The Quiet Picture

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.

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!

I had quite a day yesterday. In the morning I had the pleasure of having the squirrel as company and was quite happy about the resulting pictures, and then in the afternoon we did a skiing trip in Lofsdalen and in the evening I shot the perigee moon rising over the Hovärken mountain. I can’t imagine any better way of spending the day!

I didn’t get many pictures from the skiing trip, actually, but I don’t mind at all. When the light should’ve been at its best, the sun disappeared behind some thin clouds so the red glow never materialised. The only direction I cared about was east and initially the moon was hidden by some strips of clouds but higher up, it was all clear. Obviously, it was so dark by then that the only way of getting anything out of the pictures is to use HDR which in this case consisted of the light frame for the foreground, and a dark frame where I only needed to extract the moon and then try to make it look natural in the light frame. It’s surprisingly difficult, actually, and in those frames where I had clouds in front of the moon I almost gave up completely!

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!