The Quiet Picture

It’s the coldest day of the winter so far, around -20°C. It was  -22°C when got up and the strange thing is that unless my memory totally fails me, it’s colder than it was last winter. Last winter was special in that the cold period lasted such a long time, but up here in Loos the temperatures never plummeted as seriously as it did in the lowlands. It happened a number of times that when I went to work, it was about -20°C in Loos but when I got to work, people were saying they had temperatures all the way down to -30°C. Warm air rises up… It’s not unusual that it’s 5 degrees colder down at the lake than it’s at home.

Anyway, as much as I like skiing and as little as I mind cold weather, I draw a line at -20°C. No point in risking my lungs. So today I will concentrate on indoors activities and I started by playing around in Lightroom. I created a collection of all my unprocessed pictures to see if I could find something worthy of working on and I was shocked to see that I had almost 3000 unprocessed photos… I had no idea it was that bad! I expected they would all be from my pre-Lightroom era but there were hundreds of pictures even from recent years.

In the end I decided to take something really old and see if I could make anything out of my first year of digital shooting (with the 3MP Canon D30). There was this special day in Järvzoo in May 2002, I got to witness the birth of two moose calves. I shot a lot of pictures just to document the event, but obviously it’s difficult to make anything photographically outstanding of such an event (say what you may about giving birth, but it’s really very messy!). After the calves were born, I did my round in the zoo and on the way back I visited the moose enclosure again and found the calves on their feet, nuzzling up against the new mom. Sweet!

May is a good month for other animal babies as well. The ural owls are cute, they leave the nest while they’re all fuzzy and they stood all lined up on the branch. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera ready when all five of them were sitting in a row, but at least I caught three. The light was difficult and I couldn’t fade out the net with the Sigma 170-500mm lens I was using back then so I just simply underexposed the background in Lightroom until I got rid of the net, and concentrated the light on the owls.

Spring is almost around the corner…

I had originally planned to ski another stretch of the snow mobile trail from Hamra, but after almost getting stuck in the snow when parking my car yesterday, I didn’t feel like trying my luck. So I took the same old trail in Loos, the one which goes over three lakes, up to Ryggskog and then back to Loos. It’s a nice 12K trip and the most photogenic of all the routes I have in Loos, although of course the law of diminishing returns is eating into my results. What helps is the changing conditions and today the landscape was at its snowy best.

Initially it looked like the clouds would break up like they did yesterday, but the sun never showed itself so the light wasn’t a problem. And initially I wasn’t getting any interesting pictures done, I’m raising the bar by using the small Tokina wideangle and for some reason I just have trouble making it work in the snow. But like I said, I’ve taken a picture of almost every photogenic or semi-photogenic spot along the way, so I’m trying to create something different using the wideangle instead. Maybe I’ll get lucky.

And lucky indeed! When I got to Ryggskog, I finally decided to check out a deserted house that the trail passes. I’ve been looking at it for years, wondering if it’s safe to trespass… but with all this snow, it’s pretty obvious that nobody’s been at the house all winter so I didn’t worry about it any more. And am I glad that I did this! The place turned out to be a real gem. Maybe the house itself isn’t so fascinating, but there’s a few barns as well and as soon as I had a closer look at them, I knew that I just have to get back there in the summer. It’s bound to be even better with things growing in the garden, so now I just have to find out if the house is inhabited in the summer or if it’s free for me to shoot!

I wanted to find some new places, so I drove to Västersjön in Hamra today and took the snow mobile trail from there. I did part of this trail last year but now my plan was to ski to the Voxnan river, which wasn’t possible last time because the trail wasn’t used. I was hoping for some nice landscape as the trail crosses some mires, but it turned out that it wasn’t particularly photogenic anyway. The clearing cloud cover didn’t help, it was one of those strange days when there’s snow falling without any significant clouds. All the while the sun wasn’t completely out so the light was kind of 50-50 and I had no ideas what to do with it. Better luck tomorrow – the forecast says overcast, yes please.

With the big solar eruption the other day, the forecast for aurora was good last night. I wish the weather forecast had been equally good, but there were some clouds which could ruin the whole thing. I decided to try it anyway, I mean if I got a break in the clouds then it would definitely be worth the while.

As I was packing, I realised that I had forgotten to recharge the batteries. That left me with one almost empty and one half charged battery, which is not a lot in the freezing temperatures but good for some frames anyway.

When I was halfway to my spot, I realised that I had forgotten to take a flashlight with me. On a moonless night, a less than ideal situation and I was reluctant to turn back to get it (especially when the next possible place to make a U-turn was actually that spot I was driving to). Then I remembered that I had one of those small key fob flashlights in my car keychain so I checked if it still lights up after all these years – it did! Better than nothing, because it was really dark – no moon, and almost no stars because of the clouds.

It was -17°C so a bit on the cold side to be standing still all evening and wait for something to happen. It’s possible it would’ve been less cold if I had chosen a higher spot, but I was standing by a lake. The foreground is such a big problem (I haven’t found anything I’m happy with) that this time I decided to eliminate it out of the equation and go for the best open view instead.

The clouds finally cleared and revealed the stars but the aurora was not the spectacle I had hoped for. There was no action going on, just a big green mist that was actually beginning to fade out. I decided to wait until either my extremities or the camera battery would freeze and as it turned out, it was my nose. So I’m still waiting for my first great aurora picture, but at least I got to drive my new car. I love that car!

It was another great day with overcast weather. The difference to yesterday is that there was no fog, but it was snowing a little bit from a thin cloud cover. That cloud cover provided a very special light that made the snow radiate in pure white in contrast with the different hues in the sky. Towards the sun, the clouds were yellowish grey. In the opposite direction, they were blueish grey with just a touch of sky showing behind the clouds. And between these, it was just plain old grey. That luminescent snow is just awesome and when it happens, you have to be out there to enjoy it. It was a brilliant day – both figuratively and literally!

I’ve been thinking that January has been quite disappointing so far, but just one weekend like this and it turns around the whole month. Sure, I’m not creating any masterpieces here, but the funny thing is that I’m also skiing for the sake of skiing and not just to take pictures. Before I moved to Loos, that would’ve been unthinkable!

Couldn’t ask for anything better than this. In the dead of winter, these overcast and slightly foggy days with snow on the trees and cold temperatures are my favourites. In the spring winter when the days are getting warmer, those sunny days with snow on trees are preferred… but it’s only January now and I spent three hours skiing and shooting and enjoying every second of it. Well almost, by the end of it I was absolutely starving and wondered why I didn’t pack any snacks when I knew that I would do this long trip. Tomorrow then… it should be an equally nice day!

This must be a personal record. I’ve waited until Thursday to upload Sunday’s pictures! The reason is quite simply that last weekend was not very good for photography. Saturday was completely wasted (good for skiing, but not for photo) and on Sunday it started snowing a little bit, but not enough to decorate the trees to any significant degree. I just took some snapshots but since this blog also serves as some kind of diary for myself, I’m posting one of those snaps. So that in the future when I try to remember what the weather was like in the middle of January in 2012, I can refer to this one…

On Friday when I was skiing, I noticed that some others had been skiing the same trails. I was very surprised, because normally nobody skis these trails except me so I thought maybe some new people have moved into the village (as unlikely as it sounds). Then today when I was skiing, I met no less than three other skiers. That’s like… three more than I’ve ever met on these trails, all winters combined. It turned out that they were visiting relatives, so that explains that. We chatted a little bit and agreed that it’s a crying shame that the locals don’t take advantage of these fine trails, other than for snowmobiling, of course. They made a perfect analysis of the villagers’ mindset – “åker snöskoter, fiskar, grillar korv och blir feta” (ride snowmobiles, ice fish, grill sausages and get fat).

Since these visitors were going back home today, the trails will be my own again. Except for the snowmobiles and their sausage chomping riders.

The day had started overcast but by the time I came back, the clouds had started to dissipate. The sky cleared completely by moonrise so I had a go at it. I’m getting really annoyed that I can’t find any good spots for moonrise/moonset or sunrise/sunset within an easy walking distance from home, so doing anything like that on a short notice is almost impossible. There is no lack of good viewpoints, but good foregrounds are conspicuous in their absence. And to be honest, I haven’t found any good viewpoints without any signs of logging within a reasonable driving distance either, so I’m always in trouble with the full moon scenery. It has almost lead me to hoping it would be overcast weather every full moon so I don’t even have to search for a spot…

With the late winter and some bad weather in between, I haven’t done any skiing this winter. Until today! I was so excited about going out that I was on the move before sunrise and it really was great to be back on track. I was happy to see that I wasn’t completely out of shape either, so I did a small extension to my trip instead of taking the shortest route back home. But now that I’m writing this, the trip is catching up with me and I’m half tempted to go to bed already and it’s not even 9pm yet.

And yes, I know that the copyright stamp in the pictures is old, but I’m way too tired to fix that now!

Time to do my traditional sum-up of the year in pictures! As usual, I’m posting my favourite from each month and because not all months are created equal, these may not necessarily be my 12 best pictures of the year. 2011 was a bit of a revolutionary year for me. There were two major things that happened, the biggest surprise was that I discovered wideangle photography which resulted in me buying no less than two wideangle lenses, when to my utter surprise I found out that my first wideangle wasn’t wide enough. Who would’ve thought? The second thing that happened was that I found myself liking black&white photography. I’ve always said that colour is important to me as a nature photographer, because what is nature without colour? It turned out that it’s form and pattern and it’s quite nice, when used right.

* * *

January
Winter 2010-11 was unusually cold. When the cold weather arrived in November, it never let go until February and when it was cold, it was really cold. And without any warmer periods, the snow just kept piling up. This picture is from one of my many skiing trips, during a day with overcast skies and a little bit of snowfall. That kind of weather turns the world into monochrome, which gives you good opportunities to strip the pictures to the bare necessities. I’ve reprocessed the picture since first publishing it, deliberately overexposed and then converted to b&w (there was only very little colour in the branches to start with).

* * *

February
February full moon was an amazing event. The landscape was looking at its winter’s best and the night was clear (and cold). It was almost surreal to be walking around in the moonlight but unfortunately I don’t have any great landscape options within a convenient walking distance from home and I didn’t feel like going for a long hike at night. Next time this happens, I will have to do that hike because it will sure be worth it!

* * *

March
I was starting to think that I wouldn’t photograph the squirrel this year, but the squirrel had other ideas. I noticed how it would run up the tree when it got nervous, and then climb back down a moment later. I tried to be ready for it but it’s not easy because those things move really fast… so needless to say how amazed I was to see that I had actually nailed the sharpness on this one and didn’t clip off any body parts. The composition wasn’t ideal though with the space being really tight on the left and at the bottom, so I needed to invest a few hours of work to increase the space and in the end I think it was well worth the effort. This pose definitely stands out from my other squirrel pictures.

* * *

April
After all that cold weather and snow, I thought that spring would be late this year but it came with a bang instead and we had summer temperatures at easter. The crocuses, as always, launched the flower photography season and even if my crocuses are not very numerous or big, I found this one individual which gave me a great macro opportunity. I love a frame filler!

* * *

May
It shouldn’t be possible but May was actually a cooler month than April. Or rather, the warmest day in April was warmer than any day in May, but the medium temperatures were obviously creeping up and the nature blossomed out. Traditionally my May favourite should be a flower… but this year it was a tiger! We visited the Orsa Björnpark zoo, mainly because we wanted to see the snow leopard which is a new addition in the zoo. It was close to the closing time before the snow leopard showed itself and I got one fairly bad picture out of it, but it seems like the tigers always put up a good show. And they are magnificent animals! If the picture looks dark, it’s deliberate. A trained eye will see the pattern from the chain link fence but by selectively underexposing, I can hide it a little bit and bring focus on the face instead.

* * *

June
Surprisingly, no orchids in the list this year. It starts to feel like I’ve done all I can with them, so I have to think of some new ideas. In the meanwhile, other flowers will do – like the twinflower, which were growing so numerous that they formed a white carpet on the forest floor in some places. I have a big patch of them growing right behind my garage so sometimes you don’t have to go far to get great pictures. Speaking of which, the crocus from April was shot under my kitchen window, and the March squirrel from my living room…

* * *

July
July was a great month. It normally always is, with great opportunities for both flowers and landscape. If I did a top 10 list of the year instead of by month, I could probably fill half of the list with pictures from July. But my favourite is this sunset picture with layers, it was the last picture on an evening that was one of the best photography sessions I’ve ever had. Warm, sunny and calm – the stuff memories are made of.

* * *

August
If July was a great month, then August was bad. As usual. We had a great full moon opportunity and while I had this incredible fortune of having the sun come out just at the right moment to light up the foreground, I screwed up the picture by missing the DOF. So what looks great at first look, doesn’t really pass a closer inspection. And the pictures which have the DOF are lacking the light or the composition. So it was a tough choice. But this time I let the visual aspect come before the technical aspect, so my photo of the month is the DOF impaired full moon composition.

* * *

September
I had really counted on September to give me great pictures. I mean, with the mountains and autumn colours, how could you fail? Well, take out the autumn colours and suddenly you’re looking at a landscape which is twice as dull, instead of twice as great. A fungal disease started killing the birch leaves already in August, leaving nothing for September. I did the best I could, under the circumstances, and once you accept that you can’t change the situation, then it’s just a matter of making the most of it and I ended up having a great vacation anyway. But the conditions did affect my choice of the favourite picture so instead of a grand landscape with glorious autumn colours, I chose a black&white intimate scene. This is a turning point – if you had told me last year that one of my favourite pictures would be a monochrome taken with a wideangle lens, I would’ve laughed at you!

* * *

October
For a long time, a crested tit held the favourite spot for October. But the more I look at this squirrel picture which is obviously a total fluke, the more I like it. Nothing is sharp in the frame, not even the perch in the lower right corner (shaken by the jumping squirrel). But I mean… what are the odds of getting this? A perfect diagonal direction, the tail, the “just right” motion blur… I’m sure that people will think that this is a joke, and that’s fine by me. I think it’s a good joke!

* * *

November
November, my nemesis. On average, the worst month of the year by a wide margin. It wasn’t a particularly productive month this year either, but I got a few surprisingly good frames. And now you see what I meant about me and monochrome – I’m actually starting to get the hang of it! I knew I had a keeper the moment I saw this root, and I also knew it would do great in B&W.

* * *

December
In 2010, winter came early. In 2011, winter was late. But then finally in early December, we got a lot of snow and things started looking up, giving me a few days of good photography. But these good days were followed by warm days with a touch of rain and finally culminated in a big storm on Boxing Day that wreaked havoc and left a destroyed landscape behind it. Today, on the last day of the year, it is a sorry sight that I can see from my window. The forecast says that it will snow tomorrow, so I hope that I can get the year 2012 photography off to a running start!