The Quiet Picture

In the previous post I claimed that our lakes are too small to create any real wave action to allow smoothing out the water with long exposures. Well, sometimes it pays to challenge the conclusions I jump into without having any real facts at hand, so today I headed to one of my favourite locations (or as I decided after I came back, the favourite location) while the wind was blowing at its best. I was right on the money about the one second shutter speed though, but I was able to go slower by overexposing to the point of blowing out the highlights and trusting Lightroom to recover them for me (which it did).

So, the discovery I made about the waves is that size doesn’t matter. All you need is a long enough shutter speed to smooth out whatever kind of waves are going about. But today’s exercise wasn’t really about the waves though, because I was more interested to see if I could get the reeds – or grass – to blur out. So all I needed was some fixed point (a rock will do nicely) and then a lot of grass. And would you know – it worked! Lesson learned, I only wish I had tried this before.

I mentioned that this place is now my #1 favourite. It’s good for flowers and landscape and works in any kind of weather, and today I found out that if I had the patience and/or inclination, I could even try wildlife photography there. I saw something in the water, it could swim and dive and it wasn’t a bird. Could I be so lucky that it was an otter? Or maybe a beaver. Or maybe it was something smaller, it was too quick to make it out properly. In any case, it didn’t make this place look any worse in my eyes!

Since it was a windy day yesterday, I wanted to try some long exposures with wind blown objects. I had just the place in mind, a lake with a small island and a rickety old bridge inbetween. It was overcast weather and quite dark, so the polariser and ND8 filters stacked gave me a whopping 25 sec exposure at f16. I was a bit surprised to see the result – the water surface is smooth, but there wasn’t quite as much movement in the reeds as I had expected. The biggest problem with this whole concept is of course that the wind doesn’t pick up speed in these small corners quite the same way it would do in more open spaces. For example if I wanted to smooth out some serious wave action – which I’ve wanted to do for years now – we just don’t get that here. Small lakes.

When I was driving back I noticed that the sky was opening up in the west, just perfect for sunset. It turned out to be just as fine as I had hoped for and I took a whole lot of pictures, although having said that, I was also bracketing with HDR in mind. So many pictures in fact that I had no chance of processing them last night, thus a belayed post. Photomatix had a lot of trouble with these images though, it helped with the sky but the reflection in the water was a nightmare. Completely oversaturated and way too bright in relation to the sky (the reflection is always darker than the thing that is being reflected). So I took the Photomatix HDR creation to Photoshop and added a reflection from one of the original images, then erased with low opacity to reveal just a little bit of the saturated colour in the HDR beneath.

I had hoped to get some more long exposure wind pictures today, but not sure how it will work out now that it’s sunny. The pol and ND filters won’t kill enough light, one second is probably an optimistic target. I’m thinking about getting another ND8 filter for these occasions… I wish there was an ND12 or ND16 though, because I don’t like the idea of stacking three filters. Vignetting is not an issue because I’m using a crop factor camera, but that’s a lot of extra glass in front of the lens. I guess I just have to make sure it’s quality glass, so the Hoya Pro-1 ND8 will probably be in the shopping cart shortly!

The road I take to work runs in east-west direction, so now in the autumn (and again in the spring) I get the morning sun in the face when I drive to work, and setting sun when I drive home. It can create some dangerous moments when the sun completely blinds you so you can’t see where you’re driving, but it can also provide some very beautiful moments like this morning mist which was coloured orange by the rising sun. I stopped the car and started to look for some more photogenic spots than the road and luckily there’s marshland on both sides of the road at this place. So there I was, running around the half frozen bog with my feet getting increasingly wet while I was desperately trying to get the same light on the fog as what I saw on the road.

I couldn’t find any more orange mist, but I did catch the play of light. Good thing I had left home earlier than usual, I had a hunch that the morning would turn out photogenic. And you won’t find me skipping around bogs at 7am during weekends anyway!

(These images are actually from yesterday morning. I had an image processing backlog (for some strange reason) and didn’t get around to these until now.)

Since I had such a productive week last week, I dedicated a whole gallery to the pictures I took during my holiday in the mountains. Some of the them are already familiar from the blog, but most of them are new. It’s not possible to comment directly in the gallery, but this blog post is open for commenting…!

EDIT 2009-08-27: I’ve removed the Autumn 08 gallery referred to here, and moved the pictures to other galleries (Autumn, Mountains and Waterfalls).

For years I’ve been looking at the Rogen Nature Reserve on my map. The region is filled with lakes in all kinds of exciting shapes and sizes and I’ve been wondering what they would look like in real life. Today was the day I was finally going to go there and see it for myself.

But a lot of things were happening before Rogen. Say for example, how about a sunrise with clear skies and clouds of mist clinging to the mountain? Yes, that ticks all the boxes so I hurried up to the nearest peak (which is just a few minutes easy hike away from the Skarvruet hostel I was staying at) and marvelled at the landscape. At first I thought that I was missing the mist, then it came back, and then went away again, and the next moment I was engulfed by it. What an amazing thing. And all the while this mysterious – or mischievous – mist was playing with the landscape, I was playing with the camera.

When I finally had had enough eye candy, I drove to the Rogen Nature Reserve. The hike to the actual lake of Rogen is 10 km and I didn’t want to squeeze a return trip in one day, but I had seen on the map that I could get to see some of the lake formations much closer, an easy 3 km hike and then back. It turned out that Rogen had more eye candy to spare – I was absolutely charmed by the place. The area is fairly flat and the few mountains that stick out are quite low, but you do get to see some higher mountains in the distance. And if any proof was needed, then this was a generous reminder that you do not need mountains for spectacular landscapes anyway. The first part of the trail (about 1.5 km) takes you through a mountain type forest with birches and pines. Then you get to the first big lake and soon after that, an exciting ridge with lakes on both sides, kind of like a miniature version of the Punkaharju ridge in Finland (most Finns should be able to relate to that). So as you follow this ridge, photo opportunities are all around. I had plenty of them, and with a little less wind I would’ve had even more. But with the stiff wind, it wasn’t really ideal for lake photography although I’m not complaining.

If you ever have a few hours to spare when passing Tännäs, visit Rogen. You won’t regret it. In the unlikely case that you do regret it, send me hate mail. I want to know what kind of a person would not like nature at its best.

Since the day had been as good as it had, I didn’t want it to end yet. I decided to take the road south from Tännäs and then drive through to Lofsdalen to Linsell. This route is many times more scenic than 84 and I was happy to discover that they had finally fixed the road so it wasn’t nearly as bumpy as it had been. Regardless, you want to drive slowly so you don’t miss any of the scenery!

* * *

Can a holiday be any better than this had been? My senses were filled with impressions and I even had to switch off the CD player in the car because I had been listening to silence so long that the music felt like an intrusion. So I sat in the car, with my thoughts on the experiences and adventures from the past week and a big smile on my face. Life is good.

I woke up early to catch the morning light, only it turned out that I might as well have slept in. Once again there was enough clouds in the sky to make photography just one long exercise in patience and I really broke my record while I waited for light to fall on both my foreground and background. And when it finally did, some high cloud had started to build up so the sky behind the whole thing was milky white. An hour thus wasted, I relocated myself to another mountain and found a great spot. Except, just as I had set up my tripod and camera, the light disappeared again. I waited half an hour and never got more than partial sunlight on my subject, so it was just as well that my photographer friends arrived and released me from the misery.

There are still a lot places in the Funäsdalen mountains that I haven’t discovered, but I’m getting more familiar with the area after every visit. It’s nice to be able to share that knowledge with other photogs, although it would’ve been a whole lot nicer if we had had the light with us today. Nothing wrong with the places we visited (I hope), but when the light fails like it did today, you’re left stretching your photographic skills to make anything out of it. I don’t mind overcast weather with proper clouds, and sunlight works fine, but this high cloud that blocks the blue sky and half the sunlight… for me it’s just about the worst possible.

In the evening we went to the sunset location I had found on Thursday. We were hoping against hope that the clouds would part enough to give us some colour, but for a long time it looked like my only keeper from that outing was a photo of a juniper root. Then when we were almost back at the car, we found that the wind had completely died and we had a mirror calm lake in front of us. Light was starting to fade, but we suddenly had wonderful opportunities to play with reflections, form and shape on the calm water. And then at last – colour! The last rays of the sun managed to colour the clouds red, but it was more like an ironic reminder of what could’ve been than any real sunset. We had to laugh while quickly scrambling for a last ditch attempt at catching the light. I think I prefer the juniper root…

I found a new waterfall favourite – the Livsäterån creek. I didn’t have much of an idea of what to expect, except that I had read that it was a scenic creek with some waterfalls. As it turned out, it was absolute and pure bliss for a waterfall photographer! The weather had turned out just as forecast, overcast with some light drizzle. Perfect. And although at first I thought that there was very little water in the creek (not much rain lately), it was actually quite nice in the end – sometimes less is more. So I hiked down the creek with frequent photo stops, and then up again. At first I used the polariser filter but then I thought that I should try some longer exposures, so I added the ND8. Silky smooth water is not everybody’s cup of tea, but I love it. So what I thought would be a quick trip took no less than 5 hours, of which only about an hour was spent on walking to the creek and back. Time really does fly when you’re having fun!

I had originally planned to continue with waterfall photography at another location, but I figured I had pretty much had my waterfall fix by now so I just took to the road leading to Flatruet, hoping to catch some autumn colours in afternoon/evening light now that the sun was starting to break out. It was still very patchy light though, blink and you’ll miss it, so by the time I got the camera ready the light was already way gone. Then when I was nearly giving up hope, the clouds cleared enough to give me a proper opportunity and I made full use of it. It was still patchy light, but that just adds mood to the picture.

Such a brilliant day, this is what I dreamt about when I booked my holiday!

My holiday is by no means over yet. I had a day of rest at home, but now I’m heading to Funäsdalen until Sunday. I’m not planning to do any extensive hiking – 54 km earlier this week will suffice for exercise – but I guess it’s inevitable that I will be walking at least a little bit in search of the best compositions.

A few years ago I found a spot to photograph Mittåkläppen. It’s really actually a morning location, but the mountainside was still lit when I arrived at noon-ish. Unfortunately the light was very fleeting so after a few efforts I gave up, hoping that the sun would show itself on Saturday morning which I’ve originally planned for this photo (tomorrow will be overcast/rainy).

After some scouting (found a nice spot for afternoon light) I went to Djupdalsvallen to get the waffle I’ve been dreaming about. Yes I have a thing about these waffles, and so would you, if you ever had a waffle at Djupdalsvallen. It’s special.

I had hoped for the light to happen in the meanwhile, but no such luck. So I settled with more scouting, and it turned out to be very profitable indeed! I found some killer spots, just add light. There were a few patches of light here and there, actually, so I waited patiently (make that about 30 mins, that’s all the patience I can muster) but I never got both my foreground and background lit at the same time and looking at the cloud cover, it wasn’t going to improve. But I’ll be back for sure!

* * *

(This post is actually written on 21/9 when I arrived home – I have a whole lot of RAW files to sort through and process so it will take a while. I will add more backdated posts when I have the pictures ready.)

Since it had been a clear night, we now had frost on the ground. Once again I couldn’t resist it but got out with the camera while waiting for breakfast to be ready – now there’s another luxury for you. Wonderful!

We were out on the trail before 9am and the frost was still thick on the ground, but the boots held steady and we made quick progress with some frequent photo stops. It turned out that this 12 km stretch from Blåhammaren to Storulvån is actually the most scenic one of the Triangle. There are small tarns a-plenty, and once you start the descent from Blåhammarfjället towards the Ulvåtjärn wind shelter, the trail follows a lovely creek with numerous small waterfalls. Under the right conditions it would be absolute heaven for a waterfall enthusiast like myself, but now I had to just settle with seeing the potential as there wasn’t much water and I prefer my waterfalls in overcast conditions anyway, with just a touch of rain if possible. The creek is doable as a day hike from Storulvån… worth keeping in mind. After the halfway point (Ulvåtjärn wind shelter) the trail started following the tree line, providing all the more photo ops with beautiful autumn colours.

Before you think that we’ve done all this hiking without seeing any reindeer, here’s one – the grass was greener on the other side of the trail and the fella was a bit put off with us for getting in the way. He pretended not to care and butted heads with the juniper bush until he finally realised that he could circle around behind us for his chosen pastures. The mountain in the background is Getryggen, the one we climbed on Saturday.

If possible, the weather was even better today than yesterday. Maybe just a touch more wind, but warm enough in the sun. Hiking in the mountains just can’t get any better than this! Making reservations for a hike in September can be a risky business because there’s no telling what kind of weather you’ll get – three years ago I got a snowstorm, and when it hasn’t snowed it has rained. We got a lucky break and we enjoyed every minute of it, aching muscles and all!

When I woke up, the first thing I did was to take a look outside. When I saw the morning light on the mountain opposite the lodge, I just had to go out with the camera and get some quick pictures before breakfast. We wanted to get going early because the 19 km from Sylarna to Blåhammaren is the longest hike of Jämtlandstriangeln and we had made dinner reservations (yes, that’s right – dinner reservations) and despite all our calculations to assure ourselves that we wouldn’t have a problem with time, we still preferred a comfortable safety margin.

The first 3 km from Sylarna was down hill and we made quick time. The sky had completely cleared by then so now we had glorious blue skies all around and it was warm enough to peel off the jacket, it was just unbelievable to hike out there in the sunshine with hardly any wind at all. I ended up hanging my camera from my neck instead of tucking it in the backpack all the time, because I now had photo ops around every corner. Normally I don’t even like carrying the camera around my neck because it starts to ache quickly, but now I was able to wrap the OpTech strap around the backpack harness so that the weight was spread across my shoulders instead. Glad I got the strap, although I never thought I’d use it like this when I got it!

It turned out that the hike wasn’t nearly as hard as we thought it might be. Felt like the 19 km today were a lot easier than the 16 km yesterday and in a way it probably was so – the uphills were more gentle, the trail was smoother and our spirits lifted by the scenery around us. We got to Blåhammaren before 4pm so the problem wasn’t with making it in time for dinner, it was the idle time waiting for it!

Blåhammaren is the smallest of the mountain lodges in Sweden and it is located at an altitude of 1086 metres (making it the highest mountain lodge), but it has one more important claim to fame – dinner. Reputed to be a culinary experience with table seatings and introductions, of course we just had to try it. And excellent it was – a perfect way to finish the triangle (tomorrow’s trek is just the short 12 km to Storulvån and then a drive home) and well worth the visit just for the sake of it, as it seemed like a lot of people do. My only regret (albeit a very small one) was that I missed the moonrise which I had planned to photograph, but I did see it from the dining room window right where I was sitting. It probably wouldn’t have been any good anyway – too much light left in the sky so the full moon was too pale to make an impression. Sour grapes perhaps, but wonderful dinner.