At high watermark Jan 7 2015

Today we had a really high watermark in the Baltic Sea: Up to one meter above sea level. You may laugh if you live nearby the Northern Sea or the Atlantic Ocean, but that’s a lot for the Bottenviken, the northern part of the Baltic Sea and hasn’t happened for several years. Despite of my cold I took the car and drove to several places to make pictures of the flooded shores. But I realised, that most motives were extremely boring. What differs a shore with high water of a shore with sea level? Almost nothing!

But the beach at Storgrundet was a bit different. The ice was covered with 60 cm water and slush and the whole sand beach was flooded and many of the small pines that grow beside the beach where partly or completely under water. What a pity, that I didn’t have my waterproof camera with me.

Shortest day in Skelleftehamn Dec 21 2014

Sunrise 09:40, sundown 13:25 – that’s less than four hours sunlight with the sun hardly rising above the horizon. But you can add at least three hours dusk and dawn, so it’s not pitch-dark 20 hours and the snow that fell two nights before lightens up the scenery, too. The image below shows the river Skellefteälven which is almost completely ice covered, at least in Ursviken where the river is broad and the current is week.

108 free days Dec 20 2014

Yesterday I worked the last day for a long time. Now I have holidays. Long holidays! The first day I’ll work again will be the day after Easter Monday and that means that I have (just a moment, I’ll have to check it again to believe it: 12 + 31 + 28 + 31 + 6), that I have a 108 day holiday starting today!

108 days – isn’t it great? Um – err – I don’t know! The last months were quite tough with much work (both privately and on the job) and I’ve been in “survival mode” for many weeks – and still I am. I don’t realise yet, that today my longest period of free time since pre-kindergarden times started. Probably it will take some more days until I really understand.

Yesterday it was sleeting – a bit of snow, quite much rain. But in the afternoon it got colder and rain changed into snow. Today it’s round -5 °C and we have ca. 8 cm fresh snow. In contrast to the last weeks the snow will probably survive, since the weather forecast promises temperatures below zero for the rest of the month.

My friends know my passion for winter and snow and of course I went out and took a walk round the lake Rudtjärnen. The whole lake is covered both with ice and fresh snow and I saw the first two skiers today. They tried to cross a part of the lake but they had to stop to scrape the freezing slush from the bottoms of their skis. The ice under the snow is still wet. No surprise after yesterdays rain.

Later this morning I took the car to the peninsula Näsgrundet where you can see the island Gåsören with its red-white lighthouse in two kilometers distance. It still snowed and long waves rolled on the beach, broke on the shallow shore and flushed away the snow of the nearest rocks. And in the background lay Gåsören covered with the first noteworthy amount of snow.

It took more than 60 shots of this motiv, until I found the right place and – much harder – the right time with surf in the air and the red spotlight of the lighthouse on. I’m still not content, but it’s the best shot today.

The rest of the day: Celebrated laziness – it’s my first day off!

In round about three weeks I will start my long trip through Northern Sweden and Northern Norway – the reason why I took such a long period off duty, and by the way the reason why I started this blog.

Roller coaster weather Dec 14 2014

This December the weather is like a roller coaster, going up and down, bringing frost, rain, hail, sleet and storm. It’s not at all the winter you imagine when you think on Northern Sweden.

Monday started with sunny weather and temperatures round 1 °C – cold enough to cover the windscreen with a thick layer of window frost. (I prefer the German name “Eisblumen” which means ice flowers.) Then it got colder.

Tuesday it was quite clear and cold with temperatures round -7 °C with a minimum of -9 °C at 22:00. In the next three hours temperatures rose by 10 °C and the next morning we had +3 °C and heavy winds. I left my car at the car service station to get it checked before my winter journey and took some photos on the way back home. I attached spikes to my boots because the wet icy roads where extremely slippery. When I went back some hours later to get the car I was surprised at the high water level. This day the water level climbed 70 cm, that’s a lot for the Baltic Sea and only happened because of the storm pressing the sea water ashore.

Stormy morning with a view on the peninsula Kallholmen

The next two days were cloudy, temperatures round + 2 °C with some drizzle that instantly froze on the cold ground. Saturday evening – which was yesterday – it started to get colder and rain started to mix with snow and some soft hail. In the evening it finally started to clear up a bit und got colder.

Today it was quite clear, temperatures round -8 °C and I took a tour to the peninsula Örviken. Örviken has an area of 1 km², 400 people are living here. Even if it is quite near I hardly has being there, which is a pity since it’s a nice place, especially if it’s clear and you’re waiting for the sun rise.

And that’s what I did today. A good activity if you caught a cold and want to take it easy.

On the photos you can see the impacts of the weather: The storm destroyed the ice cover leaving a lot of floating ice floes, but in the cold night the surface started to freeze over again. Do you see the stacked ice in front of the trees? Its laying on land and I guess it was left there after the high water some days before.

After that I drove to another place I already knew and took some photos of the last motif today:

Now it’s half past five and -7.4 °C outside. The weather tomorrow? +2 °C and rain! Probably the whole day! Onto the frozen ground! Sounds familiar?

Some vocabularies for my German readers:

roller coaster – Achterbahn
drizzle – Sprühregen
soft hail – Graupel
peninsula – Halbinsel
Ice floe – Eisscholle

Ice und sun from two weekends Dec 8 2014

Yes, I’ve been partly busy, partly lazy and in addition to that a bit unhappy with my photos the last days. Winter still hasn’t come to Skelleftehamn: Sometimes it’s below zero, sometimes above, sometimes it snows a bit, sometimes it rains (preferably on frozen ground making the streets quite slippery) und quite often it’s cloudy.

For me it’s still a mystery, how lakes, river and even parts of the sea could freeze over if it’s not constantly below zero for a longer period.

When I made the photo Sunrise colours two days ago, I had to wade through hip deep water and swamp to come to my desired place since the ice didn’t bear me. Two days later I saw a photo of the same spot – with a small child ice skating on the frozen surface. But I guess that the locals know the places where it’s save to enter and leave the ice.

A day later I stood at a small rocky beach of the peninsula Kallholmen looking on the bay Sörfjärden. Here you couldn’t sea any ice at all, beside on some stones that are extremely slippery when ice-covered. That’s where I made this photo:

The next saturday – exactly a week later – I was out again to take photos of the sunset. Same bay, different place – this time more upstream. The Sörfjärden is not only a bay but the mouth of the river Skellefteälven, too. The sea is still open but on the sides of the more wind protected river large parts are covered with several layers of ice. The upmost layer was so thin that the ice looked like flakes or feathers.

Today I drove to Kågehamn to take a sauna with two friends. Kågehamn lies beside of the Kågefjärden which seems to be well protected against wind, since the whole sea is ice covered. The ice is thick enough that people skated to the island Bastuholmen, which is one kilometre away from the shore.

Note to myself: Buy ice skates and learn how to skate – next winter.

While my friends did I skating tour, I was on the ice as well and – surprise, surprise – took some photos. This time mostly of ice cracks and embedded bubbles.

By the way: The first sunset photo was made 13:32, the second was made 13:08. Sun goes down quite early in this time of the year. But sun goes down quite slow as well which is nice if you like taking pictures because you don’t have to hurry too much.

Hoar frost – yesterday and today Nov 29 2014

Three times hoar frost – a colored one from my garden yesterday, two that I took on a hike in Bureå today.

Sunrise colours Nov 28 2014

The sky was partly cloudy this morning but the late rising sun shone on the clouds illuminating them in warm pastel shades that changed every minute. This shot I made on a small swampy lake not far from my house in Skelleftehamn.

Two millimetres snow Nov 23 2014

Two millimetres snow and it looks like winter – even in Skelleftehamn where I live. Tomorrow rain will come and ruin the impression.

Ice pears and frozen splashes Nov 23 2014

A starry night was followed by a cloudy and frosty day.

First stop: The bay Kallholmsfjärden. The sea was open but the stems of the reeds were ice coated. The attached ice looked a bit like ice pears.

Next stop: Storgrundet. This sheltered part of the sea started to freeze over again with soft and thin new ice. Because of the sinking sea level some of the older ice pieces stood erect. One of them looked like a frozen splash!

Last stop before it got dark: The lake Snesviken. Despite the last week with temperatures slightly above zero the lake is not only frozen, but you could see the first tracks of ice skating.

Some of the locals are quite experienced and they know exactly whether the ice will bear their weight or not. I’m not experienced at all. Therefore I’m nervous even if I have 20 cm ice under my feet which means that the ice would easily bear a car. Today I only crawled two meters onto the icy surface of the lake to take the last photo, well knowing that the water isn’t deep near the shore.

Northern lights and truthfulness Nov 21 2014

What a nice surprise: After 10 days of dull, cloudy and overcast weather sky cleared up this afternoon. You don’t have to go outside, just have a look at the thermometer: A temperature drop almost guarantees a cloudless sky. But you have to go outside if you want to check for the faint Northern Lights. And this evening I was lucky: a large pale bow of the aurora borealis was visible in the sky.

Some minutes later I stood beside the small haven tjuvkistan and made the first photo. Click: 15,0 sec at f/2.5, ISO 800 35mm.

Whoa! The whole sky is green, it’s like diving into Fluorescein! Just too much green color! A great deal too much!

I made another photo, knowing beforehand it wouldn’t work. Click: 1,0 sec at ƒ/2.8, ISO 400 35mm, which means only 2.7 % of the light compared to the first photo.

Yes … um … interesting … . Is it art or may I trash it? Too dark! A great deal too dark! This image is just a dumb proof to the platitude I already knew: Cameras need enough light to make good pictures, even a Nikon D800.

Let’s take the 1st photo: I’ll show it again. And again – and again! I cropped it to the same 5:3-format, but processed it in three different kinds.

Version 1: The kitsch-version: I kept the extreme colours and increased contrast, especially in the center. Bang – that’s the photos you show on Facebook!

Version 2: The almost-real-version: I tried to adjust the photo to my memories of the real moment, which means for example that I reduces exposure more than 3 stops and removed saturation of the polar lights by 50%. Well, that’s the photos you won’t show anybody. They are more realistic but a bit prosaic.

Version 3: The in-between-version: I tried to find a version between kitsch and almost real. I’m not sure if it’s a good or a bad compromise between the other versions.

What do you think? Which photo do you prefer? I’m looking forward to your comments.