The previous times things have come up that have prevented me to go, and now I set out without telling anyone else and just went there. Of course I had some bad luck and killed one of my flashes so that one needs to go to the repair shop Always something. However the trip resulted in some pictures from a blistering cold January day in the south end of Stockholm at the woodland cemetery.

The wood chapel

Chapel of the holy cross.

The famous cross.

Remembrance Garden

Remembrance garden

Path to the chapel of resurrection

Greta Garbo

Chapel of Resurrection

Autumn field on the Island of "Eldgarn" in Lake Mälaren. Taken with Nikon D70s, Nikkor DX AF-S VR18-200/3.5-5.6G ED-IF, using polarizing filter. Post processing was mainly cropping and light contrast adjustment.

Nikon D70s, Nikkor DX AF-S VR18-200/3.5-5.6G ED-IF

This photograph was shot on the way home from a fabulous course in nature photography last weekend. The course rendered many nice photographs and some of them you can see here on my flickr page.

As usual the course holders Janne Hägerholm (email, homepage) and Laszlo Incze (email, homepage) was doing a splendid job and we had such good fortune with the weather. Yesterday was a bit cloudy and here are the pictures from this day, good light definitely and wonderful in many ways.

Day 1 pictures

Today we had brilliant sunshine instead and that was great too, for a different kind of photography where we could concentrate on the autumn colours and forget a little about the broad sweeping landscapes that are more difficult in these light conditions.

Day 2 pictures

This will happen roughly twice a week starting this thursday (day after tomorrow) but unfortunately I am busy thursday nights. The second night is on the coming Sunday however when I think it would be a great time to meet up and bring the cameras along.

Anyone interested in joining in on a project and learn more about the beautiful metro in Stocholm and perhaps get the chance to photograph the arts in the subway?

Here is a link to the programme unfortunately all in Swedish but the dates are there.

The weather was not very nice for photography, a thick cloud layer making all the photos very dull and bland, to the point of being completely “flat”. Sometimes I use a flash as a tool to fix this, if you have a dull landscape in the background, place a person in the foreground and use a flash properly you can get a very nice effect. Especially with some gels that gives yellow color. When you compensate the white balance for that yellow colour you get a very nice blue cast on the sky even if it was completely dull when you shot the picture.

But today was different, I decided to work with contrasts and black & white photos instead to the point of almost making them cartoonish. Here is the result of today’s little excursion…

Swedish Air Force DC-3 on display. Originating from flotilla F13M "Malmslätt" in Linköping. Last time it was flown was in 1983 when it was flown from Bromma to Skå-Eneby airfield. The day after there was an unnamed civil pilot flying it without any military or civilian designations to the current location, landing in a nearby field. The authorities are about to move it to a different place.

"Idealbyn", the "ideal village" was created in the early nineties as a kind of haven for people adhering to the teachings of Transcendental Meditation (TM). The photograph shows the school in the village.

Part of the insignia on the DC-3 at Skokloster. This is a close-up of the first picture from a slightly different angle. It says "Swedish Air Force" and "Air Support Command F13M" which relates to the F13 flotilla in Malmslätt, Linköping. The motto was "Volare necesse est". I leave you to look that one up yourself!

Typical "uppland" (the county) where this peninsula resides. To the left in the picture is a rune stone from around year 1000. The flat agricultural landscape are broken by roads that are usually built on very very old roads travelled by foot and then by horsemen probably from the stone age and forth. Runestones where almost always placed at the side of the roads where people traveled at the time they were erected and in these parts there are usually newer roads built on top of these ancient paths. Like in this case.

"Stockholm" a ship that takes passengers from Stockholm city to Waxholm every day. The trip takes about 1.5 hours and there is a fine restaurant on board where you may have something nice to eat.

A slow boat to the archipelago

There is a fantastic opportunity for you when in Stockholm to get some greate scenery, take one of the boats into the archipelago, there are several different companies that makes day-tours or similar that you may go on. Most of these boats will take you through the archipelago which is thought of being one of the most beautiful things you can see here in Stockholm.

There are mainly two companies you can check for taking you around the archipelago, one is “Waxholmsbolaget” and the other is “Strömma Kanalbolag“. The ship shown here is from Strömma. On the Internet you can find a plethora of information about these two lines, also in English, just follow the links.

There are mainly two types of cruises, one is the get there as as fast as possible and the other is we take it slow, enjoy. I prefer the slow cruises and to have dinner on the ship as well as a great opportunity to view the archipelago.

Equipment

I recommend:

• Wide-Medium lens 18-70mm (24-105)
• Telephoto lens 70-200mm (135-300)
• Hot-shote flash
• Cleaning equipment for lenses

For equipment I would recommend to get both a wide-angle and a telephoto lens. There are lots of beautiful scenery that does the wide angle justice but at the same time you may want to reach out with a telephoto lens and get the shot from far away, there are hundreds and thousands of small islands that you may enjoy through the telephoto lens. Focal lengths should probably be about 18-70mm for your wide angle (DX camera body) and 24-50mm for the full frame camera. The telephoto should probably range 70-300mm in an idea situation although DX cameras may get away nicely with a 200 mm.

If you can not pack two lenses, go for a superzzom, something like 18-200mm and use that extensively. Normals and fixes lenses do have their uses but they are more difficult to use from the boat and better used when you are ashore again where you may use them as you would in any other situation.

Hot-shoe flash is not a bad idea at all, can be used to lighten shadows and for interior shot of the ship as well as good to fill in when taking shots of people for portraits.

Tripod while I almost always recommend bringing it is not very useful on the boat for shooting telephoto, the boat has a lot of vibrations from the engines and the rolling of the waves at sea does not help. However it may be quite useful for you when you are ashore again – though I think that for this kind of trip you might be better off without it.

Cleaning equipment is very much necessary, you may get brackish water sprays at sea and you need to get that off the lens before it dries in and form saline crystals that may scratch your lens badly when you polish it later. Wipe off the water, rinse with lens cleaning fluid and wipe that off as well.

Keep a standard platsig bag for you whole camera if the weather is bad or could become bad, you may want to shoot in the rain anywyay and always bring the towel.

Best places to go

It depends a lot on what you are looking for. My personal favourites are to go to Birka, the old viking city where you have a lot of things to see and photograph, Waxholm is another nice place to go to over the day and of course Fjäderholmarna and the “Thousan Island Cruise” can be warmly recommended!

If you have more tips you are welcome to leave them as comments!

Link: Worldwide Photo Walk – Stockholm, Sweden | Worldwide Photo Walk.

Me in front of some chucked away coucht. Camera on tripod with 18-200mm. B&W and square crop in post-processing

Several companies dealing in scrap metal and other such businesses were more or less abandoned over the day and this resulted in an interesting place where we set off to document it before everything was torn down to make room for “Swedbank Arena” the new national arena here.

So we set off on a cloudy overcast day to the Solna Badlands. Some of us had been there before and for some it was the first time. We found several interesting motifs to photograph and here is a collection of my own personal favourites from the expedition.

Sadly for photographers there is nothing left of the badlands today. It’s all gone now and instead we have the Swedbank Arena for football (soccer) lovers out there to play on. The whole area was a bit of a sore on the Solna map and it is actually turned into a rather nice place.

It is difficult to find places of decaying industry in Sweden actually, much more so than in some countries. But I guess it is something to be greatful for in a way of course. I so regret that I did not have my IR filter for this place, it would have been very nice.

Another place – another time.

The light at this time of day is quite fantastic, especially from a cloud-less sky in the summer time as this day was. Even if it was a little chilly the light was quite fantastic and walking through old town at this hour with hardly anyone else about is a very nice feeling.

This is one of my favourite pictures from the walk around. The sun is just behind the building and the light is then reflected in the surrounding building’s windows creating a play of light on the building behind the statue.

The morning light, just like the evening light, takes on that special “Scandinavian Light” which is a little difficult to explain but the tones are extremely warm and nice and it is a joy to photograph it.

Old town is always interesting with its small alleys, nooks and crannies. You can just feel yourself transported back to the 17th or 18th century and lose yourself in the mists of history.

If you get the chance to go early into town, around 06:00 on a normal weekday you would have Gamla Stan more or less to yourself. Except for a few people on their way back home from the last pub closing…

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