The Quiet Picture

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…

Now this is what I call a Christmas present – new car! It’s a Nissan Qashqai 1.6 diesel, and I hope it will be everything the little Yaris wasn’t. My patience with the Yaris ran out last summer when it became painfully obviously how hopelessly inadequate it is on the mountain roads I was driving. And then of course I’ve always had a problem with the ground clearance, it’s just not enough for the forest roads around here. And the small engine with semi-automatic gearbox… I promise you I was starting to tear out hairs in frustration when I had to literally floor the gas pedal to get any decent acceleration out of it. And then you were suddenly doing 60 kph on second gear… I’m no race driver and the Yaris is not a racing car for sure.

The Qashqai fixes all these issues I’ve had. High ground clearance, bigger and more powerful engine, manual gearbox… and then it has a bigger trunk, more space inside (so it’s just simply bigger in every way and this time bigger is better), it’s actually more quiet to drive with an efficient sound proofing and you almost never hear the typical diesel engine noise, and the interior is less plasticky which means less rattling noise when driving on rough roads. And it’s smoother over bumps, all these little things which make the driving experience fun and not frustration.

There were some things about the car that made me so happy I was grinning for ear to ear… like for example, the car actually accelerates as soon as you push down the gas pedal, instead of waiting for a couple of seconds and then shifting down to a lower gear and then slowly going faster. And even when driving at 95 kph, the Qashqai is not even doing 2000 RPM. Do you know what the Yaris does at under 2K revs? Nothing!

Of course, when I got the Yaris I was initially very happy with it, I mean you’re always happy with a new car, right? But when the novelty wears off, the little nags start to surface. But considering that the Qashqai fixes all those nags I had with the Yaris, I have high hopes that I will stay happy with the “KasKas” (you need to be a Finn to appreciate that nickname…) for many many years to come!

Awesome! It’s snowing, so the snow cover will be pretty again.

I wanted do a long hike that would take me to some areas where snowshoes are required, while about half of the hike would be on a road where snowshoes would be more of a hinder. I’ve never liked carrying the snowshoes in hand for any longer stretches, so I decided to do something about it now. I rummaged through my sparepart drawer and found a shoulder strap which was just perfect for the snowshoe bag. As long as I’m hiking lightly (small backpack with only the camera, no tripod), it’s possible to sling the snowshoes at the back so they’re not hindering hand movement while walking. Problem solved.

Part of the trail goes under the power lines. They were making their buzzing bad-weather sound and it was a bit creepy to walk under them, with this constant reminder of the high voltage just above my head. For a moment I imagined that the power line was affecting my heart rate, but of course it was all that heavy walking through the snow with snowshoes on my feet that got my heart racing… a good workout for sure!

It’s been a windy week with temperatures above freezing, so the beautiful snow we had last weekend is looking a lot less attractive now. But I wouldn’t let that stop me from going for a walk, I had an idea of a picture so I set out in the forest. The path took me past a cabin which I’ve never taken a closer look of, I just think it’s impolite to trespass. But now with snow on the ground, I didn’t see any tracks going to the cabin so I thought it would be safe. When I got to it, I realised that I wouldn’t have needed to worry about anybody being there – ever. Clearly an abandoned place, and I was really intrigued when I saw a pink Minnie Mouse backpack hanging from the chair on the porch. This was definitely not the kind of subject I had had in mind, but I’ll take it. The original picture idea I had didn’t work out anyway!

So it’s finally here, the snow. Looks like it’s only temporary though, so I made sure to enjoy it today. When the snowflakes were falling big as mittens, I was all smiles. Then it started raining instead, and I was slightly less happy and desperate to get some pictures before it all would be gone already. But then it started snowing again and… oh well. I came back home and realised it was colder up here than down where I was, so there’s more snow on the ground. So much for my plan to find new scenery for my “first snow” pictures, instead of walking the same old routes in the village that I’ve done in previous years.

* * *

As mentioned yesterday, I did a hike up the Svartån creek. I took the new trail for the expanded national park, something I’ve been meaning to do all year but never got around to. Glad I did it now, because I was pleasantly surprised. Svartån close to Voxnan is hard to photograph because there’s a lot of vegetation at the water’s edge, but I found out that it gets better upstream. Basically, once you reach the bridge, the landscape around the creek starts look like my favourite spot further upstream, meaning that it’s a lot of cliffs and rocks and pine forest. I found a whole bunch of photo opportunities that will require better conditions and a bigger lens; I had the Canon 24-105mm in the bag but considering the season, it wasn’t worth switching lenses. I must come back here in the summer and/or autumn, it was good enough to endure the mosquitoes!

I’ve noticed that lately (=past few months) I’ve been doing a lot of  (=a few more than usual) black and white pictures. It has gotten me wondering if something has changed with me, because I’ve never really had any appreciation for b&w pictures. Which is kind of strange actually, because if my goal is to simplify my pictures, then wouldn’t it be logical that I would also eliminate the colour from them? But the answer to that is that I’m a nature photographer. Most of photography (if you don’t like the generalisation, then read it as “most of my photography”) is actually documentary; what sets photographers apart from each other is how we document it. For me, colour is an essential part of nature. I don’t think I’ve ever even considered converting any of my flower pictures to b&w, because what is a flower without its colour? The botanist in me wants to portray the flower, the only tricks I will use are a careful selection of background and foreground, DOF and composition. That’s flower photography 101.

So back to this b&w issue then. Since colour is so important to me, the only times when I’ve converted a picture to b&w, it has happened out of necessity, not out of inspiration. In other words, I’ve had a picture I’ve otherwise liked but where I just can’t make the colours work. Use greyscale, problem solved. So why are so many of my recent favourite pictures b&w? Just a coincidence of having a lot of colour issues recently, or a shift in my thinking?

I decided to put this to a test. I couldn’t have picked a better day for it for sure, a typical November’s day with sleet, rain, drizzle, fog, low clouds, icy lakes and creeks and low light. I drove to one of my favourite places, the Svartån creek with old pine forest, rocks, cliffs and all kinds of mosses and lichens. Normally I visit this place to shoot the waterfalls, but this time I was set on exploring the forest instead. A good choice, because I found that the cliffs around the creek were covered with wet ice; it would’ve been stupid dangerous to venture on them when they were so slippery that you couldn’t even stand still on the cliffs without your feet starting to glide. So there I was in the forest, with a goal to find b&w pictures – not something that I will convert to greyscale as an afterthought, but something that I know even beforehand that I want in b&w. It was a good exercise and I spent a lot of time exploring the place, which gave me a great opportunity to reflect on this b&w issue. I came to the conclusion that my photographic preferences haven’t really shifted. I think what has happened is that I have learned to accept b&w as a creative option, so it has become a tool in my photographic toolbox just like DOF or background control or the shutter speed. But one thing hasn’t changed – I still don’t think that b&w is a “one size fits all” option. The best way (only way?) to use it is when it brings out something in the picture that colour can hide. But let’s face it, how often does that happen in documentary style nature photography?

Since there isn’t any snow yet, I haven’t given up on the ice patterns. I drove to a small lake that I’ve visited a few times before but never photographed, maybe it doesn’t make much difference with the ice but I also wanted to check out the forest around it. It hasn’t been very cold since yesterday so the frost was gone in most places but the most shaded ones, which of course meant that the ice was nice and clear with a sheet of water on it.

I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was, when I saw that the ice was at least 5cm thick. For new ice, it means that it would’ve carried me if I just dared to walk on it, but I’m the kind of person who’s nervous about crossing lakes in January! The weird part of the ice is the sounds it makes. In the dead of the winter you can hear the ice crack, but right now it sounds completely different. A bit like playing a saw, except deeper and muted. Many times when I stepped on the frozen moss on the shore, the vibrations planted into the ice, making it sing. In my ears, it was saying “stay out of here”…