by Marja-Leena 
about 4:45 pm. January 14th as the melting snow rivulets begin to freeze
above and below, about 9:45 am. January 15th before the melt
Though the ice melted, the snow remained crunchy underfoot as it remains cold and clear and going down to -5C (23F) tonight. Winter’s beauty – may it last a little while.
PS. Speaking of which, you may enjoy watching these crazy Finnish men fishing under ice. Thanks, Anita!
by Marja-Leena 
A turban squash, that is. Today’s much-missed glorious sunshine tempted me and my cameras into action to capture this gorgeous vegetable which has been gracing our kitchen counter over the holidays and will soon be eaten.
Compare these to some earlier squash photos: green globe and cucurbita.
by Marja-Leena 
I am going through my 2011 iPhoto library, trying to reduce the numbers of photos from the almost 1800. These two almost got trashed until I began to play with them a bit and turned them into black and white. As I recall, the sky was what attracted me, and I do love that in the first photo. The strong vertical and horizontal lines and patterns of the transmission towers pulled me into the second shot. Not my usual subject matter…
by Marja-Leena Continuing my review of some of this year’s favourite photos from the Photoworks theme, this time from the July to December posts.
July: junkyard finds 6
August: almost September
September: jute
October: autumnal shadow play
November: hand in worship
December: oh ginger
As mentioned in the previous post of images from January to June, it was an interesting exercise and at times difficult to choose from so many images. Curiously, there was only one post, ‘shadow play’, this year with images under the ‘urban’ category, whereas I think 2009 was a bumper year with lots of urban shots of London and Paris. Not surprisingly, for those who know me, the most popular categories are ‘rocks’ and ‘nature’.
So, this is the last post on the last day of 2011, a very turbulent year around the world politically and economically. Just for a while on this New Year’s Eve tonight, I wish all of you peaceful thoughts and happiness in your own little world of family and friends. Many thanks for visiting and commenting (or not) and continuing to make this blog venture such a pleasure for me even as it nears eight years.
Happy New Year 2012, may your hopes and dreams come true! Hauskaa Uutta Vuotta ja paljon Onnea! Frohes Neues Jahr! Bonne année! See you on the other side!
Related: one year ago
by Marja-Leena Inspired by other bloggers who are doing year-end reviews, usually of books they have read, I thought this year I would try one for the first time. I have chosen a month by month review of my better photos from the Photoworks theme, choosing at least one from each sub-category.
Here are my favourites from the January to June posts. I will do the July to December ones tomorrow.
January: leaves in ice
February: round and white
March: Beaty Biodiversity Museum – 3
April: trickster?
June: sensuous rocks
I found this an interesting exercise and to note that this year there was only one post for the ‘Found Objects’ category – the mask in ‘trickster’ above. More observations to come tomorrow.
Related: five years ago
by Marja-Leena
So humble looking, this fresh gingerroot, yet so tasty in so many ways as a delicacy, as medicine, and as a spice. Ginger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale. The etymological origin is from Tamil: inji ver. So that’s where its Finnish name inkivääri comes from, I always wondered. I also did not know that turmeric and cardamom are members of the same plant family, all are favourites in my kitchen.
by Marja-Leena
artist’s hand with physalis, first published in qarrtsiluni
Hands have been a major preoccupation of mine as I once wrote about here. When qarrtsiluni put out a call for submissions on the theme of worship, I began to think of the meaning of that word in a somewhat less than usual religious context.
I was inspired once again by the idea of how my hands are so much a part of me as a human being and as an artist, not just for the act of creating art but also for holding, observing and treasuring special found objects. I started to explore this idea by scanning my hand as if in the act of drawing, rather like when I had photographed my hand some years ago. I continued to make a small series of scans of my hand holding certain objects that are precious to me, as if in worship of those small things that make up this world we live in. I submitted several of these to qarrtsiluni’s guest editors and was thrilled when they were all selected.
These are now up today, including the image above. I hope you enjoy the artist’s hand as well as the other marvelous entries in qarrtsiluni’s worship issue.
P.S. Editor Dave Bonta told me that this is my 16th post at qarrtsiluni. I cannot believe it and must check out the archives in the author index.
P.S.2: Here is an earlier scan of a physalis, a favourite of mine.
by Marja-Leena 
from the kitchen… a world in a vegetable…
by Marja-Leena 
enjoying this interplay of patterns of sun and shadows on wood and stone
by Marja-Leena 
Mesmerized by the sound of rain,
by the sight of patterns of raindrops and wood grain,
by bright reflections of grey sky and dark railings on wet,
painting another pattern…
