Midsummer

Tags: Finland, Other

Last weekend, we celebrated Midsummer in Finland. It's one of those highlights in a Finnish calendar year, but we missed it for many years in a row due mostly to work related travel. This year was different. Midsummer is the celebration of the summer solstice, and marks the day with the longest period of daylight. Where we are, this is 24 hours - the sun never sets. We spent the day in a typical Finnish manner: get out, enjoy nature, the quietness, family, with food and drinks.

In our case, we visited the Kvarken Archipelago (in Björköby), a UNESCO World Herigate site not far from where we live. I made a little panorama of the area; use the controls to start panning over the image. The panorama consists of several individual images stiched together with the excellent Open Source Hugin application.

I also made some time to play with my camera (in case you're interested, a HDR-CX700) again and make some slow motion shots:

- The grill at the archipelago

- A small dragonfly, also at the archipelago

- A bumblebee in my backyard

These were just some quick and relaxing experiments. Once I have some more time, I'm going to try and get better results... It was none the less a day without stress and a much needed break from the hectic work schedule.