The Quiet Picture

One photographer I have the deepest respect for is Guy Tal. He creates stunning landscape pictures but he is also a very insightful writer, just check out his blog. He recently wrote about photography competitions and I can only echo his thoughts. I’ve been very suspicious about any competitions for the very reason that he mentions, that in the end the success or failure of your pictures depends on the eye of the judge(s). A competition does not measure how good your pictures are – it measures the opinion of the person who is reviewing your picture.

Now it might sound a little bit like sour grapes when I say it, but it’s not. Yes I’ve participated in some competitions in the past, but only some random small ones (I’m realistic enough to know that I’m not good enough for any of the big ones!). And no I haven’t had any success, and sometimes I’ve been downright discouraged when I’ve seen the winning pictures. Technically inferior to mine, but what difference does it make when the judge is technically not a photographer? And anyway, since when has technique mattered? The photograph has to say something to the viewer, and my photographs don’t talk much. I like them quiet. The way I see it, I don’t need a prize to validate my photography. All I need is the satisfaction I get from my own work, created on my own terms. If someone else likes it, great! But as for competitions, I’m done with them. Zero ambitions.

A bit like writing this blog. I do it because I like to write, not because I entertain any illusion that I’m good at it. Why do you think I keep rambling on about nothing? It’s just the joy of seeing the noise on the keyboard turn into words on the screen. An excuse to publish some of those pictures I have lying around on the hard drive!

There is a really nice waterfall close to the road between Hede and Funäsdalen. As usual, it’s not signed from the road so you need to do your research beforehand to find out it’s there. The creek is called Rändån and the waterfall is Rändåfallet.

When you come from the direction of Hede, you will pass thru a small village called Långå. About 8 km from the T-junction in Långå (a road branches off to the right but you continue straight on the 84), the road crosses over two creeks. In between the bridges, there’s a yellow sign for “Långå 7″ for a gravel road. Look right and you’ll see a parking lot and a large information board – that’s where you park the car! And now you just hike the very easy trail 1 km through a pine forest to get to the foot of the falls. The trail is level and dry (unless it’s been raining a lot) so you don’t even need any hiking boots to manage it. But then if you want to follow the falls up (which you will definitely want to do!), you have to work a bit harder to get up the steep hill. But it’s still easy.

The first part of the falls is wide but it falls in many smaller falls instead of one big. It takes some searching but you’ll find some nice angles to shoot those smaller falls close to the right bank where the trail is. When you get past this part of the falls, the creek levels off a little bit so now there’s a series of smaller falls. About 300 m further upstream, there’s another big waterfall and that’s as far as you need to go.

As usual with waterfalls, their photo worthiness depends a lot on the volume of water running down. My personal preference is low volume because it reveals more textures and forms, so the best time to visit is late summer and autumn. However, I think that Rändån is regulated upstream from the falls so the volume of water might not always be relative to the season. You’ll get an idea of the situation already from the main road where the bridge crosses over the creek so if it looks like there’s too much or too little water, you might want to save the visit for another day.

Rändåfallet is perhaps not the most photogenic waterfall and it certainly takes some work to find the best angles. It’s a very nice place though so if you’re at all interested in waterfalls, it’s well worth the visit and you should never leave the camera in the car!

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 have another mini-holiday this weekend. And there’s only really one place where I can spend it – the mountains.

Today’s hike was at Ramundberget. I’ve read about the waterfalls of Tvärån and because the day was going to be overcast, waterfalls were just the right thing to shoot. Problem is… the waterfalls weren’t as photogenic as I had hoped for. However, I was impressed by the surroundings, especially up towards the tree line. Another place which will look just simply spectacular in autumn colours! But it’s a long hike there, 5 km just to get from the car to creek and then about 2 km upstream. The waterfalls are bigger downstream but it’s difficult to find a good angle, maybe it will be easier in the autumn where the insects aren’t quite as numerous. They can be a real inspiration killer!

And to be honest, the waterfalls further up were a little bit less exciting. It’s clear that the volume of water is very low at the moment, but I’m not sure if more water would help. But I wasn’t disappointed as such, I was just so happy to be there. Always. Hiking up to the alpine tundra cheers me up like nothing else!

And while I was up there, I also got a close view of Skarsfjället. It’s an impressive mountain at over 1500m, the highest peak of the massif is bit like a round-sided pyramid which is easy to recognise. Because it’s the highest mountain in the neighbourhood, it means it’s visible from a lot of places around here. When it’s visible at all – it seems like has its own climate and the peak is often hidden in the clouds. But not today, even if it was a bit of an overcast and dull day.

So what did I forget then? I forgot the macro lens and compass at home. I forgot the map in the car. I forgot to check the reserve batteries for the GPS (which I wanted to keep operational when I don’t have a compass and a map!). It turned out that the spare battery holder I grabbed when I left home contained used batteries which I obviously had forgotten to throw away back when the batteries were used! But no harm done, there was just enough juice to keep the GPS powered up so I could see when I was back at the car that I had hiked over 15 km. Not bad… but I think I will do a shorter hike tomorrow!

But most importantly… I forget all my worries!

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 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!

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.