The Quiet Picture

This is a follow-up to my previous post about using slow shutter speeds. I wanted to elaborate on the water theme a little bit so here goes.

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The shutter speed to use with moving water is one of the more interesting issues in landscape photography. Some prefer a fast shutter to freeze the water, and others prefer a long shutter speed to smooth out the water. And some people prefer something in between, and then of course “it depends”.

I’ve liked the smooth water effect so much that I succeeded in taking my favourite waterfall picture already in 2004 using good old film. This is a detail of the Anderssjöåfallet waterfall in Härjedalen and believe it or not but I have not photographed the falls since then - maybe it’s because I know that I can’t improve on this one and every time I look at the falls, I just see this slide in my head. It is a fairly abstract picture, one that is stripped out of everything but the very basics (even the colour is gone, although this is not B&W), making it a very simple capture which to me is a perfect example a quiet picture. Now imagine this same image, but with a fast shutter speed which captures every drop of water. Would you still say that it is “quiet”?

I posted the Anderssjöåfallet picture on Fotosidan a few years ago and someone commented that the water was unnatural. Absolutely correct, I admit it’s 100% unnatural and I didn’t argue with them and I never will, but it got me thinking - where is it written that nature photography should be “natural”? We only have our own photographic visions, and there’s no right or wrong with them. Every vision is equally valid, every shutter speed used with moving water is equally good, the only thing different is your own taste and I respect that. Smoothing out water is just one way of manipulating the subject, but the manipulation really starts already when you choose your composition and focal length. So when is photography ever really natural? It’s all just a photographer’s vision and you choose the means which fulfill your vision. It’s all good!

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I browsed through my waterfall pictures but the pair of images above was the only one where I could actually show a comparison between slow and fast shutter speeds. Pictures are taken in June 2006 at the Sveån creek which falls into Ljusnan at Ramundberget.

For a very long time I’ve been wondering why I like to use long shutter speeds with moving water. I’ve just always liked it, from the very beginning of my photography career - it was the reason I bought my first polariser filter and I still remember the first waterfall I used it on. In the last few days I’ve been thinking about this issue, inspired by the comments for my Sunday’s post and also Miika’s waterfall post when I was writing a comment for it. Then it suddenly dawned on me and it was so obvious I can’t believe I wasn’t able to figure out a long time ago! It all comes down to my concept of “quiet picture”.

I strive to achieve harmony in my pictures (the operative word being “strive”). Ideally, everything is in balance - if something is out of place, it will stick out and disturb, be it an element that doesn’t belong, bad composition, highlight or whatever. A balanced picture is thus quiet and the less elements you have in a picture, the quieter it usually becomes. Using shallow DOF in macro photography is a way to eliminate elements in the picture. A long shutter speed achieves the same thing in landscape photography. I use a long shutterspeed even when the analytical part of my brain says that a shorter speed would be more appropiate, the picture on the left is definitely such where I recognise that freezing the water would probably work better. But now that I know why I’m using a long shutter speed, I no longer have to worry about the “right” speed to use. The right exposure is the one that comes naturally to me!

Sometimes I find a trick which I like so much that I use it for all my photos. Long exposures are my trick du jour, so now I’m taking hardly any pictures with shutter speeds lower than a second. You can never be quite sure what you get with this type of images while you’re taking them, so the idea is to take loads of pictures with varying shutter speeds and then on the computer pick out the best. Digital helps.

Might as well keep taking these until the season is over… when the leaves have fallen and grass has withered brown, it’s time to come up with something else!

The weather was sure changing today. In the morning it was heavy winds and rain, even some sleet at one point, and then at lunchtime the clouds moved away and by sunset it was almost windstill and clear skies. It worked fine for us at Hylströmmen, but sunset was a miss.

Note to self: find sunset locations!

I found a new waterfall favourite - the Livsäterån creek. I didn’t have much of an idea of what to expect, except that I had read that it was a scenic creek with some waterfalls. As it turned out, it was absolute and pure bliss for a waterfall photographer! The weather had turned out just as forecast, overcast with some light drizzle. Perfect. And although at first I thought that there was very little water in the creek (not much rain lately), it was actually quite nice in the end - sometimes less is more. So I hiked down the creek with frequent photo stops, and then up again. At first I used the polariser filter but then I thought that I should try some longer exposures, so I added the ND8. Silky smooth water is not everybody’s cup of tea, but I love it. So what I thought would be a quick trip took no less than 5 hours, of which only about an hour was spent on walking to the creek and back. Time really does fly when you’re having fun!

I had originally planned to continue with waterfall photography at another location, but I figured I had pretty much had my waterfall fix by now so I just took to the road leading to Flatruet, hoping to catch some autumn colours in afternoon/evening light now that the sun was starting to break out. It was still very patchy light though, blink and you’ll miss it, so by the time I got the camera ready the light was already way gone. Then when I was nearly giving up hope, the clouds cleared enough to give me a proper opportunity and I made full use of it. It was still patchy light, but that just adds mood to the picture.

Such a brilliant day, this is what I dreamt about when I booked my holiday!

Perfect day for some sightseeing! I drove south towards Orsa to check out the Storstupet and Helvetesfallet canyons. Been there, seen it, done that. No need to go back. But in case someone else is interested and has photography in mind, you might want to know that at Storstupet the view is more or less to the south (=to the sun) and at Helvetesfallet it’s to the north. But if you pick overcast weather like I did, then the direction of the sun is pretty much a moot point!

From the Emån river (which is what runs through Storstupet and Helvetesfallet) I continued to Boda to have a look at one more waterfall, Styggforsen. Been there, seen it, done that. It’s borderline that it might be more interesting in the spring when there’s more water… but it’s unlikely I’ll bother to go there again. But in case you want to go there, then you should know that Boda is 20 km north from Rättvik and Styggforsen is well signposted from the main road. Swedish signposting can sometimes be quite… random, so seeing those signs at every turn was a bit of a novelty for me!

Even if it sounds like I’m totally unimpressed with today’s trip, I’m actually not. I’ve had these places on my to-do list for years, and now I can finally tick them off. And even if I didn’t see anything which I think is worth seeing again, I think all of these three places were worth seeing - period.

Well, I’m back in the mountains, but this time I’m mingling with the (other) tourists in the popular Fulufjället National Park, the popular part being the Njupeskär waterfall. I’m doing my best to avoid the crowds so I first drove to the Göljån creek which became famous in August 1997 when a record downpour transformed the quiet creek into a raging torrent, washing away some 10000 cubic metres of forest. They estimate that when it was at its worst, there was 500 times more water going down than normal. Since the old riverbed couldn’t contain all the water and debris it was flushing away, the water found new ways down the slope and the creek is now meandering in several small trickles. I was absolutely spell-bound when I got to the fern covered forest. It’s the kind of scenery I normally just dream about!

For more information about Göljån, read the PDF brochure (in Swedish), or check out this page (in English).

In the evening when the crowds had finally left Njupeskär, I headed to the big waterfall. My plan was to get some good Njupeskär pictures with the help of HDR, because otherwise I think it’s a real nightmare to photograph. In order to get anything out of it even with HDR, you need a reasonable sky behind the falls. When I was approaching, all I got was this milky white cloud so my heart sank. So much for that, then.

When I was leaving the falls, the scenery changed though and suddenly I had a view where the ugly cloud was just a small detail and the sun was still shining on the left side of the ravine. Now I knew I had my pictures!

Somehow the weather got the best of me. Of course, it’s nice to have warm sunshine so I shouldn’t complain, it’s better than constant rain for sure. But then there’s the feeling that I’m here too early in the season. And I’m really getting fed up with having to hike up mountains, yes I get to see great landscape and the feeling of reaching the treeline and then the top of the mountain is unbeatable… but I’m just getting tired of it now, that’s all. I think I need a holiday from my holiday.

So I will leave Härjedalen for now. Instead of heading straight home, I drove to Ljungdalen to check out Torkilstöten, which is probably my favourite flower location. The fact that it’s easy to reach (the road takes you to the tree line) doesn’t hurt, but it’s really the flowers that make it stand out. This is also the location for the alpine chamorchis that I mentioned earlier, but I had a feeling that I was way too early to see it. But there are plenty of other flowers, so time just flew by as I was walking up and down, left and right on the mountain side. I think next year though, I will have to come here in mid-July or even later.

Now that I was north from Flatruet, I thought I might as well take the road to Åsarna and check out the Rövrafallet waterfall east from Storsjö. I was also interested in seeing how the new road was shaping up, they’re now working on the Ljungdalen-Storsjö stretch but the rest of it is already done. And I was well impressed, it’s an absolute joy to drive and a far cry from the stress-inducing and car-chipping experience that the old road used to be. They have also built plenty of picnic places and lay-bys so kudos for that.

The waterfall turned out to be bigger than I expected, and I was actually positively surprised. It’s that awkward size of waterfall that I normally don’t like, but somehow I thought that this was nice, even if I didn’t get any good pictures. If you ever take the Åsarna-Ljungdalen road, then I’d recommend a visit to Rövrafallet. Take the road signed to Tossåsen (it’s actually the old road so you can compare it to the new), the Rövrafallet parking is less than 2 km on the left. Leave your car at the picnic place, unless you have a high clearance vehicle so you can drive to the trailhead (it will save you a whopping 200m). The trailhead is marked and the trail is well worn, it’s an easy hike of 800m to the falls. There’s a wind shelter and even a toilet, so the place is just waiting for visitors, but I would imagine that not many people visit the place though. Is it even mentioned in any tourist brochure?

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When I got home, it was 13°C and overcast. I’m not gonna complain!

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”!