The Quiet Picture

I’m back at home now, had a relaxing day at work – meaning, I didn’t have to use my feet much. Coffee machine and back! I did two small hikes yesterday which puts my four day total to exactly 50 km of hiking, and I could easily go for another hike now. The only thing that is making me tired is the mosquito that kept me awake the other night, I tried to kill it but every time I switched on the light, the bug would sit still and I couldn’t find it. A male mosquito obviously because it didn’t bite me, but the noise it makes just keeps the stress hormones going and thus no sleep. But enough about the mosquitoes!

The first small hike I did yesterday was to the Svalåkläppen fell off Bruksvallarna. A very easy peak to reach from Rockvallen and then you get to eat a waffle at the Kariknallen cabin, even if their waffles are not as good as those server at Djupdalsvallen. But then again, the waffles at Djupdalsvallen are the best, period! Maybe I’ll get there in September before they close for the season…

As I was driving home and the clouds were still not clearing much, I suddenly had an idea that I should visit the Rändåfallet waterfall in Långå. I’ve been there only once before and it was years and years ago when I was shooting film. The falls are very easy to reach and they are quite nice so it was about time I paid another visit. Since there isn’t any abundance of information about the falls on the Internet, I will write another blog entry about them later – for now, just a picture that shows a small detail of the falls.

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I’ve reprocessed some of the pictures I’ve posted here in the past days. If you’re a regular reader, clear your browser cache and re-visit Thursday‘s (first picture updated) and Friday‘s posts (all pictures updated). I’ve re-done the stitched panorama in Friday’s post, I used an adjustment brush to “fade” the tree that was cut off in the frame. It’s still cut off, obviously, but I hope it’s not as distracting as it was before.

I also realised something about the Tvärån falls from Thursday. I was already speculating when I was there that I took a wrong turn and didn’t end up quite where I was supposed to end up. The thing was that as I was following the trail up the creek, there was a brook that came from the side. I was almost sure that I should’ve crossed the side brook, but there was no way I could’ve gotten across without getting my feet wet. It was too wide to jump over and too deep to wade over (without taking off my boots). And the trail that continued over on the other side was much weaker than the trail that turned to follow the side brook, thus I decided to follow the better trail. Had I had the instructions with me (forgot them in the car with the map), I would’ve taken off my boots and waded across the water, because that was the right trail to take! So now I’ve missed what presumably is the best waterfall in Tvärån, very annoying to have done all that hiking and miss the target. Which means that I will have to get back there one day, long and boring hike or not!

Today was going to be the rainiest day of the vacation but it didn’t bother me in the least because I can rain-proof both myself and the camera. And I knew exactly what I was going to shoot today, as well – waterfalls. There just isn’t any better motif for a rainy day than waterfalls. I love the exposed wet rocks surrounding the waterfall, you can do wonders with the polarising filter. Dry rocks on the other hand, it doesn’t matter how much you rotate the filter but they’ll still be dull.

A few years ago I visited a place called Silverfallet off Skärkdalen (a few km north from Flatruet) but I wasn’t impressed. I found the falls to be un-photogenic and all but forgot about them until this trip when I knew I would be having some rain and needed waterfalls to shoot. So today as I as hiking up along the falls… all I could think about was that I must’ve been having a bad day back then, because now I found them absolutely gorgeous! It’s a 2.5 km hike along a very wet and muddy trail (it’s like that even when it hasn’t been raining) until you get to the Öjönån creek, there’s a bridge across and then the trail follows the falls up to where they level out near the Öjön lake. It’s 1 km there – and it’s just one exciting fall after another during the whole distance. Some of them are harder to photograph than others, but considering how many of them there are, you still have plenty to shoot! So why would I ever have thought that this was not a good place? Well, it was early summer when I was there. Too much water – I don’t like it when the volume is high. You lose the definition and detail. And secondly, it was a sunny day. I can’t deal with waterfalls and sunlight.

There is quite a lot of marshland on the way to the falls. I’ve been here before to shoot orchids, but it’s always been early July. Now in late July I could see that this was an even better place for orchids that I had thought. Most of them had withered already of course, but the fragrant orchids were still colourful. Also found twayblade in bloom and some late blooming heath spotted orchids. And the withered ones… early marsh orchid ssp. cruenta. Lapland marsh orchid. And I even found a lesser twayblade! I was just simply amazed by the abundance of them. Two weeks ago, it must’ve looked amazing! Easily beats Hamrafjället and Mittåkläppen which are normally touted as the première flower locations. Of course it’s not all about orchids, but in my mind, I always start with orchids and the rest is bonus.

Silverfallet turned out to be ten times better than Tvärån that I did yesterday, with only half the trouble. Faster to get there and nicer to be there!

Since this was a relatively short hike, I did a small promenade in the evening. I followed the Mittån creek upstream, I knew there wouldn’t be any major falls but some whitewater anyway. I got to this place which I thought could be something…. I stood there for a long time, trying to figure out how to do it. I couldn’t think of anything so I continued walking and didn’t really find anything interesting along the way. On the way back, I was determined to try the spot anyway. I set up the tripod and camera and tried and tried… but I just couldn’t make it happen. Until suddenly this semi-abstract materialised in the viewfinder! Persistence paid off.

I finally had some holidays, if three busy days can be counted as such. But they were busy in the good way so I don’t mind! My sister came for a visit and there’s really nothing I want to show her around home so we headed to the mountains.

On Thursday we hiked up to the Kariknallen café above Bruksvallen for the obligatory waffle (yes, regular readers will have noticed my affection for the waffles) and then continued up to the Beritkläppen peak. The views were great just as you’d expect, but I was out of luck with the weather. A perfect weather for hiking is not a perfect weather for photography, but to be honest it didn’t really matter! It was just so nice to spend some time with my sister again.

Since my sister is interested in history and culture, I figured that she’d really enjoy a visit to Röros. I was right – the only disappointment was that the famous church of theirs was closed for renovation. But she got quickly over it as we were wandering around and admiring the old buildings. On the way back to Sweden I wanted to stop at Brekken and find a waterfall that I heard of a few years ago. It has taken me a long time to figure out exactly where the waterfall is and how to get there and now I finally got to see the place – and it was gorgeous. I’m telling you, it’s a real stunner! The light was a problem once again but imagine this same scene in autumn colours and soft light. I have a week’s vacation in September and I’ll be coming back here, no doubt about it!

Since this trip wasn’t about photography, I only had the 24-105mm zoom lens with me because I didn’t think I’d do any flowers this time. But when I came across these jacob’s ladder (Polemonium caeruleum) flowers in Mittådalen, it was a relief to see that the zoom lens was sufficient. It’s the first time I’ve seen the flower in the wild but that beautiful blue colour caught my eye immediately!

On Saturday it was already time to turn home. Our last hike was in the Rogen nature reserve. The lakes in Rogen are amazing, just check it out on a map and you’ll understand what I mean. I wanted to see if it was possible to get an aerial view from one of the surrounding peaks so we got up on the Handskinnsvålen fell off Käringsjön. While the landscape was amazing to see, the view over the lakes didn’t quite live up to my expectations but once again I didn’t mind. It was a great hike and who cares about the über-dull light when there’s wolf lichen to be admired? Rogen is one of the few remaining strongholds for this rare lichen.

All that remained then was the way home (we got to see a herd of hundreds of reindeer to my sister’s delight). But I’ll just say this… my sister ain’t no photographer. It turned out that her memory card was filled with pictures from the past year and the only way she could snap any new pictures was by going over the old ones and deleting something else. Which is not an ideal way to photograph any animate subjects such as the reindeer!

I’ve finally finished processing the pictures from my trip. Some of them worked out better than I expected, and some turned out to be not as good as I had hoped for. An acceptable average! The pictures in this blog post are not related to the text, other than that everything is related to my vacation trip.

As a Finn living in Sweden, it’s inevitable to make comparisons between the countries. As it’s been 15 years since I moved from Finland, a lot has changed and in many ways the country is not the same as the one I remember. So now when I visit, I can look at Finland with the eyes of a tourist and some of the things I’ve seen are quite surprising. The following “comparison” is very subjective and based on a limited sample (northern Sweden, central/eastern Finland), and even if I keep saying that this or that is better in the other, please do not count the votes in either direction. All in all, I’m happy to be a Finn and I’m happy to live in Sweden so I wouldn’t seriously complain about either!

• Roads are better in Finland. Much better. Much, much better! *
• There are more people in Finland. In Sweden you can drive 50km with hardly any signs of human activity. Apart from the road, obviously. In Finland you always see something, if nothing else then speed cameras (see the point below).
• There are more speed cameras in Finland (a lot more – I didn’t see any from Gäddede to Haparanda, but in Finland I lost the count of them by Oulu).
• There is more birch forest in Finland.
• Finland is flat. I was relieved to reach the inner country because the flatlands in near the coast were driving me crazy. It’s unnatural not to have any hills.
• There are more lakes in Sweden. Finland is supposed to be “the land of thousand lakes” but there was very little water in sight. The roadside scenery in Sweden on the other hand is dotted with lakes, creeks and wetlands.
• Commercial (pop) radio is better in Finland. My car radio picked up Radio Nova before Haparanda and never had to re-tune during the trip. Is there a law in Sweden that forbids commercial radio to broadcast outside urban areas? I’d be fooled to think so because the signal fades as soon as you leave any major city.
• There are more bypass roads in Finland. You hardly ever need to drive through a town or a village. Until you come to Savonlinna, of course!

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* Swedish roads. I imagine a Vägverket boss say something like this:

“Hi Sven, we need to patch up the Loos road. Why don’t you take this coin and toss it to see which holes to fix? And Sven, take care to do a sloppy job at it so we can go there next year and patch the same holes all over again.”

Now, it’s possible that the work order isn’t exactly like that. But the result sure is! I can understand that they don’t have the money to fix the whole road, but instead of fixing all of it badly, why not use the little money they have to fix one part of the road well? And then next year, fix the next hole. And then next. Instead of coming there every year and fill a hole there and a hole here and not even bother to even out the tarmac for a smooth surface. So the car jolts over the new tarmac edges instead of the hole that used to be there. Same difference, just money wasted.

The same thing applies for a lot of other roads. The Loos road is small, but I know a lot of highways which are only marginally better than the Loos road.

I’m not a war buff but every Finn should know that war is part of their history. Finland had to fight for its independence and I’m not sure if people in countries like Sweden always appreciate their independence  the same way Finns do. My parents’ generation experienced the war first hand, and my generation grew up during the cold war so we know that independence is not something you can take for granted.

Thus it was that today when I drove to Punkaharju to photograph the beautiful ridge of Salpausselkä, I ended up in the trenches of the Salpa Line which had been partly restored. Apparently they had only restored them a few years ago, so I had never seen them before although we would drive this way every weekend in the summer when I was a kid on our way to the cabin.

Finland lost a lot of territory (and military installations with it) to the Soviet in the Winter War which was fought during the early years of World War II. Thus they needed to build a new line of defence along the new border, and the Salpausselkä ridge (part of which runs in Punkaharju) was a natural place for the trenches and fortifications. The Continuation War never reached Punkaharju though, so after the war they partly covered the trenches which thus became just a footnote in the history books.

Walking around in the narrow trenches got me thinking that the war is part of my history, as well. Not first hand, or even second hand, but I remember the stories my parents have told me and I remember having the Soviet Union as a neighbour and I remember the highway 6 curving so close to the border that I could see the Russian watch tower from the car, and back in the 70′s they even had signs by the road that forbid photography there. And most of all, I remember a visit to Vyborg in 1992 after the Soviet had broken up and Russia had opened the border so you could do a day trip without a visa. On approaching Vyborg, there was this big and sinister building on top of a hill and I asked my parents if it was a prison. No it’s not a prison, it’s the hospital. Seeing Vyborg in the dilapidated condition that it was came as a shock to me – I was innerly grateful for all the brave Finns who fought to keep our independence and saved the country from the same rot that had destroyed the Soviet Union. Donating money to the WWII veterans was a priviledge after that visit.

People sometimes ask me if I’m going to change my nationality now that I’ve lived in Sweden for such a long time. I’ve never even considered it, for one thing the nationality doesn’t make any practical difference and secondly, because I’m proud to be a Finn.

This is my history and I won’t give it away lightly.

I arrived to my parents’ cabin in the evening on Friday. As I was driving, I had the sunset behind me and it was one of the most amazing sunsets I had ever seen. I don’t mean the setting sun itself, but I mean the sight I had in front of me – heavy rainclouds and the most amazing rainbow. Even though I was way under the raincloud, the low lying sun was able to light up the landscape so quite incredible, I had the rainbow in front of me for about an hour of driving. The rain cloud seemed to be moving the same direction as me. I didn’t stop to take any pictures, it was almost impossible because the rain was really heavy and it was made worse by the wind, so even if I could’ve kept the camera dry, there is no protection for the lens. So I didn’t bother cursing about the missed opportunitues, but just enjoyed the sight.

After three days of intensive driving, Saturday was all the more lazy. I’ve no idea what I did all day, took out the camera in the evening for a few lame frames.

I put a bit more effort into today’s photo session. It was a glorious day anyway, a calm morning with mist and a warm sunshine after that. I didn’t make full use of that though, I was more interested in macro – but calm weather and morning dew is never wasted on macro, either.

I had a long drive ahead of me, so I started early. I was looking forward to the Wilderness Road as it goes above the treeline, so the scenery should be good.

Initially it was a bit cloudy and the wind was only marginally lighter than yesterday. It wasn’t particularly warm either – my fingers were numb after a very short hike to a waterfall. It’s not the temperature as such, but the wind chill…

Already as I was approaching the tree line, the photo ops were appearing one better than the other. I drove past most of them, shame on me, but like I said, time was an issue so I wanted to use all I could spare on the tundra. Unfortunately the sun still hadn’t come out by the time I reached the tree line, so I didn’t see the scenery in all its glory. Because glorious it was for sure – you could stop every 100 meters and find something interesting, a small brook, or a different angle to a mountain, or a new bend or rapids in the big creek… even waterfalls. And reindeer. At first I stopped the car and turned off the engine, got out and took pictures. Then I stopped the car at a lay-by and got out. And then I just opened the window and shot from the car… without even bothering to pull over to the shoulder. I didn’t see any other cars as I was driving through the tundra so it’s not like I was blocking the traffic!

I was half expecting the beautiful scenery to end when I descended from the tundra. But I couldn’t have been more wrong – it was just simply gorgeous, driving through Klimpfjäll (the place is much nicer than its name), then Saxnäs, and I was surprised to see that the road was still photogenic as I turned north from Stalon towards Dikanäs. I only had two problems – no time, and a lot of wind. It had taken me over 3 hours to drive the first 100 km and I still had 500 km left until Luleå. In that respect, I should be grateful for the wind because it was spoiling most of the opportunities. Still water was anything but still, so all those beautiful lakes with mountain views were wasted today.

My original plan was to visit Storforsen before getting to Luleå. But after spending so much time on the Wilderness Road, I had to drop Storforsen. Better to use the little time I had one on the photo opportunities I had in front of me, than chance on something I had no idea if it would work or not. And I still didn’t have enough time to shoot everything I wanted to. The Wilderness Road really made an impression on me, it’s by far the most photogenic 200 km I’ve ever seen in Sweden. It’s easy to find some photogenic roads, but solid 200 km of beautiful mountains, lakes and creeks… it’s hard to beat! It was a constant waterfall there, rapids here, probably impossible to squeeze it in a whole day let alone a few hours as I had. I’m just simply going to have to drive it again, but then I’ll make it the goal of the trip instead of a de-tour on my way somewhere. And September is probably the right time for it, too. The days are shorter, but you can keep shooting through all through the day and still get good light. And the autumn colours are never wrong!

I have a vacation again – the last of my summer vacation. When I left, the weather was actually nice and summery, but when I got to Strömsund and turned west towards Gäddede, I was met by increasing wind and dark clouds. I don’t mind the rain, but the wind was really bad – there were times I was sure the trees would snap at any moment.

The vacation plan is to stay overnight in Gäddede, drive north via Stekenjokk (Vildmarksvägen, the Wilderness Road) and then turn east and cross over to Luleå for the night. And on Friday, all the way from Luleå to Savonlinna in Finland. A lot of driving and quite a de-tour to get to Finland, but I’ve never been in this corner of Sweden so I figured that now was to time to drive the Wilderness Road.

Photographically speaking, the today’s main target was the Hällingsåfallet waterfall near Gäddede. Initially when I got there and saw the falls, I was disappointed. Now matter which viewpoint I checked, there absolutely no way at all get the falls in the frame without getting the bridges and trails and guard rails as well. In fact, it was hard enough to get the whole falls in the frame, at all… my widest angle wasn’t wide enough. A moot point in any case. But then I decided to ignore the waterfall completely – the secret of success is adaptability and there were other things to shoot than just the falls. And it seemed like the sun agreed with my decision, because it came out and revealed a glorious rainbow across the canyon, born in the mists of the waterfall! That’s all the opportunity I needed and I was a happy camper. The inclement weather added some spice to the sky, and even the wind wasn’t quite that bad here so the rig stayed steady during the exposures.

When I left the falls and drove towards Gäddede, there were rainbows everywhere, this time born out of rain. When I saw a good op and stopped to shoot it, I really strugged to keep the camera steady – not because my hands were not steady, but because my body wasn’t! That’s how the wind was.

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I’m posting this from my little Powerlessbook, I hope the pictures are ok (they look a bit iffy on my screen). I’ve processed them like I normally do but this machine is really not ideal for image processing! I’ll fix them when I get home if needed.

I had more waterfalls in store today. I drove to Ramundberget and took the lift up the mountain (the aching leg was a perfect excuse) and then walked around a bit, checked out a lovely view across and along the valley. I wasn’t interested in going any further, the leg was not killing me but I’m not masochistic enough to enjoy it either. So I found my way to the stream that falls down from the Kvarnsjön lake. The waterfall was a disappointment – kinda like the Lillrånden waterfall earlier, this one also falls in a ravine so at best you can only get glimpses of it. I found only one photographic spot, but it was a sunny day and the scene was backlit so I could forget all about it. Ironically, the best view you get to the falls is from the road – far away, but at least you see the whole thing.

So I was hoping that my next waterfall was going to be better. Something I had come across on a Fotosidan forum, I couldn’t find any pictures of the actual fall so I didn’t have any expectations, I just assumed that it would be small-ish. The Sångbäckfallet (Song Creek Fall – nice!) is close to Klövsjö, it’s easy to find (when you know that the parking is opposite to the road towards Storhågna) and the hike there is only 400m. The very last bit to the foot of the fall is steep though, the kinda steep where you’ll happily grab hold of anything to keep you from tumbling down. Once you’re down there, getting a clean view of the falls is difficult but it doesn’t really matter because there are really nice photo ops both downstream and upstream from the falls. The waterfall was bigger than I expected, but size doens’t matter, it’s what’s around the actual waterfall that makes or breaks the place for me. And Sångbäckfallet is definitely among my favourites!

Now I’m looking forward to spending a day in front of the computer, sorting through 3.3 GB of pictures. I kinda like my aching foot… it’s not so bad, but it’s enough to give me an excuse to rest!

The reason why my summer vacation is split like this is that I wanted to find the alpine chamorchis (Chamorchis alpina). I think I still made a mistake, it felt like this week would be too early for it, but I had to try anyway. If I can’t find it now, I can take a weekend in August to come back for another try (does that sound obsessed?).

I knew that the orchid was very small, so I was getting a bit daunted by my task… Torkilstöten may not be big, but everything is relative. So I hiked up to the pass and starting searching. Very soon I came across a small thing growing next to a small-white orchid and I stopped to take a closer look at this what I thought was an unusually stunted, withered small-white orchid. Except it wasn’t stunted, it wasn’t withered, and it sure wasn’t a small-white orchid! Can you believe it, I had found my alpine chamorchis!!! After letting out a cry of joy, I got down to photograph it. Not so easy because the wind was really hard, it kept moving even this tiniest of orchids. I knew I wasn’t getting any good pictures but you know I really couldn’t have cared less.

Close to this first alpine chamorchis that I saw was another, even smaller – this was definitely early season for them. So that was two individuals and when I looked around me at the mountain landscape, I was wondering if I could find any more. It is certainly hard to spot it if it grows among anything green, this one I found was growing in a “bald” spot so it caught my eye just enough to be curious to take another look. I continued my way towards the peak of Torkilstöten, now that I didn’t have the pressure of finding any orchids I just wanted to see the view from the top; this is as close as you can get to Helags by car and then it’s just the short hike up. The clouds had cleared a bit so I took a series of pictures for a panorama stitch. I wasn’t sure if it was going to work though, the wind was really hard so I suspected that it would cause enough vibration in the rig to blur the shots. But wind is not all bad. No bugs!

When I started my way down, almost immediately I saw something…. alpine chamorchis? Oh yes it is! This time I took a shot with my bubble level next to it, to give an idea of the size. And close by, yet another orchid. So the grand total of alpine chamorchis I found today was four. But still… I can’t believe I found it at all. I’m telling you, it’s small, the tiniest orchid I’ve ever seen.

When I was walking down, I was becoming increasingly aware that my left foot was hurting. The leg had felt a bit stiff this morning but the morning’s short hike seems to have aggravated it. But as long as I can walk, no worries! All this worrying I did about the car… and then I injured myself, LOL!