The Quiet Picture

Sometimes when I’m on an excursion, I come back with pictures which share a common theme. It can be the subject matter or the style of photography, but you can see this thread quite clearly. The weather plays a big role on what kind of pictures I end up with, but other than that I haven’t considered myself to have a pre-conceived idea of what to do, with a few exceptions here and there (like the moonlight pictures earlier!). But when I looked at today’s crop of pictures, I started to wonder if the idea is there in the back of my mind anyway. I try to go out with an open mind so I can grab any opportunity that I come across, but I probably gravitate towards the kind of pictures I subconsciously decided I would do. It was very evident today, I took quite a lot of pictures (considering that the conditions weren’t the best possible), but when I saw them on the screen I ruthlessly deleted most of them and remaining pictures all follow the same theme – tree trunks in snow. Very simple, borderline abstract, and perfectly suited for the day. Subconscious pre-conception, adaptation to the conditions, or co-incidence? Not that it really matters… only the pictures do!

I had such a blast on Friday’s moonlight walk that I just had to do it again, even if the moon wasn’t quite full any more last night. I learned that the margins are very small when it comes to moonlight, and the moon phase is just one of the factors. There was a lot less light to go around last night, which meant that I had to make a lot of compromises with my exposures. When you’re shooting wide open and the longest shutter speed you can use is 20 secs (even that is too long, actually), the only thing left to change is the ISO and I really hate using a high ISO because the noise will be too evident in these low-light exposures.

So what had happened during just one day?

• Moon phase – 100% vs 97% full.
• Altitude of the moon – moonrise on Friday at 17:44, last night 19:28. When you’re out shooting at 22:00, it means that the moon is much lower in the sky.
• Clouds – it was clear skies on Friday, but now there was a little bit of high cloud which diffused the light.

This meant that I had no chance of taking pictures with such bright foregrounds as I did on Friday. At first I was a bit disappointed but looking at the pictures now, I think they worked out ok anyway. In a way they are more “natural” when the foreground doesn’t look like it’s the middle of the day. So maybe the light last night wasn’t any better or worse than on Friday – just different. But I can say one thing for sure, these late evening walks in the moonlight are just awesome, why didn’t I start doing them for a long time ago?

Thanks to the solar eruptions earlier this week, there was a fair chance of seeing some aurora. I was looking at the aurora forecast all evening yesterday but unfortunately it didn’t look like we would get any northern lights this far south. But since it was a full moon night and the snow cover was looking good, I decided to go for a walk anyway – if I didn’t see any aurora, I would still have all the stars and the moonlight on the snow. It was -20 degrees centigrade so I dressed up warmly, grabbed the snowshoes and set out. Walking through the snow, I was almost sweating under all the layers… even when I stopped to take some pictures, the cold didn’t bother me until I had been out for over an hour and spent more time on stopping and shooting than walking. But still, it was the camera battery that gave out first and I turned back home.

It is just amazing to be walking in the forest at night and not need a flashlight to see where you’re going. I’ve gotta do this again tonight!

My winter photography depends on the weather much more than other seasons. While it doesn’t matter if it’s sunshine or snowfall, the wind plays a big role and it’s not just for the current day. What I mean is that the forest is ugly after the wind strips the snow from the trees and until there is new snow to decorate the trees again, the scenery will continue to look less than photogenic. This means that a weekend can be very low on photography even when there’s nothing wrong with the current weather. Yesterday it was sunshine and today it was overcast with snowfall in the afternoon, both conditions work fine with me but the landscape just doesn’t inspire at all. But it seems like snowfall is better than sunshine and I actually managed to get a few frames today, nothing special of course but under the circumstances, I’m happy to get anything.

So the weekend was more about skiing instead. My goal was to do 30 km this weekend and unbelievably, I did it! This is a personal record. If I want to do anything more, I will either have to start training hard (not gonna happen!) or learn to take some breaks. You know, a sandwich and some coffee in a thermos. But I just don’t feel like doing that when I’m skiing around home so I push through without pauses, other than to snap the occasional picture. In the mountains though, now that’s another story. Going skiing in the mountains without a sandwich and coffee thermos is downright criminal!

I paid a quick visit to Messlingen yesterday, I had to check the cabin. In case you’re wondering why there hasn’t been any updates about it, it’s because I don’t want to talk about it! Trust me you’ll find out when it’s ready, I’m still hoping that one day it will be…

Anyway, I got some time left over for some skiing. I was going to the take the snowmobile trail but when I got there, a snowmobile just drove by so I waited for it to pass. But then it stopped and the driver told me that I shouldn’t ski on the trail because snowmobiles will be coming by at great speed. Huh, so what’s new?! You can hear the machines from a good distance, there’s plenty of time to stop and step aside and wait for them to pass like I always do. But no, this wasn’t good enough, I should only follow the ski trails and stay out of the way of the machines. Somewhat perplexed about this new information, I picked the closest ski trail and followed it as far up the mountain as it goes. At one point it crosses the snowmobile trail again and I saw a skier coming up on it. I waited for her and asked if it’s ok to follow the mobile trail and she confirmed what I thought all along that it is perfectly legal to follow the snowmobile trails on foot (allemansrätten!).

When you self-appoint yourself a police, the least you can do is to check the law before you start enforcing it!

If yesterday was bit of a grey day, then today it was blue skies galore. Just a few degrees minus, almost no wind, perfect snow, and the sun was already warm on my face. Just perfect. It felt so good that I did a few km extra just for the joy of it. And imagine, it will only get better now. There’s plenty to look forward to in March!