I attended a workshop at University of Leiden this week. The beautiful combination of scientifically reassuring architecture and flowing water caught my attention.

I saw this beautiful flower in the University of Helsinki Botanical Garden.

These days the Internet is mostly about cats. Let me use this opportunity to add my modest contribution to the genre.

In February 2013 my work as a mathematician took me to São Paulo, Brazil. It was my first time to visit that huge city, and of course I wanted to bring back some photos. Curiously, several people stopped me in the streets and advised me not to keep my camera in plain view. Apparently there is a real possibility to get robbed. So I did my best to hide the camera most of the time. Fortunately, there were no problems and I am happy to report here a few visual impressions of the amazing city the locals call "Sampa."

My friend Taneli Kesäläinen turned 40 last year and threw an amazing party! He asked me to set up a makeshift studio and photograph the guests. This turned out to be a really enjoyable task. Here are a couple of samples, starting with a portrait of the hosts.

In August 2014 I went to the Sipoonkorpi National Park near Helsinki, Finland. My main purpose was to catch and photograph some interesting spiders, which I did. Another goal was to try out my new focusing rail and produce some test material for experimenting with focus stacking. Here is a sample, a close-up view of lichen:

Random pick from my archives: a man filling up at a gas station in Prague, Czech Rebuplic, in 1995. I just love the design of that classic Skoda model!

After a dark and cloudy period of about two months, I saw some beautiful rays of sunlight. This view was in the Kallio district of Helsinki, Finland.