The Quiet Picture

Every time you go walking outside here you can hear dogs yapping and howling incessantly. Hunting is popular in Sweden but around here it’s holy, so many people have elk and bear dogs and most of them are kept outside, where they naturally have to mark their territory by yapping as soon as you get within sight or hearing distance from their house. Jolly good I don’t have any of these dogs as a neighbour or I’d go crazy, just can’t understand how the people can put up with the constant barking.I guess it’s a bit ironic that I have ended up in a place filled with hunt worshippers. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t have anything against hunting as such. I’m a meat eater for sure so it would only be double standards to accept killing in a slaughterhouse but not in the forest. My problem with hunting stems from the insanely stupid arguments for defending the blood sport. It seems like there is not enough game for the human hunters and their animal counterparts - mainly wolves. As long as the hunters are concerned, the fewer the wolves, the better. Now that they can’t argue that wolves decimate the elk numbers (there was a recent article on the increase in elk), they argue that the wolves eat up their hunting dogs.

Personally, I think that is as good an argument for having more wolves as any! *

One thing I fail to understand no matter how many time it’s repeated to me, is that hunting is needed to keep the elk numbers in check. I’m sorry, but wasn’t that the job of the wolves? The wolves are guaranteed to be much better hunters than humans anyway. Wolves only kill the weakest animals, allowing the species as a whole to stay strong. Humans on the other hand, the bigger the bull, the better. Think about the lions in some parts of Africa. You won’t see a male lion with a big mane anymore… because the males with big manes were killed off first. So human activity forced survival of the fittest, that being a male lion with a small mane. But whatever, with the current predator numbers, hunting is genuinely needed in order to prevent the elk numbers to get too big. Since we have driven off the natural enemies of the elk, it is now left to us to hold the unnatural balance in nature. But then again, man stopped being part of the nature the moment he built his first city.

Instead of fighting over the number of wolves and bears we should have, why not try to concentrate the energy on finding out ways how to live in peace with the predators? I think that this is the measure of our ingenuity - are we able to share the world with the creatures that inhabited it before us, or are we going to exterminate every species that can compete with us?

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* Let’s get this straight - I do like dogs in general. I just don’t like the barely domesticated ones kept outside 365 days a year, barking 24/7! Although… There are no problem dogs, there are only problem owners…[end of rant]

The Julbocken in Gävle was burned today. That was fast…The Julbocken (Christmas goat) is a giant straw goat that is put on display in Gävle every December. Then the bets are on - when will it be burned down? Naturally, it’s not really supposed to go up in flames but it should stand firm until Christmas. Apparently, this has actually happened a few times but not while I have been here (just a co-incidence!).

As usual, I’m slightly confused. If the tradition is not to burn it down but the pyromaniacs always get to it anyway, why not stop with the thing altogether? No straw goat, no bonfire.

But then again, I’m not Swedish. I don’t get the straw goat to start with. Oh and I also hate Christmas.

I just got a book called “Is it just me, or is everything shit?”. Sometimes I get a feeling that everything, really, is shit. Take radio for example. I listen to Rix FM in the car. The signal fades away often but that’s ok with me, I like the silence. The occasional good song makes it worth keeping it on. I just can’t believe how much crap I have to suffer to get to the good part.

• Bon Jovi - “Welcome to Wherever You Are”: You used to be tough, 80’s style. Now you sound like Robbie Williams.
• Robbie Williams - “Tripping”: Robbie seems to be under the illusion that blending three songs into one is genius. The opinion seems to be shared by his fans. Newsflash - three bad don’t make one good. If anything positive has to be said, the hook is catchy (ergo, I turn off the radio - and then forget to turn it on again until the next day).
• Robbie Williams - “Advertising Space”: So bad that it doesn’t even have a hook. If anything good has to be said, it’s that I don’t have to turn off the radio.
• Backstreet Boys comeback: It was enough the first time around.
• September - “Satellites”: Miss September probably thinks the lyrics are clever. They are not. I can forgive simple lyrics but pure nonsense wrapped in a Euro-disco beat is a criminal offense. This is a worst case example of non-native English speaker trying to make use of three syllable words.
• Mauro Scocco - “Kall stjärna”: Kent just called. They want their sound back.
• Daniel Powter - “Bad Day”: Apparently, Mr Powter had trouble getting a record contract. I regret to hear that some company finally did sign him.
• Nickelback - “Photograph”: Sorry, I thought you were a serious band.
• Westend Girls - “Domino Dancing”: Pet Shop Boys should sue you. Failing that, everyone not completely tone deaf should do it.
• James Blunt - “You’re Beautiful”: Can you say “one hit wonder”?

And what could possibly be worth all the shite? Well, maybe something like “Hung Up” by Madonna. I have never been a real Madonna fan, but now I am forever grateful that she went through all the trouble to get the permission to sample Abba. The greatest pop icon of our time sampling the all-time greatest pop band is an historical event of a magnitude never imagined before. It’s almost worth listening through a Robbie Williams song.

Usually when I’m bored out of my head, I entertain myself by browsing through pictures on the photo forums I normally don’t look at. I guess I’m less irritable when I’m bored… Anyway, today I came to think that it’s strange I hardly ever visit the macro forum although I love to take close-up pictures myself. But I guess that’s it - I do close-ups and very rarely go to genuine macro magnifications. Or maybe I don’t like macro because I just can’t do it (although, come to think of it, I’ve never tried). But generally speaking, extreme macro is a little bit like wideangles - you really need to know what you’re doing in order to create a good image. Otherwise it’s just a horrible mess. I should know… because I suck at wideangle photography. I’ve really tried to improve it, I’ve travelled to new places and found fantastic views - but never made a wideangle image I could really be proud of.I checked my portfolio images for the number of wideangle photos I have there. Not many. In fact, the average focal length of my portfolio images is 158mm. I have played with the thought of swapping my 17-85mm lens (that’s 28-135mm full frame) with the new Canon instead, 24-105mm f4L (38-168mm ff). The extra mm’s at the tele end would make this perfect as an all-round lens and the constant aperture is nice. So I had to find out if those missing wideangle millimeters would be a problem and according to my portfolio sample, I have used the wider view in 7% of the images. That’s not much. I’m sure that the percentage of wideangle images is bigger in my catalogue as a whole. That’s because I use the wideangle for documentation images - you know, the images you just want to take even though you realise beforehand that you will not get any keepers. Souvenirs, in other words. So the downside of going from 17-85mm to 24-105mm is that I will have less options for documentary images. I would say… it’s time for me to narrow my horizons.

It has been snowing all day. Disappointingly, it has been very light snowfall so we probably don’t have more than 1 cm new snow. But since the old snow didn’t all melt away during the warmer days, the snow cover is nice enough. I went for a long walk to enjoy the scenery and ended up taking a new trail. I wanted to get to a nearby forest lake and the direction of the trail was right, but I didn’t foresee the trail making a turn at the powerlines. Much to my dismay, I saw the trail follow the powerlines whereas I just wanted to get across. Which I did, and after a while I had to turn right back when the forest floor got wet and I thought it’s not worth trying go forward - I had no idea if I was anywhere near the lake.The strange thing about the powerlines is the noise they make. I have never noticed it before - I mean, I’ve heard them hum quietly but now it was a very loud, it was audible in the forest before I had visual contact with the lines and it got me to look around for rushing water until I realised where the sound was coming from. Does anyone have an explanation for this loud powerline hum? Does the weather have something to do it?

Anyway, having crossed under the lines again, I was able to get on the road via the waterworks. They are probably forbidden area for the public, but what can I do, I came from the back where they hadn’t put up any warning signs, LOL!

When I finally got to my destination and looked around, I saw the powerlines not very far. The wetland forest where I had turned back was right at the end of the lake.

I really should get that GPS receiver.

I’m selling my Cokin filters, ad on Fotosidan.

Just watched the weather forecast (which seems to be my favourite program these days). I was a bit amused when the meteorologist sounded apologetic when he predicted overcast skies for the coming days. We should also get a bit more snow, which is great, considering that right now it’s above zero and the snow is disappearing fast. So the weather for this weekend should be snowfall and overcast skies. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to apologise here - this is the best weather imaginable for me! Photographers usually call an overcast sky for a big diffuser, and indeed, it is. In the same way, snow for me is the big equaliser - it transforms the nature around you by hiding small detail and highlights other things you would otherwise not even notice.I don’t normally like black&white photography. But when the nature itself becomes b&w, I go wild with the camera. I am absolutely fascinated by snow and the way it changes the world around me. When the sun doesn’t appear even during those few hours of daylight we get, the last of the colour fades away as well. This is what I have waited for.

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The image is from last Saturday.

One of the benefits of having been there and done that is that I can look back at my photography and realise all the different stages I have gone through to get where I am today. When I look at other photographers’ images, the same story repeats all over - just about everyone goes through the same stages. I have attempted to describe them:

1. Beginner. Totally clueless about anything so you make all the mistakes and are blissfully unaware of them and think instead that you actually have some talent.
2. You are starting to realise that your pictures are missing something, so you spend more time in the digital darkroom than taking pictures, trying to improve them. Experimentation with PS plugins to lift up your images.
3. You get tired of the PS plugins and start to experiment with the camera instead. You go through all the usual gimmicks of moving the camera during exposure, zooming out during exposure, double exposures (if you’re using film) etc. You’re excited about the results, even if you settled with poor subjects in your enthusiasm to try the trick (although you don’t know this yourself, yet).
4. You begin to realise that maybe you’re not nearly as good as you thought you were, and start working on your compositions instead. You buy a lot of filters in hopes that they are the key to good images.
5. Finally reaching the advanced level. You know your camera and what you’re doing with it, all the photography jargon is making sense to you, and you start investing in better lenses to be able to concentrate on your favourite subject matter and style of photography. You throw away most of your filters and only keep the polarizer and ND because you’ve finally realised that these are the only ones you need. The only time you spend in post editing is fixing minor things like cloning off dust spots, and adjusting levels and saturation etc. The images that require more work are trashed. You look back your earlier work and want to trash all your old images, too.
6. Expert level. Composition is second nature to you and you know how to control every aspect your image creation process.
7. Trailblazer. You have finally discovered what your vision is and you are fully able to explore different styles. You no longer mimic others, but create new instead.

So where am I at the moment? Hopefully at level 6 but more realistically, between 5 and 6. In all likelyhood, I will never get to 7 and let’s face it, most photographers never do. I would be overjoyed to reach 6.5. I am on the verge of realising my vision, now it’s just a matter of keeping at it and see what happens.

For all you beginner photographers out there, and why not even the more advanced ones, I found a great link for composition on dPreview the other day. Please do yourself the favour of reading up. If I ever see another centrally composed photo, it will be too soon! Even if I know that I will see a bunch of them as soon as I log in to any photo forum…And yes, I will also be reading the articles. A photographer is never fully learned and I’m only in the beginning myself. I might know the basics of composition, but I can’t hold a candle to the masters of the art!

I finally got published! …and I paid for it myself. I think it’s so cool with these new photo print services these days, as soon as I had heard about the possibility of publishing/printing your own book, I started planning mine. With the Christmas coming up, I wanted to get one done as a pressie for my parents (they are not reading this blog anyway so it will be a surprise for them). I just got it delivered today and am I ever so pleased! The hardcover binding is probably the most impressive part of it - the content and layout is all mine, so that’s when it gets a bit iffy… but it’ll do just fine. I will definitely be creating more books and looking at the results now, I know what I should do differently the next time.

If you are at all interested in seeing your work in print (and no one wants to pay you for it), then I can warmly recommend putting in the effort for creating your own book! It’s a bit pricey but hopefully the prices will come down as the competition increases. But the way I see it, the result was well worth it.