Finland – Page 2 – Lotta Villagefield

Among Old Buildings

July 4, 2017July 4, 2017 by Lotta Villagefield, posted in Photography

Good evening, everyone! Yesterday was truly one of those overcast days, and I kept waiting for the sky to open up with showers but it didn’t until sometime during the night. Later in the afternoon, early evening, the clouds broke apart a little. It was the loveliest light, so I grabbed my camera and went outside.

Usually I don’t go outside with my camera unless it’s early or late. And I always seem to chase that mesmerising evening sun. But what a treasure this turned out to be. In edits I found myself leaning toward different settings, since the ones I mostly use didn’t really bring out the feeling in the photos I had when I shot them. (A lot of photos in this post, by the way!)

These clouds were absolutely amazing. Every once in a while a sliver of light would come through here and there, and further away the sun sent out its soft caresses to the trees.

In my latest reply to the weekly photo challenge, I told you I had a particular spot in mind. And I am so grateful for the response. Thank you all so much–for the likes and the lovely comments. ❤ One of you in particular expressed a wish to see this place, so that was actually my main goal for taking this walk. When I saw that sun filter through the clouds, I thought oh, this is perfect. So thank you, Chronicles of Wonder, for inspiring me to go get that shot.

On my way there, though, I stopped (as I seem to be obsessed with lately) to capture a few closeups.

Jay was out in the fields with the fertiliser, and when he was done, he came right at me. The spreader was still spinning, even if he had turned it off, so a few pebbles bounced off my shirt. I joked you threw crap on me! Good thing it isn’t actually manure. Not that he would have been sad to see me put my shirt away, considering he thinks it looks like a potato sack. Haha

Last time I came here, taking care not to step too much on the moss, it was spring. The ground must have been quite chilled still, and relatively solid, because now I sunk into the clay as I got in between the buildings. It is a wonder the buildings stay upright on these shifting foundations. Although… they do tilt a little.

I told Jay I wanted to rescue this wagon–what is left of it–and bring it to the garden, and he didn’t quite agree. He tells me he likes looking at it where it is. Also, after some closer thought, I wonder if it even would stay together or if the wheels are rotted. So it will stay. I must agree with him; it does look beautiful. Just as it is. Which is probably exactly why I thought of it as the perfect showcase for transition and the passing of time.

This little hidden treasure is only one of many on our farm. Even though I get immensely frustrated over all the things inside the main house left from previous generations, and we are literally swamped in the clutter, I am also so thankful so much history remains (mostly) intact on the property.

HorseWagonShed — The old horse wagon shed.

LabourCottagePlayfulShadows — Photo taken on another occasion a couple of weeks ago.

LabourCottageVines — Also captured a couple of weeks ago.

This last building is called työtupa in Finnish. I have translated it to the labour cottage. It used to be the main building (built around 1880). Jay’s grandfather grew up in this house but moved out before World War II. The house we live in, or a part of it–it has had extensions later on–was built some time in the 1920’s.

For years I have wanted to “write an article” on this farm, mostly told through photographs. Now that I am blogging, I think it is time to get started. It will take some time to gather material, but hopefully before the end of this year I will take you on a tour through the generations this place is built upon.

Until then, I would like to share two photos I took many years ago now (and actually shared here on WordPress on one of those blogs I started but never continued), from inside the työtupa.

I wish you a wonderful evening, and thank you so much for reading. ❤

Sammallahdenmäki – A Bronze Age Burial Site

June 22, 2017June 22, 2017 by Lotta Villagefield, posted in Weekly Photo Challenge, World Heritage Sites

Transient. In existence only briefly. When I think about things long enough, deeply enough, I feel like I suddenly descend into a rabbit hole, like Alice. My mind goes totally wild. As a result I thought that we humans are transient in the eyes of the universe. Our time here is so fleeting. How long will we be here if we think of it in hours, minutes and seconds? Poof. And our chapter will have been told.

Back at Härnösand Folk High we had a theme called Zero. During the weeks of that theme we worked in groups and made a timeline, consisting of images and text. We gathered all information and thoughts on this topic we could muster and put it up on the wall in the main corridor. I really enjoyed those weeks. If one person alone would research this topic–the timeline of our universe, from creation billions of years ago until present day–it would surely have taken forever. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to in six weeks gather information on this viewed from so many different angles. Cultures, beliefs, scientific, philosophical.

The funny thing about this timeline is that we had to scale it down and then put up our work according to when things took place. So you can imagine how one part of the wall in particular got cluttered with information. Whereas the other several billion years of wall before our time were quite bare.

I won’t illustrate such a timeline here. Instead I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to finally share Lilli’s and my walk through Sammallahdenmäki. Moss Cove Hill. A UNESCO prehistoric archeological World Heritage site practically in our little village’s backyard. According to UNESCO’s website it is “the largest, most varied and complete burial site from the Scandinavian Bronze Age, 1500-500 B.C.” So cool. One of my brothers and I once thought we wanted to be archeologists when we grew up. I still believe it must be such a completely fascinating line of work. Cuddling up to our few seconds of time here in this vast expanse of the universe. Well, you could say I got to try my archeologist hat on–Lilli, too–earlier in spring.

As a lover of nature, I ended up with more photos of the surrounding landscape than those burial cairns, but I managed to capture a couple. And we met a snake by one of these rock mounds, which made Lilli wary of stepping close to the rest of them throughout our walk. I was more afraid of disturbing the bones of whoever was buried there–that fleeting moment ago.

If you ever find yourself in Finland, in the Rauma or Lappi (the town, not the huge region up north) area, I really do recommend visiting Sammallahdenmäki. Until then, I hope you enjoy this little trek as much as Lilli and I did.

ItIsARock — Lilli loves picking rocks and bringing them home, but apparently she had found out all by herself that it is not allowed to take things from Sammallahdenmäki, which she explained to me before setting the stone back down on the path.

TheChurchFloor — The “Church Floor”. A folk tale from 1878 tells the story of Christians and Giants competing in who could build a church faster. When finished, they were to ring the bell. The Christians raised the bell right away and when the Giants heard, they got so grumpy they left. Thus, their church remains as such to this day.

An Evening At Turajärvi Lake

June 17, 2017June 17, 2017 by Lotta Villagefield, posted in A Photography Beginner's Journey, Photography

Hey, everyone! The sun is shining right through my window as I write, but luckily I have blinds. Today, Jay and I are going out to spend some time together just the two of us while Lilli is with her grandfather at the summer cottage. But I quickly wanted to share another excitement with you.

Not too long ago I mentioned I went on a little trip to Sweden, back to my school, to personally accept a stipend I had been elected for. I still haven’t found a frame for it but I have made an investment. With a little extra sponsoring from Jay, I went into Rauma on Thursday and got that wide angle lens I told you about in my previous post. The kind lady gave me such a shock when she told me she would give it to me for a very generous discount. I am ever so grateful. I have been in there a few times now and they are always so helpful.

While there, I also got a sensor cleaning kit. I spent almost two hours on Thursday night getting that sensor cleaned. I found this great walk-through online. First I vacuumed, dusted, wiped and cleaned the entire room before I sat down to get to work.

I had to wipe it several times over before I counted five tiny spots and settled. My neck got incredibly sore since I was so tense during the entire process. I almost didn’t dare to breathe, haha. But it is now clean and I have learned something new!

Last night, after Lilli had left with her grandfather for the summer cottage, I packed my camera and went for a drive. I ended up at a lake not too far away from here. It is called Turajärvi and it was so gorgeous. I sat down in the sand with my camera and I couldn’t stop taking photos. It was a little like when my camera first arrived, almost six years ago now. I took photos of everything, from every possible angle. Last night I felt like a kid again, even with the sand in my clothes and shoes.

BeachTurajärvi — That sun was so warm. I felt like I had stepped into another realm. And I really, really wished I could have gone for a swim, which is something I haven’t felt for years.

I spent an hour on that beach, wandering around and taking photos, and I was lucky to have it all to myself for that hour before people arrived, but I was very thankful for that time all alone with my camera. And I am just so diliriously happy I couldn’t care less about the flares. I will figure that one out, too, in time. For now, I wish you all a lovely weekend. I’ll leave you with a few more photos. And thank you so, so much for the response on my latest post. It makes me so happy to see. ❤

Morning Dew And Gold In Hand

June 7, 2017June 18, 2017 by Lotta Villagefield, posted in A Photography Beginner's Journey, Photography

Good morning, everyone! I woke up early this morning. I only needed to go to the toilet but then I saw the morning light carefully kissing our fields and going back to bed was no longer a priority. We have this saying in Swedish–morgonstund har guld i mund. Directly translated I think it would be something along the lines of the morning hour holds gold in its hand. (This mund sounds like mouth, but Wiktionary says differently. Who knows?) It basically means that he or she who rises early can accomplish much. For me this saying was literally true this morning. Everything was truly glowing. Golden and dreamy and so magical.

I didn’t notice until I went back inside, but my fingers were stiff and numb with cold and my sneakers and socks were soaked by the dew I had been running through. I felt wonderful, though, and made some coffee before I went to settle by the computer to do some editing. And this is where I have been for the past hour and a half. Two cups of coffee later, I am finished with gathering the photos I want to share with you all. I ended up with so many. Haha.

Oh! Do you remember my post about the dead birch? As I stood there, shooting the fields it caught my eye. A few beams of light from the sun filtered through the pines next to it and it looked so magical.

And there is something so very special about the morning dew. Soft and dreamy. Not so much when my shoes and socks are drenched, but I don’t mind. It was so worth it.

I walked along the edges of our fields for quite some time, marvelling at the spider webs. They are so pretty in the mornings. Or in the evening sun, when they look like spun gold.

Before I went back inside, it occurred to me that the edge of our garden where the old apple tree grows would probably be catching its first rays of sunlight. I hurried there after capturing some wild chervil (cow parsley). We call them hundkäx, which sounds like dog biscuit. When I was little I wondered who came up with that name because they looked nothing like dog biscuits to me. Maybe they tasted like them? I never tried to find out, though.

I wish you all a wonderful day.

Photography – A Beginner’s Journey

May 21, 2017May 21, 2017 by Lotta Villagefield, posted in A Photography Beginner's Journey, Photography

Good morning, everyone! Or, well, it was morning and then I took Loke for a walk and suddenly it was nearly lunch time. Whenever I decide to go exploring I end up losing track of time, especially if I have a camera with me. This time I brought my phone, though, because my camera has caught dust on the sensor again. After last night’s adventure down by the river, almost four hundred photos (and manual settings practice) later, I came home to find most of them in such poor quality I wanted to cry. Not only because of dust, though, but because I simply do not understand my camera yet.

Let me tell you a silly story. This is me in a nutshell–was me. After the hike with my daughter in 2015, I was super excited to see the results of the photos I took. A few photos I had taken of the sky while playing around with manual settings had dots in them. I assumed I had dust on my lens and cleaned it, took some photos, and… no go. Still those pesky dots. So I cleaned again and again, but it didn’t help. So I changed to the lens that came with my camera when I first bought it in 2011 or -12 and… still dots! I jumped online, looked around, a little sloppily I might add, because I was already in full-blown panic.

And then I gave up.

I honestly thought I had broken my camera somehow, or the lens, or both. The feeling was a hopeless and helpless one.

So here is the silly part, the me-in-a-nutshell part–I wanted but didn’t dare to take my gear to a photography shop to get it checked out because I was too afraid I would be laughed back out. That they would ask me how I managed to break it. That they would dismiss me as an amateur and tell me to find another hobby.

After that I lost heart. I would still take my camera with me–sometimes–but I had convinced myself I didn’t have what it takes. The joy I felt rarely returned. I stuck to the presets. Point and shoot. All the while berating myself for investing so much money in something I wasn’t qualified to use.

Even as I write this I want to shake my head at my former self. But I remember the journey still–from there to here. It’s so easy for me to look at all the ways my thinking patterns limited my entire life. I guess it both is and isn’t silly–do you know what I mean?

Tomorrow I am taking my camera to a photography shop in Rauma to get some help. I have bought a kit and read instructions on how to clean the sensor, and I have done so now on a few occasions, but I am in this for real now. And with my scatter-brain I need to see someone else do this in front of me, together with me, so I can learn.

The thing is, I want to take breathtaking photos. I want to create unforgettable images–transform the images and visions I have in my mind, in my soul into actual artwork. And I want them on my wall. Heck, I would love it if you wanted them on your wall, too. But, hey–one step at a time. First I have to want to put them on my wall, right?

In light of that (or lack thereof, hah), I am going to present you with some raw material from this learning experience of mine. These are but a few from my three-hour session by the river yesterday evening. Enjoy! And thank you so much for reading. See you soon!