The Quiet Picture

Since it was a windy day yesterday, I wanted to try some long exposures with wind blown objects. I had just the place in mind, a lake with a small island and a rickety old bridge inbetween. It was overcast weather and quite dark, so the polariser and ND8 filters stacked gave me a whopping 25 sec exposure at f16. I was a bit surprised to see the result – the water surface is smooth, but there wasn’t quite as much movement in the reeds as I had expected. The biggest problem with this whole concept is of course that the wind doesn’t pick up speed in these small corners quite the same way it would do in more open spaces. For example if I wanted to smooth out some serious wave action – which I’ve wanted to do for years now – we just don’t get that here. Small lakes.

When I was driving back I noticed that the sky was opening up in the west, just perfect for sunset. It turned out to be just as fine as I had hoped for and I took a whole lot of pictures, although having said that, I was also bracketing with HDR in mind. So many pictures in fact that I had no chance of processing them last night, thus a belayed post. Photomatix had a lot of trouble with these images though, it helped with the sky but the reflection in the water was a nightmare. Completely oversaturated and way too bright in relation to the sky (the reflection is always darker than the thing that is being reflected). So I took the Photomatix HDR creation to Photoshop and added a reflection from one of the original images, then erased with low opacity to reveal just a little bit of the saturated colour in the HDR beneath.

I had hoped to get some more long exposure wind pictures today, but not sure how it will work out now that it’s sunny. The pol and ND filters won’t kill enough light, one second is probably an optimistic target. I’m thinking about getting another ND8 filter for these occasions… I wish there was an ND12 or ND16 though, because I don’t like the idea of stacking three filters. Vignetting is not an issue because I’m using a crop factor camera, but that’s a lot of extra glass in front of the lens. I guess I just have to make sure it’s quality glass, so the Hoya Pro-1 ND8 will probably be in the shopping cart shortly!

A photographer friend came for a visit to take a look (and photograph) some of the local sights. Even without the pictures, the weather and the mosquitoes made the day memorable. If you’ve ever been out on a mosquito infested bog in nearly 30 °C heat with camera gear on your back, you’ll know what I’m talking about. I had my Bugshirt and bugspray, but the Bugshirt just made me even warmer so the bugspray quickly ran down with the sweat. I got the pictures, but it’s obvious that my concentration had suffered.

Then we swapped the bog for a forest. It was still warm, there were even more mosquitos, but now the heat had resulted in a thunderstorm brewing around us so we got a few drops of rain and it cooled down just a little bit. I finally got a picture of a herb paris (Paris quadrifolia) flower – it doesn’t look like a flower the way you normally think flowers look like, but it’s beautiful none the less.

We did some more sightseeing and a little bit of photography (including my failed attempt at catching a dragonfly on sensor), and then it was time to start driving home. Not without detours though, so we stopped at the Hållberget viewpoint and found that the smoke from the forest fires in northern Hälsingland had reached this far, so there was no chance of seeing the Sånfjället mountain this time.

The sun was starting to set by now, but we had time to make another small detour to take a look at the Högforsen rapids. I’ve been there many times, but I’ve never taken any pictures – either I can’t find a good composition, or the light is wrong, or whatever, but it just hasn’t worked for me. I didn’t even bother to take the camera with me, so imagine my surprise when we got to the rapids and saw the setting sun cast its last rays on the water! We half ran back to the car to get the gear, and finished the day with a good photography session.

As for the picture, it’s a pseudo-HDR creation. There was no chance to get the sky and the water exposed in the same frame, so I bracketed and installed the Photomatix trial to see what it can make of the images. Total crap, that’s what – possibly because I can’t use the software, and possibly because I just don’t like the look of a full HDR, not with this image anyway (because I will admit that HDR looks good with some images I’ve seen). So I did it the old-fashioned way with luminosity masks, gradients and eraser with different opacity settings and I’m happy with the result – it looks more like something you could create in camera with a gradient filter so my conservative eyes accept it more easily than a full HDR which screams out “impossible”!

This is it – the day I have been waiting for!

My requirements for shooting the full moon are very specific. I’m not interested in the moon for the sake of itself, I mean when you’ve seen one moon frame-filler, you’ve seen them all. What can you say? “Nice composition”? Nope, that just doesn’t do it for me. I want the moon to be a part of a landscape, and it immediately raises the level of difficulty – expensive long glass is not the tool for that trade. My ideal moon landscape photo requires a moonset/moonrise that coincides with sunrise/sunset, so there’s nice light everywhere. Unfortunately, those opportunities are very rare. The moonset/moonrise times don’t always coincide with sunrise/sunset, and even when they do, there’s always the issue of weather. Not to mention the time of week. The full moon has a bad habit of happening while I’m sitting in the office!

So, that’s the preface to my actual story.

I left the cabin after 8am and drove to my selected moonset spot with a view towards Skarsfjället, Mittåkläppen and Stor-Axhögen. When I arrived, the moon was still high above Mittåkläppen but it was making its way down between the mountains, which forced me to create veeeery long panoramas. Yesterday morning the moon was setting right next to Stor-Axhögen, but like I mentioned earlier, the clouds spoiled the opportunity.

The biggest panorama I have is 20×175 cm (@ 300 dpi), this version is cropped short from the right so you make any sense out of it at all. The only way I’ll ever be able to admire the full size is if I have it printed in some specialist print shop!

After the moon had set, I had another skiing trip. I actually took the same trail I did yesterday, and now the mystery of the half prepared, uncharted trail was revealed to me – it’s not a snowmobile trail at all, but it’s used by the snowcat that brings up skiers from Funäsdalen! But I still don’t know why it had made a U-turn in the middle of nowhere, I guess they didn’t like the weather and turned back.

All I needed to do now was to drive to Flatruet and wait for moonrise/sunset. It was biting cold, I mean not the temperature as such (-10 degrees centigrade), but the wind that made it twice so. I didn’t care. The wind was blowing right through my supposedly windproof clothes, but I was finally witnessing – and photographing – the full moon rise on Flatruet and I was able to close that ugly chapter from three years ago when I had made a right old mess of a rare photographic opportunity. How lucky was I to have one of the finest days in January to fall on the full moon?

* * *

As it turns out, today was indeed my lucky day.

I had cruise control installed in my car last year. It’s not a very smart cruise control, so I’ve learned to disconnect it under some circumstances when I know it will just go crazy. So I was cruising along when I got close to one of those cruise-control-will-go-crazy stretches so I disconnected and the car started to slow down because I didn’t step on the gas right away. And right then – a moose crossed the road in front of me.

Where would I have been in relation to the moose had I not disconnected the cruise control and the car slowed down?

I thought I was unlucky yesterday to drop and break my GPS unit on the ski. Well, you win some and you lose some. I won.

Sleep deprivation, some bad decisions, poor timing and boring weather resulted in zero pictures yesterday. I was hoping for better today, and I guess it was… at least I slept better.

It was one of those days which start with some disappointments but end up just fine. I tried to catch the moonset, but it was too cloudy for that. I wasn’t too bothered about that though, just made my way to start of my planned skiing trip. I took the snowmobile trail from Hållan towards the Malmbäckstugan cabin, except the funny thing is that the trail that I followed actually swung a little bit north from that, and then ended right in the middle of nowhere. What I mean is that they had prepared the trail only halfway – I could see Malmbäckstugan ahead of me on the left, and the trail markings were leading to the Lill-Skarven mountain right in front of me. Which was a bit strange, considering that the map said that this trail would go to Malmbäckstugan on the left. So what would I do? Turn back and scramble to come up with Plan B, or ski ahead on the fresh snow to get on the south-north trail between Tänndalen – Bruksvallarna? Since I already had had to resort to a plan B yesterday, I decided to make my own trail so I headed on. There was a fairly hard crust on the snow which carried me most of the time, except for the last 200 m with the crust breaking constantly under my skis. Had it been like that for the first 200 m, I would have turned back!

No more mishaps (not counting the part where I dropped my GPS unit right on the ski (as opposed to the soft snow all around the skis) and the screen cracked) on the way to my car so I just drove back towards Messlingen and admired the beautiful sunset light on the mountains around me. The cloudwork was a bit patchy, so for example Ånnfjället was just gorgeous while Mittåkläppen and Stor-Axhögen were shaded. While I was looking at Stor-Axhögen and wondering if the clouds would part for long enough, I saw the peak of Helagsfjället behind it, bathed in the orange light – so straight to Flatruet for a closer view! It was just amazing… I don’t often get to see a winter sunset in the mountains!

Dunsjöfjällen in sunset light (cropped from top and bottom for a panorama)

* * *

Could someone please tell me the secret to blister-free skiing? I’ve tried two kinds of boots, I wear Compeed plasters, I put on extra padding between my heel and the boot, worn double socks… but it still hurts! So the Compeed prevented blisters on the area the plaster covered, but now I have a blister right above it. Is there anything that works?! New feet?

You might wonder why I’m always going on about sunsets. Well, I think that sunsets are quite simply amazing. But those really spectacular sunsets are rare because they require very special circumstances to happen. The most colourful sunsets take place when there is scattered cloud with a gap right where the sun goes down so that the sun can light up the clouds from below. Another way to get colour in your sunset image is to do the opposite – photograph a cloudless sunset to get a gradient of colour. But whatever the sky looks like, you shouldn’t forget the foreground. A fantastic sky is one thing, but you can rarely pull off an image with nothing but the sky in it. Allow me to illustrate.

In image #1, it was a cloudless sky. This is an opportunity to go for the sunburst effect by using a small aperture. You still get nice colour in the sky after the sun has gone down, and you can saturate the colours by underexposing the image. Compare #1 & #2, where #2 is taken a few minutes after #1 so realistically, it should be darker as the light starts to fade. But I increased the shutter speed to make the image lighter so that #2 is close to reality. It is a matter of taste which you prefer – sometimes you just have to choose between artistic and realistic.

Image #3 is an example of “close but no cigar”. This would have worked just fine otherwise, but right at the horizon there is a bank of clouds which shut out the sun so that couldn’t light up the scattered clouds above.

Image #4 is what I’m really looking for. Spectacular orange hues in the fluffy clouds lit by a sun that was already below the horizon. The image is from 2002 which seemed to be a good winter for sunsets. It is still the best sunset image I have, but I haven’t given up on seeing this colour behind the three pines in the image series above…

I mentioned the foreground earlier and it is important enough to be mentioned again. Compare #4 to #5 – it’s the same sunset. Yes the colour is fabulous, but don’t you think that something is missing?

When great things happen at sunset, they are not going to last for long so you have to be ready. When you move about, keep an eye out for potential foreground you can use in conjunction with sunrises, sunsets, full moon etc. The right light fades so quickly that often your best bet is to stake out your selected spot, set up your gear, wait and hope for the best. If you look out your window and see great light, it will be gone by the time you are ready to photograph it. I don’t even want to think about the times I have failed to follow my own advice…

After a few warm days it got a bit colder today. It means that it’s very icy everywhere – even my normally reliable winter boots were slipping and I wasn’t sure if the afternoon walk was such a good idea after all. Maybe it’s the weather or maybe it’s just simply that time of the year again, but the squirrels seem frisky. They chased around each other for a while, then my old pal settled down to munch on the sunflower seeds.

To finish off, I checked out the sunset. It was clear skies… very clear. Not a cloud in sight to add some interest to my image. There’s just no pleasing me!

Here’s a top tip for anyone who wants to photograph gorgeous winter sunsets. You can either pick a day when I’m at work, or a Saturday or Sunday when I decide not to try sunset photography myself. Because when I’m trying it, the sunsets just ain’t happening! For example, yesterday and today. Nice sunny day so I figured that the chances are good for nice light at sunset. I go out with the gear to my designated sunset spot and observe clouds in the west. Now, which direction does the sun set? Oh yeah, west! Sometimes I don’t even know why I bother.

* * *

Regarding that Peeping Tom I wrote about. It looks like there’s a door #4 – kids. I’ve never really liked kids and this sure doesn’t improve the situation! I checked the footprints and they are a quite small. The same footprints appear by my neighbours’ garages, looks like the kids have been playing around. The snow has piled so high that it’s possible to climb on the roof which is exactly what they have done, and then used the roof as a slide. Well, as long as they keep on the neighbours’ side, fine by me. But I’d better never catch them behind my window again… The words I’m thinking about do not bear repeating here!

Since the beautiful winter weather keeps, I thought it was time for a serious walk. So I took the shortest way to the camping area by the lake and crossed the lake and a narrow strip of forest to get to the big bog. On my way I noticed that they had just laid new ski tracks round the lake and also behind it, all the way to the bog. I wonder how I can find out exactly where this route reaches… With a little luck, we’ll have skiing weather next weekend so I can do a little tour.When I got to the bog, the going got seriously difficult. It was mostly knee deep and sometimes even more, and with this soft new snow it wouldn’t have helped with skis or snowshoes either. But I persisted and waded around looking for photo ops. A bit disappointing that I didn’t find many… but all in all, wading around in snow is fun, as well. Hard work, but fun. When I came back, I took a shortcut. Or what I assumed would be a shortcut. I followed an old snowmobile trail so I didn’t sink quite as much in the snow as I would otherwise, until I came to a ditch. Packed snow, I thought, and stepped in. And sank. I tried to pull out my foot but it was stuck. In muddy water. So I pulled harder and the ditch released its grip with a big slurpy sound. Once I was standing up again, I surveyed the damage. The water had gone in the boot from top but it wasn’t too bad as I had gotten out fairly quickly anyway. My toes were still dry and comfy but the mud-ice-water mixture formed a big crust around the boot and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t get rid of all of it. So my left foot felt a bit heavier than my right when I walked on… every once in a while I had to stop to brush off the snow that kept sticking to the wet boot. I was careful to jump over the other ditches I came across!

At sunset I took my skis and headed to my “three pines” sunset spot. But, it figures that if we get sunshine all day, it will cloudy up from the west just before sunset so I froze my butt and camera batteries off while waiting for some light to happen. Bollocks to that.

Well, at least I got to use the L-bracket. Since I was shooting vertical, I got the real benefit of the bracket straight away – I don’t have to flip the head, so the tripod setup is much more stable and balanced than it would otherwise be. I do have a concern with the bracket though, and it’s that the remote control (TC-80N3) is a very tight fit. It feels like it doesn’t quite snap in place like it used to do because the rim of the bracket extends so far out from the camera body. Since these brackets are custom made for the camera model, I wonder why they couldn’t just simply cut a small notch in the metal for the remote cord. The good news is that the remote works anyway. I’m tempted to cut a piece out of the thick rubber at the root of the cord so it fits with the bracket but if it works as it is… I guess I should leave it well alone. Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken, eh?

Last day of the long weekend. I was out before sunrise, walked up Furuberget again. That’s 3.5 times in 3 days… other people normally take the lift up… Anyway, I observed that the snow has melted away from the trees on the high hills, for example the tall pines on the Eagle Mountain are now bare. Strange… there hasn’t been any wind to speak of and it sure hasn’t been warm. Must be the sun shining on these trees all day. Then in the afternoon I went skiing again, and for the first time I had the camera with me (on skis, that is, obviously!). I wanted to check if there’s any sunset photo ops now that the forest has been cleared south-west of the tracks so there’s a clean view, with three tall pines in the middle of the clearing to provide foreground interest. When I was halfway the ski round, I met a local and as is the custom here, we exchanged a few words. Only it was more than just a few words, we talked about Los and the nature and skiing and I explained that I’m a bit less than gracious on skis since I only picked up the sport recently, but at least I have stayed on my feet so far. He consoled me by saying that he has a relative who has lived in England and South Africa and he usually ends wrapped around a lamp post when he tries to ski here. The conversation went on to the point where I was worried that I might actually miss the sunset, but, standing still in the cold air gets to you so we parted ways before the freeze set in. So I made it to my sunset spot just in time and struggled with the tripod because one of the sections had frozen so I couldn’t fully extend the foot. Just as well for the uneven ground so I could place the short foot higher than the two others and thus had a steady platform to shoot from. It turned out that I had been a bit too cautious in my estimate about the spot – it was just perfect, as the sun was setting right behind those tall pines (or right next to them, if you took a few steps in either way). Nice.

I watched the sun disappear behind the hills and started back. There’s a forest trail that I can take from my house to the ski tracks so I don’t always have to drive to the “official” starting point of the tracks. My sunset spot is only about 100 metres clockwise from the forest trail, so I had to ski in the reverse direction to get back to the trail. No big deal, you say, and so I thought, too… But there’s a reason people prefer to ski clockwise on the tracks. The downhills are nicer that way. And as it happens, the 100 metres that I had to ski anti-clockwise in order to get to the forest trail includes a fairly steep slope. That bends in the middle. And what do you know, I can’t turn in full speed! So I had a close encounter with a lamp post and crashed in the soft snow. Once I was on my feet again and looked at the tracks of my crash landing, I couldn’t help but laugh. I had to go and brag about having stood on my feet since I took up skiing?! Should’ve knocked on wood, LOL!