The Quiet Picture

I’m not a Christmas person by any definition, but I know it’s important for my parents so I have a tradition of going to Finland every other Christmas. Since my parents live in a middle of a busy town, I knew beforehand that this would be no photography trip and thus travelled light with only the PowerShot S95. I have a big problem with photographing in urban areas, I’m not used to it and there are just way too many distractions for me to find any such clean compositions that I like.

What made the trip even more difficult for photography was the weather. It was really cold and a couple of days was wasted mostly indoors. I tried to defy the weather and made a long walk in -22 degrees centigrade but when it took hours for me to chase the chills out of my body afterwards, I decided to wait for milder weather, which finally arrived on Christmas day (the day before going home). -15 degrees felt balmy after the big freeze!

During my walks, I made an effort to find some spots of nature in the city. The resulting pictures are complete illusion, for example in the spruce picture I was standing with traffic lights behind my back and a busy thoroughfare on the other side of the small group of trees. But appearance is everything in photography so if it looks like wild untouched nature, then that’s what it is!

I was reading the latest Suomen Luonto (Finnish Nature) magazine that I brought with me from Finland. They had polled a number of Finns to find out what Finnish landscape they think is most beautiful, and the landscapes on offer ranged from seascapes to mountains and old industrial towns to farming. The winner was a winter landscape from Oulanka with the river still running open while the forest around was covered with snow. The only human trace in the picture was a bridge across the river in the distance.

While I don’t disagree with the results, the photographer in me started to wonder how much the people’s choices were affected by the pictures themselves and not the landscape as such. Some of the pictures were good, and others weren’t, but at least they were all taken by the same photographer. The winner was a good picture. Maybe it would’ve been would’ve been more fair for the sake of the landscape to present four pictures of each, from each season? Or show the same landscape but pictures taken by different photographers?

And some of the pictures weren’t representative of the place at all, for example the picture from Punkaharju showed a trail going through a pine forest. Yes there’s a lot of pine forest in Punkaharju, but the place is really known for the narrow strip of land that runs between lakes. Not to show any water in a Punkaharju picture is letting it down a little bit, especially when the viewer has to use the picture to decide if the landscape is beautiful or not. Likewise, Olavinlinna was photographed from a strange angle. The picture shows the entire castle, but it’s the view from the lake that most people never see when they visit the castle or drive by. The towers have to be prominent in the picture, otherwise it just isn’t Olavinlinna as we know and love it!

On the other hand, maybe I missed the point. Maybe the emphasis wasn’t as much on the geographic location than the landscape for the sake of itself. Pine forest is pine forest is pine forest. But in that case, why pick out the 27 “national landscapes” and take unfavourable pictures of them?

As for myself, I would say that the most beautiful Finnish landscape is the alpine tundra in Lapland in the autumn, even if I don’t have any personal experience of it and it doesn’t really even represent typical Finnish landscape. What is typical Finnish landscape for me is forest and lakes and the particular landscape that I mostly identify with is the above lake scenery as seen from my parents’ cabin. Every time I talk about growing up by a lake, this is the scenery I’m thinking of. It is not grand or out of the ordinary, but it is forever etched in my mind from all those summers I spent at the cabin as a child…

I’ve finally finished processing the pictures from my trip. Some of them worked out better than I expected, and some turned out to be not as good as I had hoped for. An acceptable average! The pictures in this blog post are not related to the text, other than that everything is related to my vacation trip.

As a Finn living in Sweden, it’s inevitable to make comparisons between the countries. As it’s been 15 years since I moved from Finland, a lot has changed and in many ways the country is not the same as the one I remember. So now when I visit, I can look at Finland with the eyes of a tourist and some of the things I’ve seen are quite surprising. The following “comparison” is very subjective and based on a limited sample (northern Sweden, central/eastern Finland), and even if I keep saying that this or that is better in the other, please do not count the votes in either direction. All in all, I’m happy to be a Finn and I’m happy to live in Sweden so I wouldn’t seriously complain about either!

• Roads are better in Finland. Much better. Much, much better! *
• There are more people in Finland. In Sweden you can drive 50km with hardly any signs of human activity. Apart from the road, obviously. In Finland you always see something, if nothing else then speed cameras (see the point below).
• There are more speed cameras in Finland (a lot more – I didn’t see any from Gäddede to Haparanda, but in Finland I lost the count of them by Oulu).
• There is more birch forest in Finland.
• Finland is flat. I was relieved to reach the inner country because the flatlands in near the coast were driving me crazy. It’s unnatural not to have any hills.
• There are more lakes in Sweden. Finland is supposed to be “the land of thousand lakes” but there was very little water in sight. The roadside scenery in Sweden on the other hand is dotted with lakes, creeks and wetlands.
• Commercial (pop) radio is better in Finland. My car radio picked up Radio Nova before Haparanda and never had to re-tune during the trip. Is there a law in Sweden that forbids commercial radio to broadcast outside urban areas? I’d be fooled to think so because the signal fades as soon as you leave any major city.
• There are more bypass roads in Finland. You hardly ever need to drive through a town or a village. Until you come to Savonlinna, of course!

* * *

* Swedish roads. I imagine a Vägverket boss say something like this:

“Hi Sven, we need to patch up the Loos road. Why don’t you take this coin and toss it to see which holes to fix? And Sven, take care to do a sloppy job at it so we can go there next year and patch the same holes all over again.”

Now, it’s possible that the work order isn’t exactly like that. But the result sure is! I can understand that they don’t have the money to fix the whole road, but instead of fixing all of it badly, why not use the little money they have to fix one part of the road well? And then next year, fix the next hole. And then next. Instead of coming there every year and fill a hole there and a hole here and not even bother to even out the tarmac for a smooth surface. So the car jolts over the new tarmac edges instead of the hole that used to be there. Same difference, just money wasted.

The same thing applies for a lot of other roads. The Loos road is small, but I know a lot of highways which are only marginally better than the Loos road.

I’m not a war buff but every Finn should know that war is part of their history. Finland had to fight for its independence and I’m not sure if people in countries like Sweden always appreciate their independence  the same way Finns do. My parents’ generation experienced the war first hand, and my generation grew up during the cold war so we know that independence is not something you can take for granted.

Thus it was that today when I drove to Punkaharju to photograph the beautiful ridge of Salpausselkä, I ended up in the trenches of the Salpa Line which had been partly restored. Apparently they had only restored them a few years ago, so I had never seen them before although we would drive this way every weekend in the summer when I was a kid on our way to the cabin.

Finland lost a lot of territory (and military installations with it) to the Soviet in the Winter War which was fought during the early years of World War II. Thus they needed to build a new line of defence along the new border, and the Salpausselkä ridge (part of which runs in Punkaharju) was a natural place for the trenches and fortifications. The Continuation War never reached Punkaharju though, so after the war they partly covered the trenches which thus became just a footnote in the history books.

Walking around in the narrow trenches got me thinking that the war is part of my history, as well. Not first hand, or even second hand, but I remember the stories my parents have told me and I remember having the Soviet Union as a neighbour and I remember the highway 6 curving so close to the border that I could see the Russian watch tower from the car, and back in the 70′s they even had signs by the road that forbid photography there. And most of all, I remember a visit to Vyborg in 1992 after the Soviet had broken up and Russia had opened the border so you could do a day trip without a visa. On approaching Vyborg, there was this big and sinister building on top of a hill and I asked my parents if it was a prison. No it’s not a prison, it’s the hospital. Seeing Vyborg in the dilapidated condition that it was came as a shock to me – I was innerly grateful for all the brave Finns who fought to keep our independence and saved the country from the same rot that had destroyed the Soviet Union. Donating money to the WWII veterans was a priviledge after that visit.

People sometimes ask me if I’m going to change my nationality now that I’ve lived in Sweden for such a long time. I’ve never even considered it, for one thing the nationality doesn’t make any practical difference and secondly, because I’m proud to be a Finn.

This is my history and I won’t give it away lightly.

I arrived to my parents’ cabin in the evening on Friday. As I was driving, I had the sunset behind me and it was one of the most amazing sunsets I had ever seen. I don’t mean the setting sun itself, but I mean the sight I had in front of me – heavy rainclouds and the most amazing rainbow. Even though I was way under the raincloud, the low lying sun was able to light up the landscape so quite incredible, I had the rainbow in front of me for about an hour of driving. The rain cloud seemed to be moving the same direction as me. I didn’t stop to take any pictures, it was almost impossible because the rain was really heavy and it was made worse by the wind, so even if I could’ve kept the camera dry, there is no protection for the lens. So I didn’t bother cursing about the missed opportunitues, but just enjoyed the sight.

After three days of intensive driving, Saturday was all the more lazy. I’ve no idea what I did all day, took out the camera in the evening for a few lame frames.

I put a bit more effort into today’s photo session. It was a glorious day anyway, a calm morning with mist and a warm sunshine after that. I didn’t make full use of that though, I was more interested in macro – but calm weather and morning dew is never wasted on macro, either.

I spent the Christmas week in Finland this year, came back last night. It was quite nice, photographically a bit of a downer but I was expecting it and only had the Canon G10 with me and it turned out to be the right decision.

I had been most anxious to see my mother. She had her spine operated two months ago and now she has to wear a special back support and walk with crutches and the doctor gave her a long list of other complications to normal life. I was happy to see that she was coping fine now, but she’s obviously frustrated with the situation and she’s only half-way towards recovery, provided there’s no setbacks. And we can still only hope that the surgery fixed the problem. Fingers crossed.

* * *

This visit confirmed one thing that I’ve felt for a few years now. Every time I visit Lappeenranta, something has changed there. For one thing, the city is growing, and secondly, the Russian tourists are taking it over. There is very little left from the time when I lived there, it seems like our house is the only thing holding steady (minus a few trees in the garden). Everything’s changing – houses, shops, streets… it’s not my home town anymore. From now on, when people ask me where in Finland I’m from, I’ll tell them that I’m from Savonlinna. And it’s also true – I was born there, I spent all my childhood summers there, and it was also my home for five years when I studied there. The best part is that Savonlinna won’t change in any such extent that it would feel alien to me. Its geographic location makes it impossible! So Savonlinna will be my safe haven in Finland, unfortunately this time I didn’t have time to visit the town other than a quick cup of coffee at my aunt’s but she lives outside the centre and a visit to Savonlinna without seeing the Olavinlinna castle doesn’t really count.

All these years I’ve lived abroad are really starting to show. It’s not just Lappeenranta, but it seems like the whole country is changing. The most familiar thing left is the language, although some new words have cropped up of course, like the skräppääminen word monster (from “scrapbooking”) that I came across in a book title. The language is shaped by the people who use it… the Research Institute for the Languages in Finland can’t keep up anymore!

No, I can’t see myself moving back to Finland anytime soon. I’m proud to carry my Finnish passport, but moving to Finland would be like moving abroad all over again. I’m at home in Sweden now.

The first day of the last week of my holiday. The weather has been a mixed bag like it has been pretty much all month – rain and shine. At least the wind is easy, but it’s just the calm before the storm (tomorrow is promising to be blustery and rainy).

I went for a walk with the 300mm lens, thinking that the conditions would be good for the big gun. I didn’t find many subjects, but when I glanced at the bay which peeked between the trees below me, I saw some white dots and used the 300mm as a telescope and confirmed that they must indeed be white waterlilies! This is just unbelievable – how many times have I written about my attraction to the white waterlilies and the story behind it? I rushed back, told my parents that I found white waterlilies so Dad (slightly doubtful) and I rowed into the bay to have a look. When all we could see was yellow waterlilies, I started to doubt myself – but then, after getting past yet another bank of reeds, there they were. I counted eight individuals in bloom and there were a lot of buds also.

Call me sentimental, call me a fool, or call me a sentimental fool, but I almost got a little bit misty eyed. It’s been almost 3 decades since we’ve last seen white waterlilies in this lake, even Dad was calling this the best discovery of the summer.

It’s not the best of pictures, but it’s a white waterlily, in our little bay. You have been missed.

I’ve had a couple of days to explore my old home town. I lived here for two decades, so it’s not soon forgotten. A lot has changed, and a lot has stayed the same – I still know all the shortcuts walking around the town, even if I get a little bit confused in a car. They’ve built houses where there used to be a street, built streets where there used to be buildings, changed some streets to pedestrian only, turned some one-way streets to two-way etc… you get the idea.

The town is also becoming more tourist oriented. And by tourists, I mean Russians. Seriously. If some sign is in two languages, it’s Finnish and Russian. If there’s four languages, it’s Finnish, English, German and Russian. In Savonlinna, the sign makers get off with less trouble – they stick to Finnish. Mind you, I saw one hand-written sign in Punkaharju, advertising fresh coffee in German and Swedish. Otherwise, my car is just about the only Swedish thing I’ve seen here.

If I said that people in Savonlinna look very familiar, then here in Lappeenranta they sound very familiar. I realised that everyone talks like me – my dialect. I may have some minor linguistics elements from the Savo dialect, but first and foremost I’m a South Karelian.

The familiarity got me thinking about my relationship to these two towns. Even if I’m more likely to think Savonlinna as my home town in Finland, I am also undeniably at home here in South Karelia. I think the difference is that Savonlinna is in my heart and Lappeenranta in my head.

While I’m in the city, I’m trying to make the most of it. I’ve had a cappuccino in a café every day, it could be just about the only thing I’ve missed while living a small village. Otherwise the buildings (a high-rise building is 4-5 floors here) and people make me feel slightly claustrophobic. I guess I could live in a big town again, but only if I really have to. Give me forests and bogs anytime.

I was expecting to find a wireless connection somewhere in Savonlinna so I could go online every now and then. But nix, no hotspots, so I had to wait until I got to Lappeenranta. Thus, plenty of backdated posts now!

It’s one of those strange sunny days which are not really sunny. You know, thin high cloud vailing the sun so the sky is milky blue, a total disaster for landscape photography. Lucky I’m not a landscape photographer… I did some sightseeing again and checked out Putkinotko, which used to be one of the local sights in Savonlinna. Now it’s more or less dilapidated and they’ve even removed the sign from the main road. Lucky I only came for the flowers… I didn’t find any interesting though, apart from the hedge bindweed (Calystegia sepium) which I remembered grew by the road from many years ago when I last was there.Back at the cabin, I tried my hand at wildlife photography. I had spotted a group of common lizards sunning on a rock pile so I mounted the camera+300mm on the tripod and slowly stalked closer so the lizards wouldn’t scurry away. Initially they did, but after a while when I sat still, they returned. I kept inching ever closer and the small reptiles tolerated me, even if they kept a watchful eye on me every time I moved. I had hoped that I could shoot some lizards on this holiday, so now I can check this one off my list!