The Quiet Picture

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!

I’m getting tired of the local trails in Loos, so I drove to Hamra today. The snowmobile trails go in three directions from Hamra: west towards Västbacka, south towards Malungshed and north to Västersjö, where the trail branches towards Tandsjöborg and Loos. I was interested in the Västersjö trail, because it crosses over some marshland and that normally means photographic potential. I even took my SLR with me today, after only using the compact camera since December. Turned out to be a good call because the trail was nice, the landscape was just as snowy as I had hoped for and the trip was great!

Things are looking up. It has been snowing all day and once for a change the wind is not messing up the landscape, so it is starting to look really nice. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s skiing trip, but it wasn’t half bad today either. If I was drenched in freezing rain last week, today I was drenched in sticky snow. Wonderful!

It was -4 degrees when I left today. As I was putting my skis on, I heard something dropping on my jacket and a closer look revealed that it was rain. In -4 degrees? I was sure it would stop soon and turn to snow instead, but obviously I have no weather forecasting skills because the raining just intensified during my trip. After a while my glasses were covered with drops and I could barely see where I was going so finding anything photographable was a bit difficult. I made a few efforts but mostly I just concentrated on seeing where I was going. And when I wiped the glasses, I found that those drops were not even water – it was ice. I looked at my jacket and saw that it was frozen in every spot that didn’t benefit from my body heat… and every spot of clothing that did benefit from my body heat was just wet. Even my hair was frozen! You’d think it would be really uncomfortable to ski in those conditions but it wasn’t actually half bad. The skis were gliding really well and because I was wearing the right kind of clothing, it didn’t feel as wet as it really was. Interesting trip.

Note to self: You have one-day contact lenses for days like these… use them!

If I had used a slightly warmer WB in this picture, it would be exactly like a greyscale – I tested in Lightroom and when I flipped the greyscale option on and off, there was absolutely no change. But I decided to leave it in colour and just a little bit on the cold side, it was a cold day. Not too cold for skiing though and the best part of it was that I discovered that the snow has hardened enough to carry me on my skis. I still sink a little bit (I had to push myself down a hill!) but it’s definitely doable now. Brilliant.

Did a long skiing trip today, over 16 km (which qualifies as a long trip for me). I’m calling this the “three lakes trail” because it crosses over three lakes (Älgsjön, Råtjärnen and Öratjärnen), it’s the same trip I did last week but this time I extended it a little bit to explore the trail that branches off towards Hamra from Råtjärnen. It was very cold in the morning so I waited almost until noon before I left, when the temperature was more tolerable. The trip turned out to be very uneventful until the last lake which was troublesome to cross. It seems like the ice is worse here than on the other lakes and all the snowmobiles had torn up the snow to reveal the water underneath. In this cold temperature the water had frozen, so I had to choose between destroying my skis on the rough ice, or ski in the soft snow and risk sinking in the water myself. I was a little bit nervous about it to be honest, but it was fine in the end.

Although I was a little bit disappointed that I didn’t have any photo ops during the way, it turned out to be a good thing actually. Because of my late start, it was already getting dark by the time I was heading home, so had I spent some time on shooting I would have had trouble seeing the trail in the last stretch. I only took some pictures just before Ryggskog after 11 km of skiing and the light was already fading then. But at least I didn’t come home with an empty memory card!

It has been snowing quite a lot but the wind has also been quite heavy, so the landscape is once again not looking as nice as I would hope for. But that doesn’t stop me from going skiing of course, it just means that it’s harder to find any good pictures. I had a really nice trip today, even if it was more like walking with skis on rather than actual skiing, with what all the new snow on the trails.

As much as I like the snow, I do have one problem with it – it’s too soft. It has been cold since November, so there are no layers in the snow. It’s soft all the way through and the only way to transport myself off-road is by following the snowmobile trails where the snow is packed. Step outside the trail and you’ll be treading at least knee deep, it’s impossible to make any meaningful progress like that. What we really need right now is a few days of temperatures above freezing, and maybe even a little bit of rain, to compact the snow and then create a solid crust on it. Until that happens, my skiing is restricted to the trails and it won’t be long until I will be bored by them. I have about four different options for my trips, and I normally do two trips every weekend… you do the math. The conditions don’t change fast enough to make every trip interesting, but having said that, I’m really enjoying the skiing!