The Quiet Picture

I have mentioned a few times how the Loos area is rich in orchids. There’s still a few orchids species I haven’t seen here, but I know someone who knows where all of them grow – so today I got a guide to show to me to the lesser twayblade (Listera chordata). It’s a small flower with green or red-brown blooms and grows in mossy spruce forests, so it’s easily overlooked even if you’re standing right in front of one. Which I reckon I have done many a time, because it’s not a rare orchid by any means. So when we arrived to the site, my guide pointed me in the right direction in the forest and told me to find them – and I did! Oh joy! And having seen one, I saw plenty, suddenly they were no longer blending in and hiding but I saw them everywhere, even when we moved to another place to look for other flowers I still kept spotting the lesser twayblades.

We made an attempt at finding bog orchids (Hammarbya paludosa) but it was probably too early for them and we came up empty. But we did see plenty of other orchids; early marsh-orchid was already in bloom, twayblade and spotted orchid buds, and then a surprise re-union with the coralroot orchid which I’ve so far only seen in the mountains. It’s not even rare in this region, but just like the lesser twayblade, I’ve just simply not seen it.

Such a great day! Even the rain had the courtesy of waiting until we were already driving home.

When I started in photography and joined the Nature Photographers Network (NPN), one of the photographers whose work I admired was Gloria Hopkins. Later on she started working on a book idea and presented a few draft pages, and I was impressed. Then I think she faded out from the forum, and so did I, and I kinda forgot about her book. So I was very pleasantly surprised to see that the book has now come out and didn’t have to think twice to buy it.

Gloria’s writing is just as good as her pictures. The book is a must-read for every aspiring nature photographer, and it won’t hurt other photographers either! I’ve been yearning for new literature about nature photography and re-reading the books I already have on the shelf just doesn’t cut it; it’s meaningless to read 50 pages about learning exposure basics and film grain (yes, a bit dated) and flash techniques when all I want is to read about the real thing, the picture itself, and the thought processes behind the photographic experience. Natural Design provides a lot of food for thought and I know I will look at my photography with new eyes after I’ve read it.

It’s a PDF book and available here: Natural Design. Warmly recommended!

Last year I completely missed the lady’s slipper orchids (Cypripedium calceolus), and so did everyone else – they bloomed earlier than anyone had anticipated. Last week I had a look at one place where they grow, and saw nothing but leaves so I figured that maybe I could see some buds now. Except, this other place where they grow, the lady’s slippers were full in bloom, and some of them were already showing signs of being over! Glad I had my camera with me, because there was no time to waste, these flowers peak very quickly.

Another thing that amazed me was how many of them there were. I can’t remember seeing this many before… I was also seeing a lot of twayblade (Listera ovata) buds and more bogbeans (Menyanthes trifoliata) than I’ve ever seen before.

Before I was completely done with my photo session, it started raining. I didn’t have the Stormjacket with me to protect the camera, so I had to pack up whether I was ready or not. It wasn’t raining too bad though, so I ventured out further to a nearby small lake. I’ve never been to the lake before, and I was stunned – it was absolutely beautiful! The first calm sunny evening and I’ll be there with the camera.

I was smiling happy on my way back to the car, hardly noticed the rain. Those orchids… and the lake. Amazing. Amazing!

I don’t need it. But I want it.

What can I say. I’m a victim of Apple’s marketing. It Just Works.

A photographer friend came for a visit to take a look (and photograph) some of the local sights. Even without the pictures, the weather and the mosquitoes made the day memorable. If you’ve ever been out on a mosquito infested bog in nearly 30 °C heat with camera gear on your back, you’ll know what I’m talking about. I had my Bugshirt and bugspray, but the Bugshirt just made me even warmer so the bugspray quickly ran down with the sweat. I got the pictures, but it’s obvious that my concentration had suffered.

Then we swapped the bog for a forest. It was still warm, there were even more mosquitos, but now the heat had resulted in a thunderstorm brewing around us so we got a few drops of rain and it cooled down just a little bit. I finally got a picture of a herb paris (Paris quadrifolia) flower – it doesn’t look like a flower the way you normally think flowers look like, but it’s beautiful none the less.

We did some more sightseeing and a little bit of photography (including my failed attempt at catching a dragonfly on sensor), and then it was time to start driving home. Not without detours though, so we stopped at the Hållberget viewpoint and found that the smoke from the forest fires in northern Hälsingland had reached this far, so there was no chance of seeing the Sånfjället mountain this time.

The sun was starting to set by now, but we had time to make another small detour to take a look at the Högforsen rapids. I’ve been there many times, but I’ve never taken any pictures – either I can’t find a good composition, or the light is wrong, or whatever, but it just hasn’t worked for me. I didn’t even bother to take the camera with me, so imagine my surprise when we got to the rapids and saw the setting sun cast its last rays on the water! We half ran back to the car to get the gear, and finished the day with a good photography session.

As for the picture, it’s a pseudo-HDR creation. There was no chance to get the sky and the water exposed in the same frame, so I bracketed and installed the Photomatix trial to see what it can make of the images. Total crap, that’s what – possibly because I can’t use the software, and possibly because I just don’t like the look of a full HDR, not with this image anyway (because I will admit that HDR looks good with some images I’ve seen). So I did it the old-fashioned way with luminosity masks, gradients and eraser with different opacity settings and I’m happy with the result – it looks more like something you could create in camera with a gradient filter so my conservative eyes accept it more easily than a full HDR which screams out “impossible”!

May had everything. Snowfall and summer heat! It started out fairly typically with the kind of temperatures you would expect, then on the 10 of May we got over 20°C and it looked like summer was early. Not so – it started snowing on the 14th and kept falling on and off until the 18th. The highest the snow cover we ever got was 15 cm on the morning of the 16th and despite the continuous snowfall, the temperature was just above freezing so the snow mostly just melted off faster than it fell down. Thus it was gone after only two days. As if to compensate for this back winter, the temperatures soared up during the last week of May so the month finished off with some real summer heat.

Some other notable dates:

• 6th: the Dåasen lake completely free of ice
• 9th: first blueberry flowers, lily of the valley buds, mouse ears on birches
• 10th: the big pile of snow behind my house is gone
• 14th: first rainbow of the year
• 16th: the snow meter reaches 15 cm in the morning
• 24th: all snow (including the new pile behind the house) is gone

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Temperature (High): 24°C
Temperature (Low): -1°C
Temperature (Average): 11°C

Barometer (High): 1024 mbar
Barometer (Low): 1004 mbar
Barometer (Avg): 1015 mbar

Total of sunny days: 4

Snow cover (High): 11 cm
Snow cover (Low): 0 cm
Snow cover (Avg): 1 cm
New snow: 11 cm*
Days with snowfall: 5

Rain: 33 mm
Days with rain: 9

* That’s the official measurement in the evening. We got a lot more snow than that, but since it melted off quickly it didn’t register in the meter.

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2007
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February 2008
March 2008
April 2008