The Quiet Picture

I’ve been in a bit of a photographic limbo recently. It would be normal if this was November when there’s hardly anything left to shoot, but it’s July which is traditionally the busiest month of the year for me. I’ve got too many other things in my head and it’s draining my energy so I’m not really even feeling any regret for missing out on stunning sunset light like last night. Missed it by about 20 minutes… had we been driving at Hiviåsen 20 minutes later, it would’ve been a great opportunity. But nix, I was already at home, in front of the computer, downloading the pictures I had taken earlier when I glanced out the window and saw the amazing colour in the sky. But nevermind. I’m happy with the pictures I had. Which I wouldn’t have taken if I didn’t have any photographic company with me because otherwise I don’t think I would’ve bothered to lift up my butt, that’s how bad it is right now.

Anyways, enough of lamenting the current state of things and on with the show. We drove to my favourite brook which I’ve already visited numerous times, but which still keeps inspiring me. It was overcast weather which helped, because during most of my visits it’s actually been sunny, which is the only bad thing I can say about Svansjöbäcken. It doesn’t quite work in sunlight, unless you get there at sunrise in the summer which I’m very unlikely to do. As to why do I always go there when it’s sunny? Because it’s such a great place to be! So now I was taking pictures which I’ve kind of “seen” before but haven’t been able to take because of the light.

One of the first things that caught my eye was all the green grasses. It seems like the colour spectrum consisted only of reds and greens, the only exception being the greys. It’s a lovely combination so my post processing was all about making those colours pop and it took me a while to figure out how to do it in Lightroom. The secret was to use a warm colour temperature to pop the reds, and then cool down the greens using the hue slider. I’ve never actually used the hue slider before but now that I discovered it, it will solve a lot of problems I’ve encountered on previous occasions. I think I need to reprocess some old pictures!

I’m a member of the Ljusdal camera club (Ljusdals fotoklubb) and every year they make two excursions. For this spring excursion, it was my turn to be the guide. I decided to show them some of the nice places I found last year along the Voxnan river, so we started from Holmsjön and then made our way back and stopped at the Skalhålet ravine. I’ve only been there once and it was raining then, which made it difficult to move around on the lichen covered cliffs (very very slippery when wet). So I didn’t get any pictures that time, and I didn’t actually get many pictures this time either. But I got a picture, so at least I now have some documentation of the place. It’s just not very photogenic, but interesting enough to see. We don’t have a lot of ravines around here.

I had planned the excursion so that the last stop would be the Svansjöbäcken brook. Very simple reason – I figured that nobody will want to do the difficult hike down along the brook so everyone can leave when they want to, while I can stay as long as I want to! The weather was overcast and this was actually the first time I’ve been there in completely overcast weather. Otherwise it’s a difficult place during the day, because everything will be backlit. Normally you want to shoot running water looking upstream, and this means that you’ll have the sun on your face unless you get there early in the morning or late in the evening. The cliffs and forest surrounding the brook are also photogenic but somewhat difficult in sunny weather, so I could finally take some forest pictures today.

I think it was a good day out, I hope that the other club members enjoyed it! Although I must say they left a bit quickly from Svansjöbäcken… I think I should’ve warned them about the terrain, I didn’t think how difficult it will be for someone who is not used to it!

Did my weekly walk again to take a look at the flowers. The daphne in my favourite daphne spot have just started to bloom so I approached them with the macro lens and extension tube. I’m pretty happy with the daphne pictures I took last year so the only new thing I could think of was to get closer to them. Too bad it’s not possible to capture the scent of the flowers… just amazing!

In the afternoon I drove to Svansjöbäcken. I discovered relatively late last year and fell in love with the place right away so I was really looking forward to seeing it again. The light was just about the worst possible, there was a thin cover of clouds that had moved in so there were too many highlights in the water for intimate landscapes but the light was too diffused for any wideangle pictures. So initially I was just walking along and then stopped for a cup of coffee and wondered if I’d find anything at all. I wouldn’t call it a wasted trip because it was so nice to be there, but it’s always a little bit disappointing to come back without pictures. Then I found a couple of spots right when a thicker cloud moved in and suddenly I had my opportunities. Well, two of them to be exact, but it felt like plenty!

I have never followed the brook all the way down to the Voxnan river so I remedied that today. The brook itself is not very interesting at that point because it’s not even a brook anyway, it just flows into this small lake slash marsh before joining the river. But there’s a nice little ridge with sparse pine forest, very pleasant to walk through. And I found a couple of new spots, but they need the right light. Early morning or late evening would be a better time for a trip to Svansjöbäcken than afternoon like I did today. Or an overcast day, that would definitely work. I have all summer… I’ll be back!

I like hiking light. Dragging a whole lot of photography gear is just not my thing, because I want to enjoy the hike as well. So I have a big dilemma when I have to choose the gear for mountain hikes because I want to be able shoot both flowers and landscapes. And since the 150mm macro is not much of a landscape lens, I needed a way to transform the 24-105mm zoom into a macro. Answer: extension tubes. Since I’ve never tried this combo, I had no idea if it really works or not but the proof is in the pudding so today I tested it on some wood anemone buds I found. The idea is not to compare the 150mm macro to the zoom with extension tube, but just to see if the zoom kit can be used for flower close-ups at all. It turned out it works fine! Problem solved, I now have my light-weight photography kit for the long day hikes. The irony is that two of the components in the kit are the oldest pieces of photography equipment I have, the monopod which I got in the very beginning when I started with photography (except I’ve switched the ballhead) and the extension tube set which also dates back in the early days before I got a dedicated macro lens.

At this time of the year I do the same walk every weekend, kind of an inventory round to see when the flowers will start popping up. The wood anemone above was shot at hembygdsgården because there’s still about 20cm of snow in my favourite wood anemone spot. Another flower that’s about to bloom is the daphne, I have high hopes of seeing some flowers next weekend because the buds are getting quite big in my favourite daphne spot. I didn’t expect to see any open daphne flowers so imagine my surprise when I came across these pink beauties with their amazing scent when I was inspecting the Svartån waterfalls today. There was too much water in the creek to inspire me (small creeks work better for me when there’s little water in them) so finding the daphne was perfect. But regardless of the amount of water, it was great to be out there. The wind was horribly cold and completely negated the warm sunshine, it was even snowing at one point, but it didn’t stop me from sitting down and enjoying a cup of coffee (or two) and be happy about the changing season!

I did a quick trip to the mountains yesterday, had to check the cabin site because they’re almost finished with the groundwork now (more about that in another post). Since I didn’t have much choice in the date, I was lucky to have somewhat reasonable weather so I could do some photography while I was there.

And the photography started before I even got to the mountains. Road 84 follows the Ljusnan river and there’s a few spots along the way which are quite photogenic in the right conditions, and nothing beats the lay-by just before Hede. I’ve driven past a few times without stopping although the scene was looking incredibly good, so now I’ve made it a habit to slow down before the lay-by in case it’s a worthy opportunity… and this time it was. The river is normally open during the winter, so there’s plenty of potential especially in cold weather.

When I was finished at the cabin site, I still had a few hours of daylight at my disposal so I put on the snowshoes and followed a snow mobile trail. It hasn’t been snowing lately in the mountains either, so the snow was old and had crystallised in the cold weather. By crystallising I mean that the top layer of the snow had frozen and these crystal structures were sticking up… the phenomenon itself is not unfamiliar to me, it happens every winter, but what stunned me was the sheer size of these crystals. They were formed like birch leaves and were easily the size of them, so I started calling them ice leaves. The wind was picking up and the “leaves” were falling at every gust of the wind, you could hear the faint tinkle when they hit the ground. Amazing thing!

One of my favourite mountains is Ånnfjället, it has a very characteristic profile that looks good from any angle. It’s also visible from much of the road between Mittådalen and Funäsdalen, so it was the obvious choice to concentrate on during my short trip. The setting sun was fading behind the clouds, but there was just enough light to provide some contrast for the clouds of snow that the wind was whipping up on the mountain. I was hoping for the sun to come out for a glorious sunset, but that didn’t happen so I gave up and drove to Funäsdalen to get a good cup of coffee and drive home.

* * *

It has taken me half a day to process the HDRs (all of them from that lay-by in Hede). I didn’t use a tripod (lazy, lazy and more lazy) so I relied on quick shutter speeds and IS to keep the picture reasonably steady for processing. But it turned out that none of my four different HDR programs were able to align the pictures correctly (even if they were off by only a few pixels) so I had to manually align everything and then run them through the different programs to see which one gave me the best result, because I wasn’t happy with anything I was getting out of them. In the end I settled with LR/Enfuse or otherwise I would still be processing them. The worst part is that I needed to process every series of shots to be able to determine which ones were worth keeping, and when I finally had the results I threw away half of the work I put into them. Oh well, what are Sundays for anyway?

I had big plans for today. I was going to hike downstream Svartån from the Svartåvallen road; every time I drive over the bridge there I think that it looks good but the terrain on both sides of the creek looks a bit tough so I’ve never tackled it. I’ve absolutely no idea why I thought it would be any easier with snow up to my knees…

Strike one.

I quickly came up with a plan B and made a U-turn to take the road following the Voxnan river instead. I was intent on shooting some water and the waterfall at Högforsen should provide. When I was standing on the cliffs at Högforsen, I got a déjà vu. When you have no idea if you’re stepping on solid rock or solid ice or water running under snow and thin ice, it’s not possible to get close enough to get a view of the falls. Same place, same dilemma, last winter.

Strike two.

So I figured that there must be something at Svartån again where it runs into Voxnan. Sort of, as it turned out. Very difficult to get next to the water (or ice) for any decent views. Partly because of the trees and bushes growing at the water’s edge, and partly because you don’t know where it’s safe to set your foot. I followed Voxnan a litte bit and gave up, and then followed Svartån upstream and gave up. Svartån is almost impossible, it’s completely lined up with trees leaning over the water (ice) so you hardly get any views of the creek, let alone good views.

Strike three.

I made a U-turn and drove home; sitting indoors in the front of the TV sounded like a good idea at that point. A lot of effort and little to show for it, but you know what? It wasn’t that bad anyway. The temperature was just perfect and it was snowing all the time and that’s really all that I ask for. Pictures are bonus!

It’s been looking like winter this week and I’ve been looking forward to the weekend to enjoy it. So I didn’t waste any time in the morning, left as soon as there was enough light. I was also a little bit worried that the temperatures would creep above freezing so I definitely had to do my photography before that, or miss all the snow on the trees.

What I like most in the early winter is the open water in contrast to the snow and I knew just the perfect place for that – Svartån. There’s not too much snow to make walking difficult (or hard work), but it does get a bit tricky when you walk in a terrain which is half rocky and half  boggy. Following the creek is hard enough in the summer, but now that all the crevices and water holes between the rocks and cliffs were covered by snow, I had to make some major detours to view the creek without getting my feet wet (or broken). But I didn’t mind it, it’s such a great feeling to be walking in a snow covered forest. It is so quiet… even the sound of the waterfalls is muted. And when you get away from the waterfalls, all you can hear is the snow under your feet, your breathing, even your heartbeat. My goodness me how I have missed winter!

The winter is making itself heard. Or seen. We got quite a few days with snowfall and twice we ever got a snow cover to speak of, but because the temperatures were constantly hovering around zero, the snow was gone overnight or during the day so I didn’t have any snow left at my snow meter. The rain millimeters contain some melt snow though.

Temperature (High): 5°C
Temperature (Low): -3°C
Temperature (Average): 1°C

Barometer (High): 1032 mbar
Barometer (Low): 978 mbar
Barometer (Avg): 1012 mbar

Totally sunny days: 5

Rain: 55 mm
Days with rain: 13

Snow cover (High): 0 cm
Snow cover (Low): 0 cm
Snow cover (Avg): 0 cm
New snow: 0 cm
Days with snowfall: 6

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Late in the season, I’m still exploring new places. We were following the same river that we visited last week, and it meant discovering more remnants of log driving activity in these waters. The rock walls that line up the riverbank in some places is an obvious sign of log driving, but then there are other things that are starting to disappear from sight, like the wooden channels from the late 19th century that are now overgrown, or the duckboards which are half rotten so you have to be careful where you step because the plank can break under your foot when you least expect it. A fresh dusting of snow on the old planks doesn’t help…

Photographically a tough day, but this late in the season it almost doesn’t matter what the weather is, it’s tough any which way. So the day was better used for scouting, and we did find some very promising places that are definitely worth a visit in the summer. Just need a bit more colour and water, and it’s keepers all the way!

If you look at the world map, you won’t see any white space anymore – we (humans) have been everywhere. The time of the great explorers is now but an exciting story in a book. What is left is personal discovery – just because some other people have been there before, doesn’t mean that it’s not worth for me to see. Up here in my neck of the woods everything is in smaller scale of course, I gravely doubt we any had any explorers here at all. Only the early settlers who endured the harsh environment and made a living out of the forest.

So today I was, if not an explorer, then a re-explorer anyway. We found a place which didn’t look like it’s been visited by humans in many years. Plenty of traces of log driving activity, but when the trucks took over the log piles the people deserted these waterways. The only tracks we found belonged to moose and a bear.

It was a difficult day for photography, so all I have is a few pictures for memories. But a poor day for photography was a great day for discovery!