The Quiet Picture

Finally taking a closer look at my vacation pictures. Found one HDR which needed processing, did it manually because I didn’t like the result that any HDR software produced. It still needs some work but I’m undecided if it’s worth the trouble. I was waiting on Flatruet for the sunset to happen with glorious colours, it didn’t do it but a herd of reindeer came running by. In the low light, I got some serious motion blur but it was a concious choice, I wanted to see how it works out.

It was nice to see the pictures from the unforgettable evening at Måns-Erstjärnen. I’m well pleased with some of them, but they all remind me of what a wonderful experience it was. I can still feel the warmth and hear the eerie cry of a loon echo from the distance… just amazing.

In fact, I think I’m still basking in the glow of the vacation. My shutter finger isn’t itching yet, although it did feel good to shoot the white waterlily today. One thing I wonder though, where are all the mosquitoes? There weren’t any at the lake. But… I’m guessing I will find them in the forest. I have some orchids to shoot there and I also need to find some blueberries and raspberries to pick… and I need to get my exhibition ready, it opens on Saturday. Nervous!

As far as warm and sunny summer weather goes, then July wasn’t it. We got rain, then it rained a bit more, and when it stopped raining it started again. Ok it wasn’t entirely that bad, but it sure wasn’t good either. But don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining! By some freak accident I had managed to book myself on holiday during those brief periods of warm weather, and it was too much for me. I can handle warm weather when I’m at home, but when I’m in the mountains and doing a lot of hiking and photographing, warm weather is the last thing I need. So I just got sick of it and haven’t missed it since.

Four days of observations missing – those warm and sunny days when I was on holiday.

Temperature (High): 23°C
Temperature (Low): 10°C
Temperature (Average): 16°C

Barometer (High): 1020 mbar
Barometer (Low): 995 mbar
Barometer (Avg): 1005 mbar

Total of sunny days: 0

Rain: 168 mm

Days with rain: 20

2007
2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009

I missed the white waterlilies last year and I didn’t want to repeat the mistake this year. So I took off after work, ignoring the rain, and drove to my favourite white waterlily tarn. I was disappointed to find that the lilies were over bloom or not open or just plain too far away from the shore, but then I came across this one individual which was still pretty, and better yet, it was surrounded by pads which had not been half eaten up by insects. I had to do a lot of cloning and healing to get rid of some debris though and the pads are still not as clean as I’d like, but it will have to do.

The shutter speeds were very slow (this one at 1/25) because I insisted on using a polariser filter. Without it, everything becomes just a grey mass and the worst part is that the pads lose the colour. So if you’re going waterlily shooting, make sure to take a polariser with you!

The first day of the last week of my holiday. The weather has been a mixed bag like it has been pretty much all month – rain and shine. At least the wind is easy, but it’s just the calm before the storm (tomorrow is promising to be blustery and rainy).

I went for a walk with the 300mm lens, thinking that the conditions would be good for the big gun. I didn’t find many subjects, but when I glanced at the bay which peeked between the trees below me, I saw some white dots and used the 300mm as a telescope and confirmed that they must indeed be white waterlilies! This is just unbelievable – how many times have I written about my attraction to the white waterlilies and the story behind it? I rushed back, told my parents that I found white waterlilies so Dad (slightly doubtful) and I rowed into the bay to have a look. When all we could see was yellow waterlilies, I started to doubt myself – but then, after getting past yet another bank of reeds, there they were. I counted eight individuals in bloom and there were a lot of buds also.

Call me sentimental, call me a fool, or call me a sentimental fool, but I almost got a little bit misty eyed. It’s been almost 3 decades since we’ve last seen white waterlilies in this lake, even Dad was calling this the best discovery of the summer.

It’s not the best of pictures, but it’s a white waterlily, in our little bay. You have been missed.

It’s a dull day, but not too windy so it’s great for flower photography. I had been waiting for weeks for the early coralroots to bloom and now it finally was time, so I took the gear to the forest. The early coralroot (Goodyera repens) is a common orchid and it grows plentiful in my backyard forest, but it was all the harder to find a collection of flowers that suited my pre-visualised image. I guess it would be easier to base the image on reality, than trying to find reality that matches your image… Anyway, I finally found something close enough and got to work. I was wearing mosquito-proof clothing, but they still got the better of me – they were out in obscene numbers and when you’re wearing a mesh hood, you’d better make sure that the mesh doesn’t touch your skin at any place because that’s an invitation for the mozzies to bleed you. So I took the pictures and didn’t bother to frame many different versions, just hurried home with my chin itching from the bites. But I got a keeper, so it was worth it!Since I didn’t really have any other bright ideas for a dull day, I drove to my waterlily lake, trusting that it would provide me with something to do. I wasn’t disappointed and was able to go for waterlily closeups, at one point I even had the 1.4 teleconverter attached. I was following the flower slowly drift in the wind, and noticed that it had turned favourably for some low-angle images, which would give me a green forest reflection on the water instead of the grey/black of the overcast sky (when you polarise off the reflection, the result is black water). So I got the tripod down low and I was just simply stunned at how the flower looked in the viewfinder. I just stared, feeling quite emotional for a moment, actually. I couldn’t do it justice because the difference between the dark forest reflection and the white flower is too much for the camera to record, but afterwards I was amazed at this one:

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t quite mean it to turn out this way. I thought I had the tripod low enough and took a shot (this one). Then I noticed the little bit of sky reflecting at the bottom and flattened out the tripod completely, giving me only the forest reflection as BG. But looking at the images now, it’s this one that stands out for me, thanks to the partial sky reflection and with just a hint of waves on the surface. Without the sky, even the composition would be a little bit off, but now I don’t dare to crop off any of the light (otherwise I would crop a bit from left and top). I wish I could sometimes do this on purpose, but I’ll take serendipity any day!

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I updated minnak.net by adding a page for the orchids, complete with Latin, English, Swedish and Finnish names. So far it’s 11 different orchids – I’ve counted Dactylorhiza maculata and Dactylorhiza maculata fuchsii as separate, same thing with Dactylorhiza incarnata and Dactylorhiza incarnata cruenta. Not everyone seems to agree that they are different species, but I prefer 11 species rather than 9, so different they are!

Nymphaea alba candida

• English: White Waterlily
• Swedish: Nordnäckros
• Finnish: Pohjanlumme

If I really had to name my #1 favourite flower, it would probably be the white waterlily. It goes way back to my childhood – all those endless summers at my parents’ summer house. We have a shallow, mud bottom bay nearby and I remember we used to have a few white waterlilies there. Then every year they got fewer and fewer until finally none were left, only the yellow ones remained. That was… well, must be over 20 years ago. The fact is that not many white waterlilies appear on any of the lakes I normally visit when I’m in Finland. When we’ve found then, it has always been special.Then I moved to Sweden, and found white waterlilies growing in the small lake in the middle of Ljusdal. And I found them everywhere else, as well, I just couldn’t believe it! But this abundance doesn’t mean that they are easy to photograph. The problem is mostly that they grow in water – your options are either to use a big telephoto lens from the shore, wade in (if it’s not too deep and muddy) or take a boat (precarious at best). I have tried options #1 and #2, even if one of my best waterlily images was taken with a 100mm lens looking straight down, thanks to receding water levels in a lake. Then last summer I finally found white waterlily nirvana. A small forest lake tucked away just across the Voxnan river, with waterlilies growing right at the shore in perfect reach for my 300mm lens. So now when the waterlily season is at its best, I know exactly where to go!

Last summer when I was shooting waterlilies in a nearby lake semi-popular with the bathing crowd (that was just before I discovered my waterlily pond), a woman came by and we started chatting, with her being an occasional photographer as well. When I commented on the beauty of the white waterlies, she was not impressed. They are causing the lake to get overgrown, she said. But I could never blame the white waterlilies for that. If they turn lakes into marshland, fine by me – that’s how nature works. I will just admire it!

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Image specs: ISO 200, f6.3, 1/250, Canon 300mm f4L w/21mm ext. tube, Moose polarizer