The Quiet Picture

I went for a short walk in the morning to check out the progress of spring. I found a big bunch of coltsfoot and decided to come back in the afternoon with close-up gear and also try the angle finder for the first time.
Said and done, I packed the bag full (and oh boy is it heavy, I had forgotten all about this) and got out. Before I set off, I just briefly wanted to check the lupine bench next to the garage in case some leaves would already be popping out and I didn’t find any, but there was a huge frog instead. I didn’t have to think twice but pulled out the camera and got down. The angle finder really is nice - I didn’t have to lie down completely but was able to kneel and get a good view of the viewfinder. The problem is with orienting the camera - takes some getting used to point it in the right direction when you seeing the viewfinder image from a 90 degree angle. Well, the frog was having none of it anyway and refused to face the sun despite my promises of fame and riches, and then hopped on to the forest. One shot was all I got (or three shots, but the other two were crap).

Now I was finally able to get to the coltsfoot and after looking around, settled with this specimen. The wind was really bad and even the robust coltsfoot were swaying, so there was a lot of waiting for the right moment. I also had to keep removing wind-blown dried grass from the frame, so patience is everything. Now that I was shooting from a tripod, I have to say that the angle finder is just simply wonderful. The x2.5 zoom option allows for very careful focusing, enabling me to get the best out of the 300mm lens. In a word, sharp!

When I was done with the coltsfoot, I became more aware of my surroundings and heard some chirping behind me. I turned around to look at two pied wagtails in the melt water puddle and they didn’t seem to mind me too much. When they still hadn’t flown away after I had removed the extension tube, I pointed the camera towards the birds. They were 5 metres from me, I have never been this close to pied wagtails with a camera and I was able to rattle off a good few shots before they made their escape. The shots are not much to look at, but sharp they are. I love my 300mm f4L!

The hepatica are blooming behind my garage. There is something green shooting up in every sunny spot. Butterflies are flying… Birds are coming home… The season of plenty has started!

A rare event - went to Stockholm, only the second time since I moved to Sweden. Had to do some serious shopping but surprisingly, I didn’t blow my whole budget - probably because I didn’t get everything I had on my list. I didn’t buy much that was not on the list, either. That’s also rare…But oh gosh how many people there are. I’m glad it was only a day trip, I find it very difficult to see how I could ever again become a city dweller. Give me countryside, any time.

It was snowing this morning. I got up, looked out the window and the world was white, the stuff kept falling heavy. I rushed out without eating breakfast, worried that the snow cover would get too thick to manage with summer tyres if I waited. I was anticipating the snowfall to turn to rain before Näsberg and I was right.For those of you not familiar with local geography - Los is at 400+ metres above sea level and when you drive east, there’s a dramatic drop to the river valley at 100+ metres ASL (most of that drop is when you approach Näsberg). The distance to Ljusdal is only about 50km as the crow flies, but it’s a different climate.

It’s a beautiful sunny day but the camera stays in the bag. I just went for a walk hoping to see some new growth at last and I wasn’t disappointed. I saw the first butterflies of the year, the first pied wagtail and the first flowers - coltsfoot, naturally. That got me smiling! Yesterday I saw some crocuses in Färila but I’m sure that they were planted so they don’t qualify. I’ve also seen some swans and cranes but otherwise the waterfowl are having a tough time as all the lakes are still covered with ice.Something else I saw today - snowmobilers, and they had ice fishing gear with them. That’s the kind of season this is.

Looks like the Finnish Eurovision entry is causing quite a stir in Europe (or in Finland, anyway), they even made it to the news tonight. Apparently, Lordi are just too ugly for the European stage and Finns are ashamed of sending such a travesty to the contest (I must have blinked through the part where ESC stands for good taste). Now correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the Finnish contest decided by public voting? It’s a freakin’ democracy, get over it. The last time anyone noticed the Finnish entry was when we got null points. …oh hang on now… Doh!See what Lordi are already doing? I might just vote for Finland this time, the whole thing is turning out to be quite entertaining!

Just checked SMHI’s spring progress page and it looks like it’s officially spring in Los now. The half a meter thick snow cover on my front lawn begs to differ though.

I made the big mistake of stopping by on Fotosidan. I forgot that the hepatica season has started in the southern Sweden, so the hepatica images are flowing in. They are just as bad as they were last year. To make matters worse, they all insist on quoting some Swedish poem or song or whatever in their titles, blissfully oblivious to the fact that everyone and their brother has already been there and done that.Last year I was so fed up that I swore I will not shoot another hepatica. Then I discovered them growing right behind my house and couldn’t resist taking a shot. But I’m not showing it!

Note to self - don’t visit Fotosidan. I just don’t have the patience for that stuff.

Ok ok fine then. Everyone has the right to post whatever pictures they want to and call them whatever they like, they are just beginners and how can they learn if they don’t show their images and ask for comments, blah blah blah. All I’m asking, please no more hepatica, and for goodness sake, drop those moronic titles!

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Oh look it just started raining. Or snowing. Or something… sleet? Hail? It’s white and falling down heavy. Maybe that hepatica season will be further delayed up here then.

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And before anyone jumps on me saying that my post titles are just as moronic as the hepatica image titles on Fotosidan, I have one word for you: Whatever.

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I am so bored out of my head it’s not real, can you tell?

There’s an interesting discussion on NPN at the moment regarding the rules of photography. The discussion starter makes a point for not following the rules and provides an example (which, by the way, just strengthens the case for the rules). The people who have responded say pretty much what I think about the issue as well. The rules were not created randomly out of nothing, but they came out based on existing imagery which was aesthetically pleasing. When I take pictures, I’m not thinking about this “rule of thirds” grid and putting elements in the 3rd intersections just because the rule says I should. I put the elements there because the image just simply works better that way! And then I can as easily put the rules aside when I think that I can create a stronger image by not following them.Look at the reindeer and snow drift images in my previous entry. The horizon in the reindeer image is not in the lower 3rd, but more like the lower 6th to emphasise the big blue sky. But I did follow the rules in that the reindeers are walking into the image, not out of it. If there was this much space behind the reindeer as opposed to in front of them, it would be dead space and the image trash. The snow drift image on the other hand is all about the rules - imagine the grid on top of the image and you’ll find all the elements in a 3rd.

But then, there are those people whose artistic eye prefers non-conformity and they create images which break the rules on purpose. Personally, I don’t like that style, it’s too chaotic for me. Each to their own.

I’m not claiming following the rules automatically produce masterpieces (if it did, we could indeed build a camera that takes the picture - without the person operating it). But I do know for sure that my images are better now than in the early days when I didn’t know about the rules!

So I got my sunny day… mostly sunny, anyway. Time for the last skiing trip of the season, and it didn’t turn out to be quite what I had expected.I made sure to get to Lofsdalen before 10am to catch the first snow buggy up the mountain (it saves some time and energy - instead of skiing up, you can tag behind the buggy and be pulled up). I have never taken these snow buggies before so I didn’t know exactly how things work, but when I saw everyone throwing their skis and ski poles up on the roof of the buggy, I followed suit. As it transpired, not everyone had thrown their skis up, but only those people who sat inside the buggy instead of being pulled. It’s just that the pulling doesn’t start until on the lake (less than 50m from the buggy parking), so most of the people were down there waiting. I made an effort to join the ski crowd but this is the peak season and all the rope loops had already been taken. So I was stuck inside the buggy, but after someone had fallen down three times and the other people in the cabin said that being pulled taxes the energy anyway, I felt better. And with hindsight, I’m glad I spared the energy.

When we got up, I felt the mountain was definitely crowded. Three fully booked snow buggies means a lot of people, but the crowds soon vanished. There was just simply too much to photograph, so I kept stopping frequently and I was naturally further and further behind the other people after every stop. And gradually, I couldn’t see any other people anymore. The mountain is a big place.

Something else there was a lot of, initially, was reindeer. I don’t think I have ever seen so many on one mountain before, a good few hundred at least. Since they were not all grouped together, I couldn’t find a way to show the sheer numbers, but at least I had a chance to try different settings and compositions and I think that this one turned out the best.

And then, only after a couple of kilometres, I had a mishap. I lost my balance (yeah, it happens a lot when I’m skis) and used the ski pole to hold me up. I ended up on my knees anyway and thought it was a bit strange that the pole suddenly sank halfway, but then found to my disgust that the pole hadn’t sunk - it had broken! I thought for a moment what I should do, I sure didn’t feel like turning back. I tested the pole and found out where the “fiber” in carbon fiber comes from - broken as it was, the fibers still held the pole together and it was in fact possible to put a little weight on it (very little weight, mind). With the slow speeds I normally ski with, I figured that I will be able to do without the pole. Going uphill is mostly about using the legs, downhill you don’t use the poles at all, and as for the rest.. well, this is a mountain, so how much level ground was there going to be?

I wish it had been that easy. Every time I forgot that the pole was bad and put weight on it, I had a nasty surprise when it gave way. I had also chosen to follow the snowmobile trail and the traffic was heavy so I had to be extra careful to keep my balance, now that I couldn’t use the poles to help me stand up (this probably explains why the pole went off in the first place - I’ve put my full weight on it one too many times). So I had this nagging feeling at the back of my head and I wasn’t able to fully enjoy the trip. Especially when I came to the downhill part of it, and there was lots of it. At its highest, the trail was closing in on 1100m. The lake (and the parking) was at below 600m. It didn’t take long until the lactic acid built up in the legs because I was constantly ploughing my way down. But hard as I tried, gravity just took hold and I achieved my new speed record on skis - 35.9 kph, which I checked as soon as my legs had stopped shaking! That’s definitely too fast for me, it’s a miracle I stood up.

When I got to another steep slope, I decided to be smart and picked up the skis and walked. When the ground levelled again, I continued with my lopsided skiing with one pole dragging behind me. I was able to start enjoying the scenery again and it sure was fine, with the sun shining bright after having been veiled by some thin clouds earlier. I even tried some artsy photography, which is a definite sign that my mind is at ease - if I’m worrying about anything, I can’t fully concentrate of finding subjects.

But, there was still some downhill left. I had planned to have a waffle for lunch but when I came where I thought that the våffelstuga would be, I found that it’s some 300m further away - uphill. I had already skied over 10km with one pole, no way was I going to trek up an inch anymore, I don’t care how good their waffles are!

All that was left was to ski down. This was even harder than the earlier slope which ended up with my speed record and my legs were quite seriously hurting by the time I got to the lake. Finally back at the car, I checked the trip computer and it showed just over 16km. It didn’t show that 14 of those was with one pole… this is definitely the end of my skiing season! I’ll get new poles next winter.

All in all, it was a good trip, not one of the best but not the worst either. But it was definitely one I will remember!

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Some random notes. I think one of the reasons I’m always so tired towards the end of my trips is that I don’t take enough breaks. Yes, I stop a lot to photograph, but I should also make a proper stop to sit down and eat something. Instead, I just have some snacks standing up and continue skiing straight away. The energy reserves have no chance to recover so I’m all drained before soon.I’m also a bit worried about my bad hip. This happens every time I do a longer hiking or skiing trip - the hip is hurting and I feel the pain every time I lift my foot. It has never completely disabled me though and it feels fine after a night’s rest, but right now the hip is feeling worse than usual. It didn’t help that I had to make an emergency side step to avoid tripping over a kid in the supermarket (may I just say, f**cking parents who can’t keep their brats under control, excuse my french) and naturally, this step was on the bad side and I felt the pain increase straight away. I can only hope it’s ok in the morning again. Maybe it’s just as well that I’ll have a break from skiing… the cycling season will start soon!

Snowing…A litte bit, although it’s +2°C. It snowed a bit last night as well. The good news is that the snow melts fast when it’s sunny, so spring is definitely winning even if winter is putting up a fight.

The weather should improve for tomorrow, so that’s my invitation to drive to Lofsdalen for some skiing. Otherwise it’s shaping out to be a boring long weekend. This really is the worst season for me, I can’t think of anything to photograph and I don’t have a plan B…