Most of actions were little bit of mystery to me – it seems that players just gather to ‘man groups’. There were several players in the piles and during the game I realized that there is a meaning for these and real names also like scrum, ruck and maul. Luvkily I have a friend whole knows this sport very well and he can explain details to me – he was the one who suggest this sport photographing to me. Finnish Rugby Union pages gives also some brief introduction to this great sport.

I used same system than in football – two cameras with two different lenses (tele and tele-zoom) plus few pics with wide-angle zoom. It was easier to get tight crop’s of actions than in football because in rugby players are carrying the ‘ball’. I managed to get some good action pictures but next I have to take better pics.

Next match is at 11th of September when Eagles meet Helsinki Rugby Union. Here are the best photos from last game and more pics can be found from my gallery.

My original plan was to make one picture with my daughters – girls building 500 pieces puzzle and one girl would hold the box and other some pieces. And on the background you could see all other pieces higgledy-piggledy. That picture would have suit to topic, hundreds pieces, hundreds minutes for building, etc.

But I was so busy with other things and never managed to do this. So I turned my look to photo archive… On competition date I select two pictures from my Barcelona trip, both has been taken in Mercat Boqueria near Las Ramblas. Hudreds of candies and hudreds of strawberries. Quite boring pics I must say and jury has same thoughs – both pics were dropped in the first round…

For a while I think to replace one of these to picture of flying gooses (thousends, taken in Estonia) or city lights (taken from plane). Maybe that goose picture would have been better than these, but this time my selection was this. Top6 pictures can be seen here.

Pictures from Barcelona will be published later…

Maybe the biggest matches in Finnish league are Turku’s derby games between FC TPS and FC Inter Turku. First derby was played in May and it was full of excitement. TPS scored twice and was going to victory but in the end it was Inter who was closer to win the game – but final draw was 2-2. Second derby in August was clear case. TPS was way much better and their scored two goals quite easily and with better luck they would have scored couple more. Atmosphere could have been better in this latest derby but still it was a derby after all and it’s always something more than just an ordinary league game.

Both teams from Turku qualified also to UEFA Europa League. This time both got opponent from Belgium and as you might guess, Belgium teams won. TPS almost manage to drop Cercle Brügge but five minutes before final whistle Cercle scored second goal and they continued the tournament with away goals (aggregate 2-2).

Inter’s opposite was KRC Genk and in advance it was expected to be better team than Cercle (based on bet rankings in Belgium league). And it was. When judge blows the final whistle in first leg, scoreboard said it all – 5-1 to visitors. This I must say that result doesn’t tell you all. Inter played quite well and when they scored 1-2 they did have a slight change to equalization. But they only hit to post and next Genk scored couple more goal and game was played. No questions who was better.

15.5.2010 TPS – FC Inter Turku 2-2
22.7.2010 TPS – Cercle Brügge (BEL) 1-2
29.7.2010 FC Inter Turku – KRC Genk (BEL) 1-5
15.8.2010 FC Inter Turku – TPS 1-2

All FC Inter Turku match-galleries are here.
All FC TPS match-galleries are here.

Finnish national team played friendly game against Estonia in Tallinn’s A. le Coq -stadium in May. Result was shameful for Finns – 2-0 for Estonia and this is a compliment for Finns, it could have been even worst, maybe 4-0… Really apathetic and inefficient playing from Finland. There was also one pre-match and it was Jalgpallihaigla against SMJK. Both are national team official supporters team. Estonia won that game also. They managed to score goal from penalty kick and even thought Finns kept the ball they were lost in Estonian 16-area. And our penalty hit only to post. This was my first away match but hopefully not the last.

Last training match before EURO 2012 qualifications was played in my home stadium in Turku between Finland and Belgium. Finland won 1-0 and this was the first time when they have won when I have photograph the game. Ten minutes before final whistle Finland goalkeeper Otto Fredriksson bumble to Markus Heikkinen and break Markus teeth (you can see two teeth in the pic above). Otto also got open wound to his head and it took over six minutes before game was continued. I’ll try to sell those accident pics to some Finnish media houses but they were not intrested – at least nobody never answered to mail.

21.5.2010 Estonia – Finland 2-0
21.5.2010 Jalgpallihaigla – SMJK 1-0
11.8.2010 Finland – Belgium 1-0

Few days after Estonia game we made some history in my hometown Kaarina (small town in Turku’s neighbor). There was 1167 spectators to watch Finland and Switzerland under-16 national game. That is a lot in small town like Kaarina and U16 game. Swiss team was way much better than our team and they beat us 4-0. Swiss are top teams in the world in this age-class (they were 4th in World Cup earlier).

25.5.2010 Finland U16 – Switzerland 0-4

And there will many more games left, league games, cup-final and national team qualifications. I will post new pics to this blog so keep visiting! You can opened slide show by clicking this lovely dancer from TPS cheerleaders.

Some model pictures – that’s going to do it! I picked two beautiful pictures but unfortunately our grand jury didn’t understand beautiness in my pictures and both pics were dropped before the final round. Maybe the last one is more sexy than beatiful but at least black and white picture of Sanni is definitely beautiful. I like that picture. Jury’s comments were like “it has been taken too down” and “it’s not good when model is not taking eye contact to viewer”. My personal opinion is that this picture is better when Sanni is looking over the camera and she look like barbie-doll. Very beautiful I must say.

But we have to take another photo-session with Sanni and take better pics.

You can see all top pictures from here.

Summer was great. We spend unforgettable two weeks in Toscana, Italy. Our ‘home’, typical Italian house in country side, was in small town or village called Tavarnelle Val di Pesa. It’s about 30 kilometers to south from Florence. It was just great time, days we spent in the pool (kids just love it) or by travelling to some nearby places like San Gimignano, Pisa, Montepulciano, Volterra, etc.

And like always, I’m not travelling anywhere without my cameras – so I have few thousands picture to go through. This time I also took some HD-quality videos. Let’s see when I have time to do presentation. Definitely we will do a photo book – it’s always nice to look those books of your trips especially if it’s dark and cold outside. Maybe we will taste some Italian red wine while reading that book…

Here is first taste of Italian pictures.

The other trip was not so successful. We went to Tallinn, Estonia, for two day vacation and on the second day we were robbed. Thief took my camera bag and I lost one camera (5D mkII), two lenses (24-70/2.8L and 70-200/2.8L IS) and several memory cards plus of course all our pics from that trip. Not to mention that our passport’s were there, car key and home key! Sad story but luckily everything went well with the insurance company and I didn’t lost too much money. Now I already have new camera equipment. I hope all possible bad things to thief, shame on you!

Here is the list of stolen equipments with serial numbers – if you notice these somewhere, please contact to me, insurance company If or police in Estonia Kesklinn or in Turku.

• Canon EOS 5D mark II, serial: 053030304
• Canon EF 24-70/2.8L USM, serial: 1738561
• Canon EF 70-200/2.8L IS USM, serial: 387646
• other stuff: ie. 2x Sandisk CF 32GB 60MB/s memory card, Tamrac Pro 5 camera bag, etc.