2025 - looking back at a year
A late January 2025 sunset at Skrylle outside Lund, Sweden
So far photography for me in the year 2026 has been very slow. The low winter sun seems to be gone before I am able to get out there to capture stuff in it, so I am biding my time until the daylight hours last a little bit longer. In the meantime I think I can benefit from going back and think about some of the images I took during 2025. Often I tend to just transfer my photos from the camera to the hard drive, select and edit my keepers and then it is onto whatever is next to photograph, so a bit of a reflection on what is in my saved folders can’t hurt!
I ended up saving just over 1,760 photos in my Lightroom catalog during the 365 days that made up 2025, and that is a lot less than the year before (2,728 images) and A LOT less than a few previous years’ saved images (in 2017 I saved 4,238 images to my hard drive).
I hope it is because I am more selective in my photography out in the field and having an improved ability to select only my good photos. That is how it’s felt at least when I have been out and about with my camera in the last few years - I shoot less and save less as well. I have written about that very thing before on this blog; how beneficial it is for my self esteem as a photographer NOT to keep crappy or duplicate images on my hard drive. It is only too easy to zoom in on your mistakes if you keep the sub-par images around, especially if you have a tendency towards exaggerated self-criticism towards your work.
So, as a flashback to last year this blog post and the next one will be me going through my catalog and picking one image per month and writing a little bit about the images selected. When there is a blogpost from that day of shooting I have linked it underneath the paragraph about the picture.
A quick foot soak at the Triangeln Fountain on January 27, 2025
The start of 2025 was almost as slow as this year has been, but I did manage to get out there and shoot some landscape as well as street photography here and there. The image I picked for this post for January was taken when I had a quick stroll through the city center of Malmö, Sweden while the sun set and the artificial lights of stores and street lights illuminated the people walking through the not so cold and frozen streets. The dog walking through the water of the fountain certainly didn’t look very cold! I remember struggling with the different light temperatures of the stores, street lights and other sources of illumination and it wasn’t until I converted my images from that walk to black and white it all clicked for me. In the black and white versions all the distracting light temperatures vanished for various levels of white, gray and black and it made for much better images!
For more images from this stroll you can click through to the blogpost I made about it at https://www.tomasnilssonfoto.com/blog/2025/1/29/night-streets
Joggers at Falsterbo beach on February 16, 2025
It is pretty rare for us here in the far south of Sweden to have a lot of snow and ice, at least for any prolonged period of time (the start of 2026 of course being an exception so far), but we had a few weeks in 2025 where the temperature was cold enough for snow and ice to stick around for some time. The image I’ve chosen for this blogpost was taken on the south-facing beach of Falsterbo in the far southwestern tip of Sweden. I’ve always enjoyed the open horizon of the ocean - it revives my spirits to go out there and look at the seemingly infinite landscape in front of me. This time around us photographers were certainly not alone out there enjoying the winter weather. These joggers were definitely a lot more sure-footed than I was on the craggly snow and ice covered beach sand…there were several moments going to and from the beach where I almost crashed to the ground!
For more pictures from our day at the coast, click through to the blogpost at https://www.tomasnilssonfoto.com/blog/2025/2/21/cold-by-the-coast
A partial eclipse on March 29, 2025
This image was taken from my parents’ garden with the identical setup of a Fujifilm XT-3 and an old, manual Tokina 300 mm lens and adapter that I schlepped to the United States in April 2024, when I had the privilege of being there for the total eclipse that traveled across several states, providing quite the spectacle for the millions of us who had the privilege to experience it. This partial eclipse did not have anywhere near the same effect of the light disappearing for a few minutes (it probably didn’t even register to many people who didn’t know it was about to happen), but I am glad that I was able to capture this amazing celestial dance once again. I like that even with my rather amateur setup you can see a little sunspot on the left hand side of the disc!
Capturing blossoms in Pildammsparken on April 13, 2025
The image I’ve chosen for the month of April isn’t exactly the most artistic I took that month, but it most definitely has meaning for me. The photographer who is trying to capture the beauty of the flowers in Pildammsparken, Malmö is my father, a.k.a. my constant photo buddy. For decades we’ve done so many photographic “expeditions” together to the point where it is sometimes difficult to remember whose picture is where in the annual photobooks he puts together. However, with time and health scares in the last few years our photographic expeditions have gotten a bit rarer. Therefore I was VERY glad we were able to do this stroll through the park and having the privilege to capture all the early spring beauty on show!
To see some of the images I took that day (and on some other April outings in the parks of Malmö, click through to https://www.tomasnilssonfoto.com/blog/2025/4/15/park-life
Lund University Library on May 3, 2025
This image was taken during a photowalk in Lund put on with my photo club and it was nice to stroll around the city, snapping a few pictures here and there of both people, architecture and flowers in the botanical gardens. When I put up a version of this photo on Instagram I called it “Temple of Books” because to me this building definitely makes me think of a cathedral with its many arched windows. The vines climbing up the walls and its somewhat medieval look make the building look like it’s been there for a LONG time, possibly centuries, but it was finished in 1907. I definitely appreciate the GREEN color of the image, it makes everything look so alive!
Going for a swim in Malmö, June 2, 2025
This image definitely says Swedish summer to me. The warm light of our seemingly endless evenings makes for such warm colors. These two friends were on their way for an evening swim at Ribersborg beach in Malmö, Sweden. I saw them come out of a dressing room to the right of this frame and this friendly and loving embrace lasted just a moment or two when they stepped onto the jetty. I am so glad I was able to catch that!
For more pictures from this evening of saturated colors by the coast, click through to https://www.tomasnilssonfoto.com/blog/2025/6/6/season-closer-by-the-sea
The second half of the year will be in the next blogpost!
- to be continued…
