24.8.2013 19:09 I was a happy man. I had just finished my first Ironman competition by swimming 3,8km, bicycling 180km and running 42km in 12 hours 9 minutes and 22 seconds. My target was to cross the finish line with a smile. And that target was achieved.
Props to Heikki Rusama for the photo
Below is a short story about my road to my first Ironman competition and some thoughts about the race. Continue reading
After 15cm of snowfall last night, it was a beautiful winter day today. We decided to head out for some cross-country skiing with the kids.
A few more shots: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/2013-03-03+Skiing+with+the+kids/
Today was the second annual Samsung Koffari Slopestyle event in downtown Helsinki. I decided to head there with the kids to enjoy a nice winter sunday, hopefully meet some old friends and take some photos. And it turned out to be a very good day. We had a magnificent day with the kids, I did manage to take some photos and even see a few old friends.
A few more shots from the session: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/2013-03-03+Koffari+Slopestyle+2013/
For tech geeks:
Today’s theme was simple. I only had my Sigma 50-150/2.8 lens along and used it to shoot all of the shots. I think it was a perfect companion for today.
For the past two months we have been building and maintaining a snow park in our yard with Ode. Today we again had a 1h session. this time I took my camera along to get some shots of Ode. The guy is developing at an amazing speed. I only wish I could learn that fast…Maybe it’s his motivation, everyday I come back from work he asks if we could go snowboarding.
Rest of the shots: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/2013-02-20+Ode+snowboarding/
This has been yet another magnificent winter with plenty of snow. The kids (and I) love it. A few weeks ago I took my camera out when we were building snow slides. A few more pics from that session are available here: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/2013-02-10+Snow+fun/
For tech geeks:
I used again my trusted two speedlight setup triggered with Elinchrome skyports.
We have been lucky to get new snow almost everyday during December. With Ode we have been doing some snow work and to make it a little more fun, Ode has invented this game where a push him off a jump into powder snow. Today I took my camera along to get some shots. We were really enjoying it and Ode promised to push me once he grows a little bigger!! Can’t wait!
A few more shots: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/2012-12-26+Snow+work/
For tech geeks:
I used a remote control to fire the camera. I was holding the remote in my hand. I used my 12-24 Tokina lens. The lighting was created with two speedlights. Main light was a speedlight shot through a beauty dish. I used the beauty dish to shoften the light a little and it works fairly well even in windy and snowy conditions. The other lightsource is a bare speedlight with a full CTO gel on it. I decided to use that to make the lighting a little more interesting. The initial idea was to use it only to light the snow, but in the end I ended using it more as a rim light. I think the CTO gel worked there as well.
My blog writing is seriously lagging behind now, but I’ll try to do my best to catch up. A few weeks ago I was shooting my god daughter’s horse riding competition. The complete set is available at: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/2012-11-18+Lauran+ratsastuskisat/
For tech geeks:
It was a very challenging environment, with only light from the tungsten lights in the ceiling. Earlier when I have been shooting there, there has been some light coming in through the windows, but this time it was only the artificial light. I had planned to use my 50-150/2.8 lens, but had to ditch it for 85/1.8 to gain some more light with the larger aperture. It turned out to be a good choice.
Tonight we did not go outside, so we had to figure out some other way of releasing the excess energy from the kids. Bed jumping is an all time favorite for the kids. Oona was jumping on our bed and I took some shots. It looked so cool that I decided to setup some speedlights quickly and take some shots of the kids jumping. Ode was more eager to jump, so most of the shots are of him. A couple of my favorites are Continue reading
Both of the older kids have learned to climb on the door frame. So now instead of running and yelling, they like to stay up… 🙂
A couple of more shots I was able to get of them today: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/2012-10-18+Climbing+at+home/
For tech geeks:
For these shots, I quickly set up two off-camera flashes inside the rooms to give some rim light to the kids. I also had an on-camera flash on ttl to give fill light. This setup was done in like 2 minutes and I had no time to really adjust the lights.
This year I was again able to participate in the yearly downhill trip. The location this year was once again Morzine. Morzine is located in the Portes du Soleil (http://en.portesdusoleil.com/) region in France. The area is an excellent venue for a longer trip. It offers plenty of different trails and tracks scattered on multiple resorts (I think 12 different resorts).
Finnair flies to Geneva daily. If you catch the morning flight from Helsinki, you get half a day of riding on the arrival day. And if you catch the evening plane out, you also get half a day of riding on the departure day. The flights are a little over 300€ and a bike costs 60€ per way.
We had all the other stuff organized by Morzine MTB (http://www.morzine-mtb.com/): transportation from and to the airport, accomodation and lift passes. I can really recommend their service. It was very easy and everything just worked. And I guess we ended up paying less than if we had booked all of it ourselves. Will definitely do it again, if I ever go to Morzine again.
We had chalet Edelweiss, located right next to the Pleney lift station. It is really easy when the flat is located right in the center of the village (shops, bakery etc. close by) and close to the lifts.
We had a group of five people. During the ten days of riding we had fairly little casualties: 1 broken rib,2 twisted ankles and some worn tires and brake pads. I would call it a very successful trip! We (the healthy two) had only one non-bike-riding day, when we were watching the French DH nationals in Les Get’s (the village next to Morzine). During the whole 10 ten days we had rain during two nights, so we got to ride some mud. The days were mostly sunshine and temperatures around +20C. As good as it gets 🙂
We had some hassle at the departure when my bike bag weighted 36kgs (limit 32kg) and my normal bag 24kgs. But with some nice smiles and help from the other guys, I was able to board the plane without paying any extra….and I did receive all of my stuff at Helsinki-Vantaa. Which was a very interesting place to land with your bike: As the luggage belt was clear of all luggage, we were queuing to claim our bikes as lost luggage as they had not turned up from anywhere. When we got hold of a staff member, she told to our surprise that the bikes had been delivered to a locked room that had a sign “only staff”. WTF?? We were supposed to know to ask them to come and open it. There were no signs or instructions for large luggage…that’s what I call customer service you can only receive in Finland.
We had two photo shoot days and I took also some photos at the French DH Nationals.
A 24 photo set from the trip is available at: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/20112-07-17+Morzine+small+set/
For people that are more interested or have excess of time, a larger (>130 photo) set is available at: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/2012-07-17+Morzine+large+set/