I’m working on my main website where this blog is contained also. (If you haven’t seen the work under construction yet feel free to follow this link: JULIUSPHOTO) Previously I didn’t have much more than just this blog and before even that I was coping with just some pretty links to random galleries and bit of silly biography. (I actually made a post about that update back in the beginning of this blog.) Now I have been really revisioning the whole design of my web page and have put a lot of stress on making it functional, easy browsable and most importantly: enjoyable to view! No more small thumbnail-sized imagery or long waiting for images to be downloaded as image galleries are now scrollable.
Oh, and by the way, I would really like to know how you people like it viewing those galleries in that way actually! Feel free to post your rating of this system by leaving a comment in this post. The image galleries are located here. Thanks in advance!
So where was I …?
Did I already mention there will be 900 pixels wide and 600 pixels high pictures in my future portfolio! That’s a huge improvement over previous situation when one had to squint his or her eyes to see anything, I can tell you that! And may I also highlight that every picture published in my portfolio will be totally reprocessed exclusively for that matter.
And to make my point even clearer I’ll show you one photo from my upcoming portfolio and its stages of post processing. The first picture is straight out of the camera and quite a lackluster as you can see, but it has real hidden potential. The second one is what the photo looks like after I have given it a Lightroom treatment and in the last image I have polished the photo in Photoshop and it’s ready to go!
(By clicking the images you may open them in separate windows for easier comparison.)
So obviously there is something worthful to wait coming and I promise you I’ll be gradually updating the new content online as soon as its finished (as I have done so far too) so keeping an eye on my website may be a good idea. 
Thanks for reading and take care!
The photo above is one of many images from my today’s trip to the central Helsinki. (Read: A photo gallery containing these shots is under construction.) I restrained myself to use my EOS 350D DSLR and one lens, the new one, only… And oh boy what a combination it was!
Still not sure what lens it might be?
May I present you, Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM!
See the setup here – 3 strobes @ 1/8 power. CTO and CTB gels used on the flashes behind lenses.
In other news
I attended to Finnish version of the global Nike+ Human Race event which was a really fun experience even though the number of participants was nothing compared to other countries’.
I ran the distance of 10 kilometers in 54 minutes and could have easily continued further. I’m confident of myself being ready for the next year’s half maraton. 
Hi all! Long time no see.
For those who care, I apologise for neglecting this blog for such a tremendous amount of time, but let me explain myself…
First of all I’ve been out there living. On my summer holiday I travelled with Marja through the city of London exploring the urban culture and meeting new people for a week. Plus, there’s no London without a portion of fish and chips in an atmospheric pub! (There’s no photo of it though. Sorry!) We also enjoyed amazing local attractions in Saint Peterspurg while visiting my grandparents there and finished the whole package by going to Viljandi Folk Music Festival in the Southern Estonia. We were so dedicated to listening to music and dancing with Marja that we didn’t even take a camera with us. And that’s huge from us!
Here are some of our travelling photos from London and St. Petersburg:
Another reason for me not updating this blog has been work. I’ve been hired as photographer for three different magazines including Softaaja in which my work has been seen already previously. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for me to work in a studio and I have learned a lot! Many shots I have taken there are still waiting for their first publication in the magazines so you folks have to wait for a while for the newest pieces of my work. I’m pretty excited about them already.
Until then here’s some of my work for them:
I was shooting airsoft ages ago but didn’t link to the gallery from my blog. See the gallery from the link below: (Also, see how cool Väinö and his moustages look below.)
View gallery
One more thing. There’s a new gallery of a skateboarding competition (SkateSM 08) coming up in the near future so stay tuned! Here’s few teasers for you:
Oh, and I bought a new lens but I will tell more about it later! You may guess what it is by judging from the following photo. *tease*
Over and out!
A gallery of 73 cool airsoft photos coming soon. 
The gallery is published. See it here.
Maaliskuun loppupuolella lumilaudan selässä menivät Tomi, Toni ja Jami (kuvassa) minun jälleen viihtyessä kameran toisella puolella. Meno oli entistä kovempi, mikä toivottavasti näkyy myös kuvista. Hope you enjoy ‘em!
Canon EOS 350D, EF 17-40mm f/4L, 2x 430EX, ST-E2
And now for something completely different:
Perjantai-iltaa 7.3. vietin Kesoilinmäellä ensimmäistä kertaa urbaania snoukkailua valokuvaten. Lumilautaan tarttuivat Toni ja Jami ja paikalla oli myös videokuvaaja, jota saan kiittää salamalaitteen lainasta! (Nimesi ei jäänyt mieleeni, joten laitathan kommenttia. ) Oli tosi mukavaa valokuvata temppuilujanne ja toivottavasti nähdään taas samoissa merkeissä.
In English: Last Friday I was shooting urban snowboarding for my first time and I enjoyed myself doing it! I hope I’ll get to do that more in the future.
Canon EOS 350D, EF 17-40 f/4L, 430EX, ST-E2 + A strobe from Sigma(?)
[nggallery id="6"]
Jo pitkän aikaa blogin pystyttämistä kammoksuttuani, syttyi minussa vihdoin palava halu saada oma pieni paikkani päteä arjen asioista. Olen huomannut joskus halua tuoda asioita esille, mutta minulla ei vain ole ollut sopivaa kanavaa tehdä tätä. Ehkä myös siksi, että koen muiden internetyhteisöjen (Flickr yms.) olevan paikkoja, joissa tuon ainoastaan työni esiin. Ne ovat ikään kuin “virallisempia”. No, mitä mieltä olette nykyisestä ulkoasusta?
Tästä se lähtee… Ensimmäinen pätemiseni. Yeehaw!
Jo kauan kaipaamani päivitys kittilinssilleni on löytänyt tiensä luokseni. Canonin EF 17-40mm f/4L. Kyseessä on samalla minun ensimmäinen Canonin Luxyry-sarjan objektiivi. Olen valitettavasti tosin ollut nyt kuumeen takia pedin oma, joten testaaminen on jäänyt satunnaiseksi räpsimiseksi. Sen verran osaan jo kuitenkin sanoa, että yllätyin, ja vähän petyinkin, minkä verran kyseinen linssi vääristää kuvaa kroppirungollakin. Ongelma tulee tosin esille ainoastaan ulos zoomattuna ja onhan vääristymän määrä lisäksi paljon pienempi entiseen Canonin EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 -lasiin verrattuna.
Tähän asti olen tyytyväinen, enkä malta odottaa päästä käyttämään kyseistä linssiä myös kentällä!
Briefly in English:
For ages starting a blog of my own has been a dreadful thought to me but at last I got inspired to do it. Mostly because there has not been any channel for me to take up ordinary daily subjects even though I would have wanted to. So, what do you think about the new design?
So the first thing I’ll be blogging here is about my replacement for the kit lens! Canon’s EF 17-40mm f/4L. I’m really excited about it. Too bad I have struggled with cold for these past few days so my shots have been mostly random. I can’t wait to take this new beast to the field!
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