Welcome to my humble homepage...

Hi! You've wound up on the homepage of Sampo Niskanen. I don't know how you got here, but here you can read a bit about me, my intrests and find some software that I've released. Some of the pages are in Finnish only, mainly those concerning LARPing.

I enjoy photography, both as a means of documenting occasions and as an art form. I started it as a serious hobby in the fall of 2004 when I bought a digital SLR. Thereafter my set of photography equipment has been gradually growing, and I've been trying to learn the many different aspects of photography. You can find my photo gallery on a separate server (no artistic photo portfolio yet, though).

Another new but dear hobby is live-action roleplaying or LARPing. It's a wonderful way of experiencing things impossible in the real world in a safe but exciting way. Note that in Finland LARPing is, as I have understood it, quite different than that in the U.S. Here much more effort is put into emotion and the overall mood of the game, while typically minimizing the amount of rules. The pages concerning LARPs are in Finnish, but you can have a glimpse of my characters on my LARP page.

I have also danced historical dances regularly since spring 2003. I teach in the local dance group Linnea and am also a member of La Fiamma di Danza. I'm also interested in other forms of dancing, but haven't had much time to pursue them yet. I also like hiking a lot, both in Finland and elsewhere. I've been on a week's hiking trip in the Pyrenees, but something in the Finnish wilderness always calls me back again and again.

Other interests include astronomy and model rocketry. I am in the board of Pollux, an astronomy and model rocketry club at HUT. I currently attend Helsinki University of Technology in the Department of Engineering Physics and Mathematics.