Freezing over Oct 16 2014

Last night temperature was below zero, but not too cold. To my big surprise it was cold enough to let the small duck pond in Skelleftehamn freeze over completely anyway. The yellow-brownish leaves lay on, in and under the thin new ice. The rudtjärnen – a lake perhaps twenty times as big – was completely open by contrast. I had a look at the rocky landscape nearby and most of the puddles were frozen over with 3mm ice, too, but not all of them. I guess, there must be some warmer spots in some places even if the sun is hardly shining.

Two cloud shots in the morning. Oct 15 2014

Living near the coast was a bit disappointing the last days when it came to making photos. Snow in the inland – for example 15 cm in Malå on Sunday? We got just twenty snow flakes on Monday morning melting directly on the wet ground. Polar lights last night? Yes, in many places of Norway, in Abisko, even in Kusfors which is just 70 km away. But we in Skelleftehamn had overcast sky the whole night probably due to the near Baltic Sea.

Therefore I neither got photos of fresh snow-covered landscapes nor of any polar lights this week. I have to wait, you, too.

But when it comes to clouds I have to admit that they can look quite nice in the morning. The following two photos showing the island Gåsören I made at the Lotsstation today.

Autumnal kayak tour Oct 12 2014

Today morning weather was calm with a grey sky, but later it brightened up a bit and I decided to take a kayak trip. Summer kayaking with just a life vest over your t-shirt are definitely past for this year, since both air and water where chilly. It always takes a bit of time before I finally sit in the kayak: Emptying the kayak from this weeks rain fall, dressing, fixing map and compass as well as the camera and finally dragging the boat into the water.

Minutes later I paddled round the northwest point of the island Storgrundet which lies off the coast of Skelleftehamn. The birches on the island where almost completely leafless, only the rowan trees still wear their many-coloured leaves and bright red berries.

On the outer side of Storgrundet the sea was a bit wavy and I tried to make pictures of the waves flooding the bow of my kayak. But I wasn’t lucky because when bigger waves came I felt safer with the paddle in both hands. I landed on the small island Brottören, hardly more than a flat pile of stones, some birches, rowan trees and a shallow pond. On one of the bigger rocks I found a twig with rowan berries and I wondered if a human or a bird laid it onto this stone.

I continued in calmer sea between Brottören and Storgrundet where I had a nice view on the Island Norrskär with many coloured trees. Alas the sun hid behind clouds again.

Since weather was a bit dull I didn’t continue to other island but returned to the tiny sandy beach where my kayak has been laying since summer. The sharp tracks of the keel where the only tracks I left today.

To protected against wind and weather and – much more important – I use a dry suit. I bought it second hand, it is too big and not at all breathable. This could be a problem on longer tours since you start sweeting and getting means getting cold. The head was protected by a balaclava – there may be prettier things – because on the open sea it’s always a bit windy and chilly. And even if I love cold and even rough weather, I don’t like to freeze.

On my wish list: A neoprene balaclava – much better when it gets wet, and a better dry suit for kayaking, but those are extremely expensive and cost up to 1000 Euros.

Fly agaric Oct 12 2014

I thought it would be too late for fly agarics and other mushrooms since it got quite cold the last days, but nope, I was wrong. On my short yesterdays afternoon walk through the woods I found this nice couple: One older and sun bleeched, the other just sprouting. A patch of red in the more and more brownish landscape.

For my German readers:

Fly agaric – Fliegenpilz

Looking through the window Oct 8 2014

Autumn rain – looking through the window

Heavy rain fall today in Skelleftehamn and quite windy with temperatures dropping to 5 °C. More and more leaves – still bright yellow – cover the streets or are flushed away into the next drain. Soon the trees will be leafless and golden October will turn into grey.

This is the season where I start longing for snow and for wintry calmness. Even if I love all seasons, winter remains my favourite one.

Étude – making photos at the rocky shore Oct 4 2014

There’s nice autumn weather with blue sky and there’s today, a windy day with a clouded sky, but at least no rain. I took a tour to the rocky shore at Långhällan, one of my favourite places nearby. My plan was to practise. The musical pieces that provide you with practising material are called étude. That’s why I’ll call it “étude” when I practise photography.

Todays topic: Long time exposure which filters at daylight to blur the waves. I’ll show you the unedited snapshots of two motifs at the coast. That’s how it looks like, if you just do “click”.

Ok, that’s the motifs. They show some kind of chaos, because the windy weather created quite big waves (at least for the bottenviken – the most northern part of the Baltic Sea) and it’s hard to distinguish between the waves and the rocks. There’re several way to improve the photos. One: Wait for better weather. Two: Work with filters.

In the following images I used the Big Stopper, a filter that takes away 99.9% of the incoming light and forces you to exposure 1000 times longer than usual. Instead of 1/20 of a second for example you would expose 50 seconds, long enough to blur all the moving objects as the waves, but to keep the sharpness of the stable objects as the rocks. Additionally I used a graduated filter to avoid overexposure of the sky. And that’s the first motif with the filters, edited in Lightroom.

The long exposure transforms the waves in some kind of a foggy layer, making the photo look like flying over cloudy mountains. I’m not so happy with the shot. Waves are too high blurring bigger parts of the rocks and the sky is quite dull making the photo almost looking like black-white.

By way of comparison a photo of the same motif I made last year which I prefer instead of the todays shot:

The next photo I like much better. The rocks are looking rougher and the tuft of grass is a nice eye catcher giving the photo both a focus and a story. It will be the first image of my series “one”.

What do you need beside of the filters to make these photos: First of all a stable tripod, it’s a must. A remote release is quite handy to avoid shaky images. And last not least, warm and water proof clothes. I had chest waders to get to the big rock through knee deep water and to kneel without getting wet.

Some vocabularies for my German readers:

exposure – Belichtung
expose – belichten
blur – weichzeichnen, verwackeln, verwischen
tripod – Stativ
remote release – Fernauslöser
chest waders – Wathose

Last not least, just another photo from today, perhaps my favourite:

Autumn colours round the corner Oct 3 2014

Sunset in Skelleftehamn is 17:55 today. Therefore I didn’t have much time to shoot an after-job autumn photo today. But just some hundred meters away there’s a small boat harbour and I managed to capture the last sun beams on the coloured trees before the sun disappeared behind the opposite line of trees.

Probably not the best motive, but I love the autumn colours. As every autumn I have the impression that I soak up those bright colours like a sponge. Soon the trees will shed their leaves and even the first snow may fall in October or early November.

Swedish sports? Oct 3 2014

I guess we all know those signs “No diving”. But today I spotted a sign on the peninsula Örviken, that surprised me. It said “Dykning (med eller utan cykel) förbjudet” which means “Diving (with or without bicycle) prohibited.

I try to imagine what happened at that place? Flocks of Swedish teens cycling like mad right into the water? Maybe, for it definitely was an extraordinary warm summer this year and I would believe many things the Swedes could do, if it’s only holidays, warm summer and twenty-four hours of daylight.

Two early shots at the seaside Oct 1 2014

When I wake up earlier than necessary I have two choices. Either to stay in bed, turn on the other side and continue sleeping, or to get out of bed and – if weather is fine – make some photos. Today I chose the latter of the two and drove to the “lotsstation”, the nearest of my favourite places which is just two and a half kilometres away, and waited for the sun rise.

Two shots of this morning, the 1st day in October:

Two snaps in the autumn morning Sep 25 2014

Last night we had a clear and starry night above Skelleftehamn. You could even see polar light, a large bow in the northern sky, but it was quite pale and quickly faded away.

Temperature dropped down to -5 °C, the coldest night since springtime. I woke up half past six – just a few minutes too late to catch the sunrise, but I went outdoors anyway. It was still chilly this morning and sky was clear.

To my big surprise there was no ice at all on even the tiniest water puddles. I guess the ground is still too warm to let the water freeze over night. However, when I’m outside I want to take pictures. Two of the todays snapshots:

Photographers comment: Contrasts are quite extreme on these against-the-light-shots, that’s why the sky it white instead of coloured. I should have taken my gradient filters with me for better exposure.

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