The Quiet Picture

After all the hyping I’ve done about the lesser butterfly orchid, I’m almost afraid to show the picture – risk for an anti-climax! But here’s the deal. I wanted to get a good close-up – a real macro, in fact – of the flower and the long spur. But showing the flower and its spur would require a side view and I don’t think it works, so the option was to find two flowers where one is shown from front and then the other one only by its spur. I was going to get all the petals in the frame but accidentally pushed the camera too close and got this “clipped” version and liked it, so I figured it’s worth trying. The question is, does the oof spur carry the dead space on the left or is this just weird? I have versions where all the petals are in, as I originally intended.

I have another idea I need to try with these orchids, but it requires that I go to another location and I didn’t feel like walking that far (uh… less than 1 km) in the oppressive heat. Instead, I drove to my favourite bog to see how all the other orchids were coming along, and was pleasantly surprised. For example, two weeks ago I didn’t see any early marsh orchid buds but now the place was suddenly dotted purple with them, certainly more of them than I’ve ever seen here. But the most exciting discovery by far – a common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii)! Many times I’ve seen heath spotted orchids (Dactylorhiza maculata) here which are very close to the commons but this is the first time I’m sure. I’ve mentioned it before, there is a very fuzzy line where heath (maculata) ends and common (fuchsii) begins. The biologists can’t even agree if they’re a different species at all… but that makes orchids all the more interesting. They are a relative new-comer in the plant world and are evolving right in front of our eyes!

I left relatively early to catch the morning sun in a panoramic spot I discovered the other day. It was windier than anticipated though, but I took the pictures anyway because the scenery is a little bit unusual – the only place along this road between Funäsdalen and Ljungdalen where you can see the Sylarna mountains. I only know of one other road in this region where they can be seen (and I didn’t actually even realise that until later today when I drove past).

And then to Mittåkläppen. Since I’ve now given up on flower photography because the season is too early for them, I wanted to concentrate on scenery instead. There are a lot of mountain pastures around Mittåkläppen, so I picked a trail which leads past a few of them. It’s important to be there before noon, because the “backside” of the Mittåkläppen mountain becomes shaded around noon and I didn’t want that for my pictures. The only shade I had to worry now was the clouds and at one point I waited for an hour for the clouds to disappear. It really tried my patience… I mean, it was sunny all the way to the freakin’ Helags in the distance, but just not where my camera was aimed!

Having done my hike, I rewarded myself with a waffle at Djupdalsvallen. It’s their first day of the season, but the waffle was as good as ever! Walking around the place, I saw these marsh marigold in full bloom and the scene was just begging to be photographed. I waited until late afternoon and in order to pull off the composition, I needed something wider than the 24mm on my zoom lens (plus crop factor, of course). So I tried stitching, I wasn’t sure if it would work because I was so close to the flowers, but ICE didn’t have any problems with it!

I also did some scouting. Found a nice place, or rather, I finally stopped at this nice place I’ve driven past countless times… a small tarn with a great view towards to Skarsfjället. But it was too windy to make use of it today, in fact, it was too windy to make use of any of the ideas I had, because all of them had water in them! And then there was also a bank of clouds coming up from the west, which means that all the views towards Mittåkläppen were washed out. I decided that I’ve done enough for the day, with these clouds coming up the evening light won’t happen either.

Going home tomorrow, the butterfly orchids will be open by now… and then back to the mountains later in the week again.

A little bit sick of the heat and the mosquitos, I decided to drive to Röros today. Even if it’s warm, there are normally no mosquitos in towns and then of course there are all those cafes so you can sit down and have an ice-cream if it gets too hot.

It turned out to be good decision, because I thoroughly enjoyed my time. When I arrived it was early afternoon, I couldn’t resist taking pictures even if the light wasn’t ideal. But one thing to remember is that the all the buildings won’t be sunlit all day, so sometimes you had to take the harsher light to get any sunlight at all, and some buildings are only sunlit in the afternoon. Which means that you can walk around the town, and then walk around it again, and always find something with good light on. I finished after 6pm, and only had a few short breaks so it was a lot of walking around the town, small as the town may be. I think I caught the town in ideal conditions, sunny and warm with a few fluffy clouds in the sky to decorate the pictures. I’ve wanted to do this for a couple of years now and I couldn’t have picked a better time, there was honestly not a single thing I would’ve wished was different. I had a genuine holiday feeling even if my feet were killing me in the evening, but I’d much rather have tired feet than a tired head after a day in the office!

Time to concentrate on the main thing – flowers. Considering the slow progress of all flowers in Loos, I figured there was a risk that I wouldn’t find anything interesting (read: orchids) in the mountains. And I was right, the best I could find all day was some lapland marsh orchids which were in the first stages of opening. I also visited Torkilstöten, which is a reknowned floral hotspot, but summer is always late there. Today, the coltsfoot were blooming at their best… and the mountain avens were barely even budding. Plenty of snow, though.

The mosquitos are turning out to be a real nuisance. This is why I’d prefer cooler weather – it’s easy to wear protective clothing, but in this heat, it’s only a choice between bad or worse. Grin and bear. The option is to stay at home and do nothing.

The afternoon hike took me to a lake in Anådalen, on the map it seemed like the lake would be a nice foreground to some mountains. Alas, it wasn’t at all like I had imagined, but now I know. One to check off the list. I did find something else nice though, ironically, just a few hundred meters from the road…

During my late evening session, I suddenly came across a pair of cranes, walking around in a marsh. It would be just perfect as a foreground for the mountain, so I took out the camera… and found that it was stuck on aperture 16. No matter what I did, take out the battery, memory card and lens, it refused to budge. The wheel itself was ok, I was able to use it to change other settings. But not aperture. Dang! The cranes are getting further and further away while I’m trying to figure it out… then it hits me. In the previous session I had assigned the focus point selection to the wheel, because I couldn’t make the joystick select the middle point. And by doing this, I seemed to have disabled the wheel for aperture, a very useful function – not! – who on earth needs that? At this point, I finally realised what had happened. It must’ve started as an accident – the focus point selection custom function was reset so that I couldn’t use the joystick to select the point like I’m used to. But I couldn’t remember which option it was in the menu, so I had to do some testing, but the testing was spoiled by a brain fart. I had forgotten that in order to select the centre point, you just press the joystick. And because I had been in desperate need of the centre point, I had gone for the next best thing which was the wheel, without realising the consequences. By the time I had all of this sorted out, with correct exposure settings and focus point, the cranes had moved away almost too far but it was still worth trying. Click… and huh? I still had mirror lock-up on!!

What did I learn from this? That accidents and brain farts will happen!

First the G10 and now the 40D… my EOS 3 is not giving me any trouble, I’m loving film at the moment…

Yesterday I visited the real estate agents that are selling the land I’m interested in. My first offer was rejected, and after a couple of days of consideration I upped the offer. I got a call back an hour later – they said yes! Wow… I’ll be a landowner!

This morning I popped in at the real estate agents’ and sign the papers. So now it’s official – well, other than the minor detail where I part ways with a humongous sum of money. And this is just the land… the idea is to build a cabin, too! Yikes, what did I get myself into?

I’ve no special plans for this year’s vacation – just mountains. I started with a de-tour to Klövsjö, I wanted to check out the Fettjeåfallet waterfall. It was a sunny day so not really ideal for waterfalls, but at least I’d get to see the place. It’s a relatively short hike – about 2 km – but very rocky. But there’s also plenty to photograph along the way, and it’s this “along the way” that makes Fettjeåfallet one of the better waterfalls I’ve seen.

I had made the radical decision of taking the film camera (and the G10) on this excursion. The contrasty light in the forest is a nightmare for any camera so every time I wanted a picture I waited for a cloud to drift in. With the G10, I was able to use bracketing for HDR. And I must say I struggled a great deal with that. Every single time I’m on the field and need the bracketing function, I forget how to use it! And what kills me is that it’s not difficult, but I just can’t remember the combination of buttons to press. Because there’s that bracketing function, I can set it, I can even choose the interval… but the darn camera totally ignores my settings. So I’m missing some crucial last step in the process. Which leaves me doing manual bracketing, which takes too long, when the clouds are moving fast and thus changing the conditions of shadows and light in the composition. When I get home, I’ll have to check the manual and write down some notes and put them in the bag. I refuse to let a compact camera beat me.

But the film camera then. Not enough functions to get confused! The only custom function I need is the mirror lockup, but just in case, I carry the manual in the bag. You know, the good old days when you actually got a hardcopy of the manual. When I was walking back to the car, I was wondering why I’m not a least bit bothered about whether or not the slides will be any good. All too easy to botch the exposure in these conditions, and I didn’t even bracket. And I realised – the final picture is not that important! I’ve always said that the journey is more important than the goal, and it truly is. Good pictures are just a bonus. Sweet!

I’ll be off on a short holiday now, probably no Internet access. I will be able to send tweets from my mobile though, my latest tweet can be seen here in the blog lower down in the right margin. Now you’ll be wondering why on earth I have Twitter when hardly anyone is reading this blog either, but I figured it would be nice to have – I can update it from my mobile so I can send tweets about my whereabouts. In case I fall down and hit my head and can’t call anyone, the latest tweet will tell the rescue patrol approximately where I am. Provided that anyone reads this blog, anyway, because I forgot to tell anyone in person that this is my new safety line. LOL!

Had one last look at the lesser butterfly orchids. They are finally starting to open, but out of the 21 individuals that I found (11 of them about 100 meters from my house, I think this is a new location for them, very exciting!), 2 were in full bloom and the rest were varying degrees of buds. So I can stop worrying now, there will be butterfly orchids left for me to photograph even when I come back from my vacation. The reason I’m making such a big deal out of them is that I haven’t photographed them with the 150mm macro yet, and then there’s the fact that they are just so beautiful! What more reason do I need?

The heath spotted orchids are also starting to bloom. It’s the most common orchid in this region, but I’ll never be blasé about any orchid!

Take 1

When I set out northbound, I saw some very dark clouds ahead of me. Otherwise it was sunny, so I figured it was just showers and drove on. I ignored the rain, but when the hail started pounding the windshield, I turned back.

But I was right, it was just a shower. I waited it out at home, decided to dress for rainy weather anyway and set out again.

Take 2

Same road, same direction. When I got there, the raining had already stopped and now it was blue skies all around. The lovely overcast weather had been replaced by a harsh noon light… I worked around it by playing with shadows and light. The bog rosemary was blooming at its best so the timing was right in that sense anyway. When I was almost done with my session, I heard the thunder in the distance. Very dark clouds in the north. I headed home to wait it pass.

I didn’t need the rainy weather clothes though. Even if the day is on the cool side, the sun is very very warm and you don’t want to be wearing rain gear…

Take 3

The thunder storm never made it all the way to Loos but the rain did. And hail. Once the sky started clearing, I set out again, but in a different direction this time. Last week the butterfly orchids had looked like they would be blooming this weekend, but they didn’t. The cold weather had effectively frozen them, I didn’t see any difference to last week’s status.

So I thought maybe the early marsh orchids then. They were already blooming last weekend, so that would be one in the bag. I was trying to find photogenic individuals – no problem with finding individuals, but the photogenic aspect was too much to ask. All early marsh orchids in this location were very small and setting them clear from the grasses would’ve been impossible so I didn’t even try.

I also had a look at the twayblade. No progress from last Sunday.

I gave up.

Take 4

I drove home and when I parked the car, I noticed that the pansies that had mysteriously appeared next to my garage were still blooming and the colours were incredible. I normally don’t photograph garden plants but these pansies were runaways, there’s no way anyone would’ve planted them here. So I focused as close the 150mm macro allowed me, and still had to do some cropping to fill the frame… but I got what I was after. I’ve always wanted to try this with violets, but the wild ones are too small. Pansies however, big enough to pull this off without using extension tubes.

Come to think of it, I might as well have stayed home all day. I can see the pansies from my living room window…

It’s midsummer. What better way to use the day off than walk around a bog, in rain, looking for orchids and other plants? Well I couldn’t think of anything better anyway. And I mean that quite seriously!

The result was 7 individuals of early marsh orchid ssp. cruenta and about a dozen of early marsh orchid. You’d think that it’s not a lot and it actually isn’t, not for this large area that we covered. But I think that it’s part of the charm of these excursions, when you finally find one of those rare flowers it’s always a delight. If our bogs and forests were covered with orchids, then there wouldn’t be a need to search. And without searching, there wouldn’t be finding. And without searching and finding… where’s the joy?

What was a little bit surprising is that all the early marsh orchids we found (of either kind), none were blooming yet. The cold weather has slowed down the development considerably, so while in early June it seemed like all the flowers were about a week early, they now seem to be a week late instead.

One orchid that was blooming at its best though was the lesser twayblade (Listera cordata). It’s a very small flower and easy to miss where it’s growing among the grasses and mosses and whatnot in the forest. But once you get your eye trained on it, it seems to be popping up everywhere. The individual flowers are tiny – the stem is about 10-15 cm tall, so those flowers are just a few millimeters.

If yesterday was bad, then today was in even worse. More rain, more wind, and more cold. No point in taking the big camera today either, so I was travelling light with the G10 again. We found lots more orchids and a rare fern as well, but because orchids are closer to my heart than ferns, then the discovery that probably meant the most to me was the early marsh orchid ssp. cruenta. There are two known locations of this orchid around Loos and although I’ve seen it in several places in the mountains, it’s just simply different to see it here. It also completes one orchid landmark for me – I’ve now seen all the native orchids in Loos here in Loos.

And then there was this really rare orchid I found. It’s the only known individual of its kind – the triblade (Listera trivata)!

(Yes the last one is a bit of a botanists’ inside joke.)