ice skating in Finland

Photographer Esko Liukas and figure skater Tiina Pakkanen created a video in which she appears to be gliding across the water of a lake in the Finnish far north.

The conditions have to be just right. About 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) north of Helsinki, November temperatures had been low enough for long enough for Lake Ylläs to freeze solid, but it hadn’t snowed yet.

The ice was still smooth and transparent, and that day the air was just warm enough that some passing clouds dropped a sprinkling of rain instead of covering the ice with a blanket of white snow.

Photographer Esko Liukas – his surname, which means “slippery,” is a nom de plume, or actually a nom de patin – had been out previously to check the ice, as he told numerous Finnish media outlets. He put out a call on Instagram for a figure skater to record a video, and Tiina Pakkanen responded. Her last name fittingly means “frost,” and it’s her true name.

When they went to film the segment, a rain shower left a thin layer of water on the clear ice. Together with the transparency of the ice, the reflection and ripples created the illusion that Pakkanen was cutting turns on unfrozen liquid rather than solid ice.

via {this is finland}