Sep 9
Rainbows
I have a vacation again – the last of my summer vacation. When I left, the weather was actually nice and summery, but when I got to Strömsund and turned west towards Gäddede, I was met by increasing wind and dark clouds. I don’t mind the rain, but the wind was really bad – there were times I was sure the trees would snap at any moment.
The vacation plan is to stay overnight in Gäddede, drive north via Stekenjokk (Vildmarksvägen, the Wilderness Road) and then turn east and cross over to Luleå for the night. And on Friday, all the way from Luleå to Savonlinna in Finland. A lot of driving and quite a de-tour to get to Finland, but I’ve never been in this corner of Sweden so I figured that now was to time to drive the Wilderness Road.
Photographically speaking, the today’s main target was the Hällingsåfallet waterfall near Gäddede. Initially when I got there and saw the falls, I was disappointed. Now matter which viewpoint I checked, there absolutely no way at all get the falls in the frame without getting the bridges and trails and guard rails as well. In fact, it was hard enough to get the whole falls in the frame, at all… my widest angle wasn’t wide enough. A moot point in any case. But then I decided to ignore the waterfall completely – the secret of success is adaptability and there were other things to shoot than just the falls. And it seemed like the sun agreed with my decision, because it came out and revealed a glorious rainbow across the canyon, born in the mists of the waterfall! That’s all the opportunity I needed and I was a happy camper. The inclement weather added some spice to the sky, and even the wind wasn’t quite that bad here so the rig stayed steady during the exposures.
When I left the falls and drove towards Gäddede, there were rainbows everywhere, this time born out of rain. When I saw a good op and stopped to shoot it, I really strugged to keep the camera steady – not because my hands were not steady, but because my body wasn’t! That’s how the wind was.
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I’m posting this from my little Powerlessbook, I hope the pictures are ok (they look a bit iffy on my screen). I’ve processed them like I normally do but this machine is really not ideal for image processing! I’ll fix them when I get home if needed.
5 comments
First one is really really impressive, second one is not bad either, just not as impressive as the first pic here
To comment all 3 posts at one time – very nice pics you got there! I am purely jealous
Thank you!
Can’t wait to get home to see them on a proper monitor… and spend hours on PP, lol. I have a lot of HDRs that I didn’t even dare to try on this little Powerbook, so I will probably post some more pics from the trip next week.
The second picture is more for illustration purposes, I did a lot of HDRs that day so I didn’t have anything better to post (yet).
Yes, the 1st one is awesome! Did you have any moisture issues there?
Thank you!
Actually the spray wasn’t as bad as you’d expect. I had protected the camera with the Stormjacket and occasionally had to wipe out some drops from the front element of the lens, but all in all the spray was mostly confined in the canyon. Just had to watch out for the gusts of wind that blew the spray around!
Add some salt in the water spray and say hello to our coast conditions
Cleaning salt water from front element is pain..