The Quiet Picture

Now I can check off the second waterfall in Björnån, having seen the first one last week. I was really curious to get there because in the satellite picture and on some maps it seemed like there was a bridge over the river, although it was nowhere marked as such. And indeed, a bridge it was – but not the kind I’d want to walk over! The planks were rotten and many were missing, so I settled to photographing it instead.

They used to do log driving on this river and it was very evident here, for example in the picture you can see the stone wall that guides the logs down the waterfall. We also found some duckboards that were barely visible from under the lichens and mosses, and an half-fallen bench used by log drivers while on watch to monitor the logs and ready to jump to action in case a log jam was forming. These constructions date back to the early 20th century and probably haven’t been used in at least half a century when log driving ended at Björnån.

Oh and the waterfall itself, it wasn’t actually half as interesting as the one last week. But I didn’t mind, all this other stuff we found made me feel like a historian, or an archaeologist, even!

Since the raining/snowing that they had forecast for today hadn’t started yet, we drove to Svansjöbäcken and followed it down until it levelled off. Somewhere around half way down the brook changes nature, from the cliffs upstream to rocks downstream. In the rocky parts the water almost disappears, so it will only be interesting when there’s more water so it will fall over the rocks. It will also be interesting to see the cliffs when there’s more water, although not too much – the cliffs are only attractive as long as they are visible!

A few weeks ago we drove along the Voxnan river north from Rullbo. I thought the place had fabulous potential and planned to get back in the autumn with all the colours. And that’s what I did today. Only problem was that the light was awful – that disgusting thin veil of clouds across the sky so it’s not really overcast but it’s not sunny either. There were a few moments of good light and I was able to use them, but then the bad light returned and made me walk away from so many wonderful opportunities that I’m nowhere near done with the place.

I also visited two new places today. The first one was a result of some detective work and I’m well pleased with myself. You see, I’ve heard that there are some waterfalls in the Björnån river downstream from the bridge over E45. The problem is that there isn’t any road that follows the river and it’s impossible to follow the river on foot. But thanks to the wonderful new satellite pictures on hitta.se, I was able to see a couple of places which were white and that can only mean one thing – falling water. Out of those two spots I found, I chose to visit the easy one today and reaching it was easy indeed, just over 400 metres from the road and you can hear it when you park the car so I didn’t even need my GPS to get there. I was happy to find out that it was indeed a real waterfall, the light on the other hand was impossible so I’m only showing the picture to given an idea of the place. If you’re going there, just a word of warning – if it’s sunny, then the falls will be backlit at noon. But who wants to shoot at noon anyway? Except me, because it was noon when I got there…

The other new place I visited was a lucky coincidence. At one point, the Ormsjövägen road (the one that follows the Voxnan river) goes through an area which is dotted with big rocks and small tarns and bogs. Just the kind of landscape I like, so I parked the car and was going to follow the road on foot to cover that interesting stretch. What I hadn’t counted on was a small brook that runs through the area and in the end, I forgot all about the tarns and bogs because the brook had me totally spellbound! It’s just like the rapids at Svartån except a bit smaller and more open. It took me almost two hours to cover about 200 metres of it and it wouldn’t have been over even then, either, if it hadn’t been for my very empty stomach. Looking at the map, the brook continues to fall steadily for about a km from the spot where I was until it joins Voxnan. If the rest of the brook is as interesting as the part where I was, then will be a full day job to cover all of it! And trust me, I will be back.

The day definitely turned out to be longer than I had anticipated – which is pretty good, considering how disappointed I was with the light at first!

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.

A couple of photographer friends came for a visit, I had promised to show them my new favourite location at Svartån. I think I may have raised the exceptions a little bit but judging by the number of pictures being taken, nobody was disappointed in any case! Since it hasn’t been raining in the last week, the water level had receded again so it was now possible to jump around on the cliffs and rocks to find new angles that I couldn’t access in my last two visits. The weather co-operated with us, initially it was sunshine but then it turned overcast (we even got rained on – I think I counted at least four drops, lol) so it was possible to use long shutter speeds to blur out the water.

The sun came out when we had reached the top of the rapids, so we drove to another location to see if we could get any sunset opportunities. The first place offered a few sunlit frames, but there was a bank of clouds in the horizon and the sun soon disappeared behind it. We checked out another small tarn anyway which in some other light should be nice, but late evening in overcast weather is not it so we wrapped up the day. A bit of an anticlimax maybe, but I don’t think anyone was particularly disappointed!

Very exciting day – looking for the ghost orchids (Epipogium aphyllum)! I really had been looking forward to seeing it, because these mysterious small pale orchids have become my favourites. Last year was spectacular for them so we didn’t dare to hope it would be equally good this year, but I think it turned out to be pretty close anyway. Last year we found a few groups with many orchids, this year the concentrations were much smaller but there were individuals scattered over a larger area, it was such a treat to be walking around the place and spot the flowers among the mosses and ferns. We checked out four ghost orchid locations in total, and found them in each – which wasn’t guaranteed at all, considering their nature. They can disappear for many years from a location and then suddenly pop up again when the conditions are right.

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I have been itching to go back to the Svartån location we visited last week, so I did that tonight. The volume of water had gone down considerably, just as predicted. Now it was possible to follow the creek on the cliffs surrounding the water, instead of making detours in the forest. I followed the creek up to where it finally levelled off, the next time I think I will follow it downstream. This visit confirmed the feeling I got the last time, the place is full of opportunities and even after 2.5 hours I had still only just scratched the surface. It’s not just the waterfalls but everything around them as well. You can use a wideangle to cram in as much as possible or you can concentrate on a single detail, and come back some other time and do it all over again because it will have changed. Marvellous!

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SVT Gävledala hade ett inslag om Hamra NP i måndags. De hade filmat vid Svartån, men jag kan inte avgöra om de filmat precis här eller hittat mer klipphällar annanstans längs Svartån… i så fall, var var det?

The flower season is starting to wind down, but there are still some interesting flowers left. Orchid-wise, the only thing to look forward to is the ghost orchid, but then again, that’s plenty to look forward to. It’s just an amazing flower! Twayblade is still in bloom, so are some late heath spotted orchids and we even found one very late blooming early marsh orchid, and I know that the creeping lady’s-tresses should be at their best right now (note to self: photograph them!). One exciting flower we visited today is the moor-king lousewort (Pedicularis sceptrum-carolinum). In my mind I always see it as an alpine plant, but it does grow in the low-land as well and we have it. And then the bog star is up and coming, I definitely hope to explore that beautiful flower in more detail this year.

But the best discovery today was not a plant at all, but a place. I’m always keen on some waterfalls, so my guide took me to a stretch of the Svartån creek which turned out to be pure photographic heaven for me. Because of the big rains in the past days the creek was nearly flooding (and the colour wasn’t very nice because the creek is mainly fed by run-off from the bogs) so it wasn’t showing its best side for me today, but there is absolutely no denying the potential. I’m already dreaming of October and all the colours…

When we were making our way back, it suddenly dawned on me that this was part of the Hamra National Park now, as it was extended in May. It made me even more happy, knowing that this fabulous place is protected. The landscape may not be spectacular, the plants may not be rare, but in my eyes this place is as special as it gets!

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!

I was supposed to have vacation the whole week, but I couldn’t come up with anything to do so I shortened it to two days.

I had done some research and found a waterfall south-west from Sonfjället, Lillråndafallet. From Rånddalen, there’s a forest road towards the canyon where the Lill-Rånden creek falls. The road wasn’t very good to start with, and soon it got worse – much worse. All the raining in the past days had left a big puddle across the whole road so I stopped the car to take a closer look. It wasn’t the water that worried me – it was the muddy bottom. I poked at it and it felt soft, so I didn’t dare to drive through it. If I couldn’t go forward, then the only was back. Except that there was no place to turn. The closest turnaround was 5-600 metres behind me. On that rough road that was bumpy enough driving forward when I could see the obstacles. Oh dear me… And then of course, since I couldn’t drive to the trailhead I had to walk instead, I figured I had stopped about 2 km short. But now I got a little bit lucky, after reversing only about a 100 metres I came to a wider section of the road, not possible to turn the car around but certainly possible to park it without blocking the road. Ironically, just after the mudhole the road got better, no big rocks to drive around like it was before it.

From the trailhead, the sign said it’s 2.5 km to the falls. The trail follows the east side of the canyon and the sound of the falling water could be heard somewhere beneath all the way to the actual falls. When I got down to my photo shoot, I heard a thunder rumble right after I had taken the first picture! Very lucky that there’s a shelter next to the falls, so I quickly made my way to it because it had also started raining – a lot. While I was sitting there and waiting for the rain to pass, I was trying to figure out why I was feeling so uneasy. Although I really liked the place, I wasn’t as eager to photograph it as I should’ve been. Something was nagging my mind… the car. I was worrying about having to reverse 500m on that rocky road, and I was worrying about the tyres for all the punishment they’ve been getting today, first the Fågelsjö road which is under construction… then the gravel road from Linsell to Rånddalen… and finally the rocky road towards the trailhead. Having something like that nagging my mind prevents me from being inspired to photograph. But it’s not all bad. Having to worry about flat tyres, mudholes and thunderstorms takes the mind off work, very quickly! Instant vacation mode.

When the sun came out, my mood improved. I just tried to be positive; I can drive in reverse, it’s never been a problem for me, so what if the road is bad, I’ll just take it slow! I took some more pictures but I kept feeling that I had not made the most of my visit. It’s like I just wanted to get done with the car and get out of there. It’s a real shame though, because the place definitely deserves more attention, the big fall itself is un-photographable as it falls in the ravine, but the falls upstream and the side-falls are fine. I think this is the part where it sucks to be alone. You get too trapped in your own thoughts and can’t find a way out so your worries take the better of you. So I don’t think that I’ll ever go back there, not alone. Consider this an invitation – if you want to see the Lillrändåfallet falls, just drop me a line. I know the way!

On the way back, I saw two guys standing a way down from the trail. They asked me if there’s a shelter, I said yes… just follow the trail. “What trail?” Huh? How did they get here? “The trail I’m standing on…” They happily made their way up to the trail and continued towards the falls. When I got to the trailhead, I found a car there. Those guys had driven a car – a normal car, with ground clearance no bigger than in my little Yaris! If they had made it through the mudhole, then for sure I can do that, too. That would certainly spare me all the reversing. When I passed the mudhole, I took a stick and poked at the mud all the way through. And for sure, it didn’t feel as bad as it had done at first, most of the bottom was hard and the softer mud only covered small areas, not big enough for a tyre to sink in. So I drove through, no problems!

When I was back at the tarmac road, it was such a relief! And it wasn’t just the joy of a proper road, but I also found out that the summer cafe at Nysätern was still open, so I could go there and have a cup of coffee and a waffle. All I had eaten since breakfast was a few peanut M&M’s… I was starving! I had a sandwich with me but I hadn’t felt like eating with what all the worrying I was doing instead. Stupid I know, but it’s a very hard habit to break. Anyway, the crispy waffle, whipped cream and cloudberry jam hardly fulfills the nutrional requirements of a meal, but I couldn’t care less. When I was back on the road, I was euphoric. No worries! I couldn’t stop smiling, it was such a great feeling that everything had turned out ok. Yes!

I checked in at the hostel and then drove to Ljusnedal to photograph the Tevåfallet waterfall. It’s not a big waterfall by any means, but it’s the way there that’s nice. Small falls all the time, so it was just stop shoot and go. And the best part – no hiking required to get there. If you take the “back door”, it’s something like 50m to the bridge and you can start shooting right there. And then follow upstream as far as you feel like.

I took a lot of pictures today, but nothing that feels special. The special feeling I have from the today is my car surviving the ordeal unscathed… well, unless I have a slow puncture and a flat tyre in the morning…

I’ve no special plans for this year’s vacation – just mountains. I started with a de-tour to Klövsjö, I wanted to check out the Fettjeåfallet waterfall. It was a sunny day so not really ideal for waterfalls, but at least I’d get to see the place. It’s a relatively short hike – about 2 km – but very rocky. But there’s also plenty to photograph along the way, and it’s this “along the way” that makes Fettjeåfallet one of the better waterfalls I’ve seen.

I had made the radical decision of taking the film camera (and the G10) on this excursion. The contrasty light in the forest is a nightmare for any camera so every time I wanted a picture I waited for a cloud to drift in. With the G10, I was able to use bracketing for HDR. And I must say I struggled a great deal with that. Every single time I’m on the field and need the bracketing function, I forget how to use it! And what kills me is that it’s not difficult, but I just can’t remember the combination of buttons to press. Because there’s that bracketing function, I can set it, I can even choose the interval… but the darn camera totally ignores my settings. So I’m missing some crucial last step in the process. Which leaves me doing manual bracketing, which takes too long, when the clouds are moving fast and thus changing the conditions of shadows and light in the composition. When I get home, I’ll have to check the manual and write down some notes and put them in the bag. I refuse to let a compact camera beat me.

But the film camera then. Not enough functions to get confused! The only custom function I need is the mirror lockup, but just in case, I carry the manual in the bag. You know, the good old days when you actually got a hardcopy of the manual. When I was walking back to the car, I was wondering why I’m not a least bit bothered about whether or not the slides will be any good. All too easy to botch the exposure in these conditions, and I didn’t even bracket. And I realised – the final picture is not that important! I’ve always said that the journey is more important than the goal, and it truly is. Good pictures are just a bonus. Sweet!

The scenery looked frightfully bad after the warm temperatures earlier this week, so I didn’t even take the camera with me yesterday when I went for a walk. I did some scouting instead and hiked to the Kvarnsjön lake to look at the creek running from it and found a lot of open water and very nice ice decoration around. So today’s project was photographing all that, except it was snowing when I woke up. Needless to say that all that beautiful clear ice was now decidedly less so. Already when I was taking the pictures, I knew it was all bad and sure enough I trashed the bulk of them. Just an excercise in composition.

Oh don’t I wish I had relied on Kvarnsjön to produce like it always does, and taken the camera with me yesterday…