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Friday, May 31, 2013

Night

It’s the last day of May, and as stipulated by PJ, this is the day to post the five photos you’ve taken throughout the month for his photo blogging challenge. The theme of the month was “night”.

I like taking photos, and I like the night; a winning combination this month. Or so I thought. At 11 pm the other day, I was looking out the window, trying in vain to find some darkness, any darkness. Anything that would even remotely resemble night. When you live this close to the arctic circle, darkness is not a luxury afforded to you during the summer months.

I turned to M, and asked:

“When does it get dark?”

M briefly looked out the window, and gave me the answer I’d been dreading.

“October.”

So yeah, May wasn’t the best month for this theme. That said, I did go out in the wee hours right before dawn, and I did take some photos. First up, the moon. I think every single person on the planet took a photo of the full moon this month, so of course, I also had to take one.



Next, we’re keeping with the sky theme. I wanted to take a photo of the sun setting behind a beautiful horizon, but the clouds and my own laziness made me miss the sunset. Thankfully, I was able to catch the last warm rays of sunlight in the clouds before the blue hour took over.



Now, this next photo is a great example of a summer night in Turku. Scantily clad people flock to these restaurant boats in the river Aura. They spend the night drinking beer and marveling at the fact that summer came this year, too, against all odds. The boats are wonderful gathering places, and if you, my dear reader in a faraway land, ever come to Finland, I’ll take you out for a beer on one of these.



My fourth photo is a deserted nighttime view of the area around Åbo Akademi University. I’ve walked these streets many, many time. Sometimes in the middle of the day, hurrying to make it to the lecture on time, sometimes in the early morning hours after a 12-hour shift at the speakeasy in the basement of the international law department. Those were the days…



The last photo is a friend of mine. He often sits on top of the lamppost outside my living room window. I’ve named him Edgar Allan Poe, and I think he loves the night just as much as I do. He’s certainly awake ridiculously late on weekdays.



That's it for me, but if you want to see more photos of the night, drag your ass over the PJ's blog and there you'll find a list of everyone participating this month. *
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