The Quiet Picture

After all the warm weather last weekend, I’m having a hard time figuring out what to wear now. It’s not as warm but the sun is shining, so do I need the middle layer or not? I decided to have faith in the sun and left out the middle layer and I was very nearly freezing. The wind isn’t helping. It didn’t help me when I tried to shoot the young birch leaf either, the branches were dancing like crazy and I had to hold the branch with one hand and shoot with the other. The Sigma 150mm macro is not made for one-handed shooting, let me assure you… but the shutter speed was fast enough to pull it off. More DOF would’ve been a bonus, but the leaves are growing so fast that either I grab the opportunity when I see it, or wait until next year.

I was short on ideas on what else to shoot, I actually contemplated to skip the daphne because I’m starting to feel that I’ve done everything with daphne that I can and it’s not very inspiring to take the same pictures all over again. But then I figured that it doesn’t hurt to check them and it’s not like I had any better ideas anyway. And oh boy was I happy that I didn’t give up on them! I found this branch which made it possible to fill up the background with the flowers, instead of having to fill the frame with extreme closeups (like I did on Monday). Having done this, now I really don’t know what else to do with the daphne… but at least I learned that it’s worth checking, because you never know what surprises Mother Nature will throw at you.

Surprises like being pounded by hail when I was doing my afternoon walk. I had to take refuge under a bridge and wait for the hail to pass, in the meanwhile the ice that was stuck in my hair started melting and the cold water trickled down my back. Now this is the April weather we all know and (don’t) love!

Flowers, give me flowers! I went to my favourite daphne spot to see if the flowers would already be in bloom. They were, but only by a very narrow margin and there were more buds than open flowers. But the scent, it was already there. Love it!

In the afternoon I took my bike down to the lake and found two pairs of cranes and one pair of swans in the flood plains. The weather is so warm that I can hardly believe it… cycling in a t-shirt in April. That’s a first!

Later on, I drove to Kullas to see if the crazy pair of cranes would be nesting by the road again, and sure enough, one of the cranes was lying down so I think it’s incubating an egg! But at least the nest is not completely in the open, it’s visible from the road (if you know to watch for it) but behind some trees so there’s no clear view. I won’t even try to approach the nest, obviously, so if I want to photograph cranes I will have to find them elsewhere.

One of my spots was the road that my guide took me last year to see red-throated loons. And oh joy – I found a pair of them! It was difficult to get a good shot though so I drove on to the small lake where we found a red-throated loon last year. Only this time, I saw two. This is absolutely brilliant! I’m not a loon expert but I’m thinking that they are out fishing during the day and come back “home” for the evening (black-throated loons live in the big lakes, but red-throated loons only fish in them and breed in the small lakes or tarns). Just perfect for me, it means that I can expect to see red-throated loons just about any evening and I have two lakes to choose from, as well. Today I settled with shooting from the car so I have my work cut out for me to get out of the car and crawl to the water’s edge without disturbing the birds.

But I found something else at this lake as well. I saw a dark spot on the opposite shore – a black grouse! It was way too far for any meaningful pictures but of course I had to try and as I was looking through the lens, I realised that there were actually four of them. Four black grouse and two loons… and then that other pair of red-throated loons in the other lake, and I also saw a pair of cranes between these two lakes. I wasn’t even disappointed when I didn’t see any cranes in the flood-plains at Loossjön!

Did my weekly walk again to take a look at the flowers. The daphne in my favourite daphne spot have just started to bloom so I approached them with the macro lens and extension tube. I’m pretty happy with the daphne pictures I took last year so the only new thing I could think of was to get closer to them. Too bad it’s not possible to capture the scent of the flowers… just amazing!

In the afternoon I drove to Svansjöbäcken. I discovered relatively late last year and fell in love with the place right away so I was really looking forward to seeing it again. The light was just about the worst possible, there was a thin cover of clouds that had moved in so there were too many highlights in the water for intimate landscapes but the light was too diffused for any wideangle pictures. So initially I was just walking along and then stopped for a cup of coffee and wondered if I’d find anything at all. I wouldn’t call it a wasted trip because it was so nice to be there, but it’s always a little bit disappointing to come back without pictures. Then I found a couple of spots right when a thicker cloud moved in and suddenly I had my opportunities. Well, two of them to be exact, but it felt like plenty!

I have never followed the brook all the way down to the Voxnan river so I remedied that today. The brook itself is not very interesting at that point because it’s not even a brook anyway, it just flows into this small lake slash marsh before joining the river. But there’s a nice little ridge with sparse pine forest, very pleasant to walk through. And I found a couple of new spots, but they need the right light. Early morning or late evening would be a better time for a trip to Svansjöbäcken than afternoon like I did today. Or an overcast day, that would definitely work. I have all summer… I’ll be back!

…flowers and a macro lens! I got my 40D back earlier this week and would you believe that it was repaired under warranty? I didn’t even have to pay for postage – it was written off as goodwill. Good will indeed – I’m one happy Canon customer right now! So with the shutter button fully functioning again, what could be better than taking the camera out to the flowers?

The daphne is blooming at its best and the scent is as sweet as ever. There’s something significant about seeing the daphne in bloom… it somehow feels that it opens the flower season, even if we have other flowers in bloom before it. Like the coltsfoot for example, I found a few of them in the forest so I was able to get down close and personal with them, something I normally don’t do because grouching down in a roadside ditch is a bit too exhibitionist for me. Even if I’m known to have done that, too.

I can’t tell you how happy I was about photographing flowers again. And this is just the beginning!

In the evening I took the Tricker and did some riding around to check out old favourite places that I hadn’t seen since last year. There’s this one lake which I think is nice… but somehow, all these years, I’ve missed a small tarn on the other side of the road. And now that I was there, I found that this little tarn actually has more potential that its big brother across the road. So that’s one place I’ll be visiting again!

Most of the lakes are already completely free of ice, but I found one shoreline with a little bit ice left. It was so lovely to sit there… listening to the sound of the slushy ice (yes, it does make a sound when the waves move it) and enjoying the warmth of the evening sun.

Now that’s a nice way to kick off May.

Equipment doesn’t make a photographer, but sometimes a change can serve as a source of inspiration. In the past when I’ve photographed the daphne, I’ve found it a bit of a challenge – whatever I do, it’s just flowers on a stick. Last year I skipped the daphne entirely, but this time I wanted to see if I can make something out of it with the 150mm macro. It is the 4th lens I’ve used on the daphne – if this didn’t work, then it’s time to give up on the flower!

I got lucky – I found this group of three blooms in the middle of the branch, so I could use the “stick” as a diagonal running through the frame. Every time you find a group of three of anything, composition is a breeze – three is the magic number! Add a diagonal and you really can’t go wrong.

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I also got out for a spin with the Tricker. I took it all the way to the Voxnan river, trying to get used to the speed. I found my comfort level at 70 kph, but I’m sure I’ll be checking out the top speed (a not-so-whopping 110 kph) by the end of the summer. Then again, I didn’t get this bike for the speed. I got it for the forest roads, and the top speed becomes irrelevant!

Daphne mezereum

• English: Daphne or Mezereon
• Swedish: Tibast
• Finnish: Näsiä

I think that daphne is a special flower. It grows early in the season, it grows straight from the stem in small trees and the scent is enchanting. I could smell the flowers long before I saw them and although I’m normally not a friend of strong scents, I make an exception with daphne. But as intriguing the flower is to experience, as difficult it is to photograph. Normally the flowers form a thin long bloom; it’s a compositional challenge, as framing a long stalk makes for a static image even if you find a diagonal one or deliberately tilt the camera. It also grows high from the ground so including any context is difficult (yes, said by someone who normally tries to isolate the subject from the context). Not to mention that this high position makes the plant very susceptible to wind so a calm day or a lot of patience is required. To top it all off, you have to watch your exposure. The petals have a rough texture which reflects the least bit of light, so the pictures may turn up overexposed even when you carefully metered the flower and underexposed half a stop.I was lucky to get a relatively calm day so subject movement wasn’t a problem. My challenge for the day was to find an “un-daphne” like bloom to overcome the flowers-on-a-stick issue. When I finally found it, it almost composed itself – a split branch with flowers on both sides to fill up the frame. All I needed then was to wait for the light to happen, which took a while because my daphne grows in the forest so the light is patchy and fleeting. The end result? A daphne image I am finally happy with, but as always, I’m already thinking how I could do it better!

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Image specs: ISO 200, f5.6, 1/100, Canon 300mm f4L w/ 31mm extension tube