Josef “Jeff” Sipek

Tallinn

This post is part of a series named “Europe 2017” where I share photos from my adventures in Europe during the summer 2017.

In late June 2017, Holly and I did a day trip to Wikipedia article: Tallinn. This wasn’t the first time I was in Tallinn, so I knew what the interesting parts of the old town were. As always, there is a gallery with more photos.

Tallinn’s old town is a medieval pocket in a otherwise modern city. In some of the photos you can see the modern civilization right behind a medieval tower.

A view of the Wikipedia article: Alexander Nevsky Cathedral from the tower of Wikipedia article: St. Mary’s Cathedral:

The tower of St. Mary’s Cathedral:

A section of the fortification wall that remains:

I’ve been to Tallinn twice and all my time there was spent in the old town. This makes me far from an expert about what there is to do. With that said, I enjoyed my time there and I recommend a day trip to anyone visiting nearby.

Kaivopuisto Air Show 2017

This post is part of a series named “Europe 2017” where I share photos from my adventures in Europe during the summer 2017.

In early June 2017, we attended an air show in Wikipedia article: Kaivopuisto. Unfortunately, we found out about it last minute, and so we missed the beginning which included a Finnair Airbus A350 flyby. Pity.

The show included a number of trainers and combat aircraft performing various maneuvers. Here are the highlights (for more photos visit the gallery).

Wikipedia article: Red Arrows:

A seagull joining in:

Wikipedia article: Finnish Coast Guard’s Wikipedia article: Turva nearby with Wikipedia article: Suomenlinna visible behind it:

Wikipedia article: Eurofighter Typhoon:

Wikipedia article: Saab 35 Draken:

Wikipedia article: Saab Gripen:

During one of the passes, I took a burst of images and then assembled them into a Southwest 737 “Airportrait”-style image.

Finnish Air Force Wikipedia article: F-18 Hornet:

A Finnish aerobatics team Wikipedia article: Midnight Hawks flying Wikipedia article: BAE Systems Hawk:

Even though this post has more photos than I typically share, there are many more in the gallery. So, if you are into airplanes, I suggest you peruse it.

Juhannus 2017

This post is part of a series named “Europe 2017” where I share photos from my adventures in Europe during the summer 2017.

You may have noticed that I was a bit quiet during the last summer. I have a really good reason for it: I spent five months in Helsinki for work. On weekends, Holly and I got to explore, which led me to accumulate approximately 12000 photos. Sadly, I am quite behind on post processing them all, but I will get through them eventually.

This post is about how I spent Wikipedia article: Juhannus last year.

Juhannus is the name of the Finnish summer solstice holiday. It is a time to relax, spend time with friends and family, and enjoy oneself. Every year, a nearby island, Wikipedia article: Seurasaari, has an afternoon and evening with an assortment of traditional events and bonfires.

There is of course a gallery of my photos.

Every year, one couple is selected to have their wedding on Seurasaari during Juhannus. Here is 2017’s lucky couple:

Before about half a dozen bonfires are set ablaze, a number of “can fires” is lit:

The largest bonfire gets lit by the newlyweds—from a boat:

I’m not sure how exactly the big bonfire pile was constructed, but it didn’t take long for it to grow:

So, that was Juhannus on Seurasaari in 2017. It was a nice and relaxing afternoon and evening, and if I happen to be in Helsinki around Juhannus in the future, I’ll likely spend the day on Seurasaari.

I’m going to end this post with a bit of Finnish (from finland.fi) because languages can be fun:

– Kokoo koko kokko kokoon!
– Koko kokkoko?
– Koko kokko.

Meaning:

– Assemble the Midsummer bonfire!
– The whole Midsummer bonfire?
– Yes, the whole Midsummer bonfire.

(I’m told that kokoo is a dialect form of kokoa.)

Septemberfest 2016 - Birds of Prey

This past weekend, the Dunstable Rural Land Trust had its annual Septemberfest event (yes, it ended up being in early October this year). Holly and I went to it armed with the cameras hoping to get some nice images of birds from the “Birds of Prey” program. We were not disappointed.

So far, I have managed to sift through only the bird photos. I still have to go through the other ones (e.g., the colorful autumn shots) and figure out which are the keepers. I set up a gallery which I’ll update with the non-bird photos in the near future.

Without further ado, here are the birds!

The peregrine falcon:

The screech owl:

The great horned owl:

The Harris’s hawk:

The red-tailed hawk:

The American kestrel:

The golden eagle:

This is only a fraction of the photos that are in the gallery, so make sure to check it out for more avian goodness.

Battle Road Trail Walk

Last weekend Holly and I braved the 35°C weather, and drove to the Minute Man National Historical Park for their Battle Road Trail Walk—a three and a half hour walk covering almost 7 km of the Battle Road trail.

Naturally, I brought my camera. Unfortunately, because of the terrible heat, I didn’t take all that many photos. Of the ones I did take, I think only five are worth sharing. I am including them all in this post, but you can check out the gallery for the photo metadata.

The walk began at Meriam’s Corner, where on April 19, 1775 the locals attacked the British column returning from Concord and drove them all the way back to Boston. This is the beginning of “Battle Road”.

This is Nathan Meriam’s house—standing right next to where the attack began.

Despite the heat, we were only two of about 35! We were shocked to see that most people decided to show up to a 7 km walk in 35°C heat with barely 500 ml of water per person. (We knew better and brought a little over 4 liters for the two of us. And we had a stash of sports drinks in the car.) We were surprised nobody passed out along the way…or at least we did not notice anyone passing out :)

Here is park ranger Jim Hollister, our guide for the walk, mid-sentence near Hardy’s Hill. (I know, not the most flattering of photos.)

Hartwell Tavern is a little past the half-way point of the walk. The whole group took a break here so I had a few minutes to kill—and I did that with photography!

First of all, the tavern itself:

And an 8-shot panorama of the tavern and some of the walk participants. (38 MB full size panorama)

And the last photo from the trip is the Captain William Smith house (in Wikipedia article: Lincoln, MA).

As I said earlier, I did not take that many photos. I will try to do better in the future. :)

Earth Day

For Earth Day, Holly and I went to the nearby Sherburne Nature Center for their Earth Day celebration. The three hour event included a walk through the woods there as well as a demonstration of some owls. We showed up a bit early, so we meandered in the woods for a bit on our own. I was armed with my D750 and the 24-70mm lens, and Holly sported the D70 with the 18-70mm kit lens at first but switched to the 70-300mm not too long after. While I did all the post-processing, some of the following photos are Holly’s. As always, there are more photos in the gallery.

While meandering, we found a large-ish Wikipedia article: garter snake—I’m guessing it was about 1m long.

After about an hour of roaming around, we joined the narrated nature walk. The guide, Mark Fraser, was quite good at spotting assorted nature that I was totally unaware of. For example, he took all of 15 seconds to find this (much smaller) garter snake.

The nature walk was followed by the owl demonstration by Eyes on Owls. As you can see, the owl demonstration attracted a lot of kids.

After a brief intro to owls, six different owl types got shown. Of the six, I post-processed photos of four. (We got photos of the remaining two as well, but none of them struck me as interesting enough to post-process.) All of the owls they brought suffered from some sort of injury that made them unable to survive in the wild.

The screech owls:

Screech Owls

The barn owl:

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

The spectacled owl:

Spectacled Owl

Spectacled Owl

The snowy owl:

Snowy Owl

I wished I had a more telephoto lens than the 24-70mm, but thankfully the owl demonstration was pretty close to me—and the 24MP on the D750 let me crop quite a bit. At the same time, it is my understanding that for birding one wants the longest lens possible anyway. I’ve even heard that birders prefer DX camera bodies because of the crop factor. I think I understand them, but I’ll just stick to photographing mostly non-bird subjects and keep the FX sensor. I guess the world’s birds will have to be photographed by someone else. :)

Private Pilot, Honeymooning, etc.

Early September was a pretty busy time for me. First, I got my private pilot certificate. Then, three days later, Holly and I got married. We used this as an excuse to take four weeks off and have a nice long honeymoon in Europe (mostly in Prague).

Our flight to Prague (LKPR) had a layover at KJFK. While waiting at the gate at KDTW, I decided to talk to the pilots. They said I should stop by and say hi after we land at JFK. So I did. Holly tagged along.

A little jealous about the left seat

I am impressed with the types of displays they use. Even with direct sunlight you can easily read them.

After about a week in Prague, we rented a plane (a 1982 Cessna 172P) with an instructor and flew around Czech Republic looking at the castles.

OK-TUR

I did all the flying, but I let the instructor do all the radio work, and since he was way more familiar with the area he ended up acting sort of like a tour guide. Holly sat behind me and had a blast with the cameras. The flight took us over Wikipedia article: Bezděz, Wikipedia article: Ještěd, Wikipedia article: Bohemian Paradise, and Wikipedia article: Jičín where we stopped for tea. Then we took off again, and headed south over Wikipedia article: Konopiště, Wikipedia article: Karlštejn, and Wikipedia article: Křivoklát. Overall, I logged 3.1 hours in European airspace.

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