The Quiet Picture

Yesterday was about as un-interesting as it gets, photographically speaking. Today would’ve been ever worse, so a visit to the zoo was just the ticket to lift up the weekend. I was hoping to get some pictures of the wolves, it’s almost three years since from my last wolf pictures and that’s just too long for my favourite animals.

Since the snow was looking rather ugly with the recent weather, I figured that I should use the 1.4 teleconverter to be able to isolate the animals from the background. When I was at the wolf enclosure, I discovered quickly that 300mm times crop sensor times TC equals too much reach – I could barely fit the animals in the frame! The first wolf pose is full frame and it’s tight. So I removed the TC and framing was easier, although that 300mm x crop sensor can still be a bit much. Especially when you meet friendly wolverines who’ll happily come right up to you to check if it’s a taste bit of meat or a camera in my hand. Since I had very little margin for composition error, I managed clip off the tips of the tail hairs of the sitting wolverine. I had to do some serious post-editing to add some pixels on the left and then try to fake the tail end. I can see it’s fake, but I’m not sure if it’s so obvious when you don’t know what was done?

At feeding time, the keeper was kind enough to put a piece of meat on a branch of the pine. I just had time to flip the camera vertically but it when it came down to it, I failed with it again – just couldn’t fit the fully stretched wolverine in the frame. This one worked because the tail is hidden, although to be honest the face suffers a little bit of motion blur. But I just can’t delete my only tree climbing wolverine picture!

All in all a nice visit in good company, the pictures aren’t stellar but at least I learned that I do not need to use the teleconverter in Järvzoo!

I’m getting tired of the local trails in Loos, so I drove to Hamra today. The snowmobile trails go in three directions from Hamra: west towards Västbacka, south towards Malungshed and north to Västersjö, where the trail branches towards Tandsjöborg and Loos. I was interested in the Västersjö trail, because it crosses over some marshland and that normally means photographic potential. I even took my SLR with me today, after only using the compact camera since December. Turned out to be a good call because the trail was nice, the landscape was just as snowy as I had hoped for and the trip was great!

Things are looking up. It has been snowing all day and once for a change the wind is not messing up the landscape, so it is starting to look really nice. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s skiing trip, but it wasn’t half bad today either. If I was drenched in freezing rain last week, today I was drenched in sticky snow. Wonderful!

It was -4 degrees when I left today. As I was putting my skis on, I heard something dropping on my jacket and a closer look revealed that it was rain. In -4 degrees? I was sure it would stop soon and turn to snow instead, but obviously I have no weather forecasting skills because the raining just intensified during my trip. After a while my glasses were covered with drops and I could barely see where I was going so finding anything photographable was a bit difficult. I made a few efforts but mostly I just concentrated on seeing where I was going. And when I wiped the glasses, I found that those drops were not even water – it was ice. I looked at my jacket and saw that it was frozen in every spot that didn’t benefit from my body heat… and every spot of clothing that did benefit from my body heat was just wet. Even my hair was frozen! You’d think it would be really uncomfortable to ski in those conditions but it wasn’t actually half bad. The skis were gliding really well and because I was wearing the right kind of clothing, it didn’t feel as wet as it really was. Interesting trip.

Note to self: You have one-day contact lenses for days like these… use them!

If I had used a slightly warmer WB in this picture, it would be exactly like a greyscale – I tested in Lightroom and when I flipped the greyscale option on and off, there was absolutely no change. But I decided to leave it in colour and just a little bit on the cold side, it was a cold day. Not too cold for skiing though and the best part of it was that I discovered that the snow has hardened enough to carry me on my skis. I still sink a little bit (I had to push myself down a hill!) but it’s definitely doable now. Brilliant.

Did a long skiing trip today, over 16 km (which qualifies as a long trip for me). I’m calling this the “three lakes trail” because it crosses over three lakes (Älgsjön, Råtjärnen and Öratjärnen), it’s the same trip I did last week but this time I extended it a little bit to explore the trail that branches off towards Hamra from Råtjärnen. It was very cold in the morning so I waited almost until noon before I left, when the temperature was more tolerable. The trip turned out to be very uneventful until the last lake which was troublesome to cross. It seems like the ice is worse here than on the other lakes and all the snowmobiles had torn up the snow to reveal the water underneath. In this cold temperature the water had frozen, so I had to choose between destroying my skis on the rough ice, or ski in the soft snow and risk sinking in the water myself. I was a little bit nervous about it to be honest, but it was fine in the end.

Although I was a little bit disappointed that I didn’t have any photo ops during the way, it turned out to be a good thing actually. Because of my late start, it was already getting dark by the time I was heading home, so had I spent some time on shooting I would have had trouble seeing the trail in the last stretch. I only took some pictures just before Ryggskog after 11 km of skiing and the light was already fading then. But at least I didn’t come home with an empty memory card!

It has been snowing quite a lot but the wind has also been quite heavy, so the landscape is once again not looking as nice as I would hope for. But that doesn’t stop me from going skiing of course, it just means that it’s harder to find any good pictures. I had a really nice trip today, even if it was more like walking with skis on rather than actual skiing, with what all the new snow on the trails.

As much as I like the snow, I do have one problem with it – it’s too soft. It has been cold since November, so there are no layers in the snow. It’s soft all the way through and the only way to transport myself off-road is by following the snowmobile trails where the snow is packed. Step outside the trail and you’ll be treading at least knee deep, it’s impossible to make any meaningful progress like that. What we really need right now is a few days of temperatures above freezing, and maybe even a little bit of rain, to compact the snow and then create a solid crust on it. Until that happens, my skiing is restricted to the trails and it won’t be long until I will be bored by them. I have about four different options for my trips, and I normally do two trips every weekend… you do the math. The conditions don’t change fast enough to make every trip interesting, but having said that, I’m really enjoying the skiing!

I uploaded a bunch of new pictures on minnak.net. Some of them are familiar for the blog readers, but many of them are unpublished so please feel free to click through the galleries!

When I go hiking or skiing, I like to do a loop and there’s a couple of loops around here that are only accessible during winter.

The other one is too long for snowshoes and I only did it a couple of times on skis and to be honest, I’ve no idea why I did it the second time. If your feet are hurting after 3 km of skiing and there’s 10 km left, a normal person would turn back. Me, I just adjusted the tape around my heel and pushed on. I wish I could call it Finnish sisu but I’ll just have to plead insanity instead. The thing is, skiing uphill hurts the most and I knew that I would have 1 km of skiing uphill before reaching Ryggskog. It wasn’t pleasant, trust me.

Fast forward to present day then. My blister problem has been solved and this longer loop was available to me again. The only problem was the lakes – there are three of them to cross and I knew that there is a lot of water on the ice and I don’t like getting my feet wet. So I was putting my hopes on the snowmobiles to pave the way for me, because when the snow is removed, the water will freeze. Sure enough, this is exactly what I got – frozen tracks all the way across the lakes. But I had to be careful to not step outside the track because I would sink instantly; occasionally I when I would stick my pole on the side it came up covered with slush.

I had hoped for some sunny weather on this trip but the cloud cover was rather persistent. I didn’t mind though, I just made the most of the few opportunities I found. I had set out around lunchtime and I had calculated that I would be close to home by sunset, the idea was that if the sunset was going to be any good, I had a chance of catching it. It turned out that my timing was impeccable, the sun was indeed setting when I was almost back in the village and by some amazing strike of luck, the sun finally peaked out between the clouds right then. I was able to catch the last rays, but the sunset as a whole wasn’t anything interesting. I had to settle with the satisfaction of having done this loop without suffering any pains. And I can tell you, that counts for a lot!