Tomas Nilsson 2022-02-01 Tomas Nilsson 2022-02-01

The 365 Project Mark VI - Month Twelve

This blog has been silent for quite some time, and that has a medical and a travel reason. However, now that I am back home again and healthier (yep, like so many I came down with the infamous Corona virus) I am going to get back to posting to this site, including the remaining summaries of my 2021 edition of my 365 projects, both of December and the whole year.

The cover image of this post is obviously NOT taken in Sweden, but rather in Austin, Texas. After not being able to go there for the whole of 2020 and almost all of 2021, since the U.S. blocked people from Europe going there (unless you had special permissions) the Biden administration finally let those of us with full vaccinations and negative tests enter the country. It was so nice to be able to go back there to see lovely people I’ve not been able to see in far, far too long!
I was down at the Hike & Bike Trail along the Colorado river when I took this picture, and I must say that as someone who first went to Austin in 2007 the number of skyscrapers that have shot up downtown since then is pretty astounding, including the Jenga like building on the left hand side of the image. I can’t say that I am in favor of all the glass and steel, but it is obvious that Austin’s housing market is booming!

*Day 340 - December 06: We got to work on your balance*

This image from the start of the month felt like going back to my “roots” of doing street photography. I went into nearby Lund with no set agenda for what pictures to take (I also was on the hunt for Christmas gifts to bring to Austin) and came across the skating rink that the city had set up for the winter season outside City Hall. On the day I was there there were only two people using it, but I still managed to land this picture. I am usually very careful about taking pictures of kids in public, but I felt like this one was okay as far as getting close (I generally get some sort of permission when being really close when I take pics of kids).

When I saw this one on my screen after I had put it through a black and white conversion I thought to myself…if that isn’t a perfect illustration of what a winter day down here in southern Sweden can be like I don’t know what it could be described as! The general gloominess, people bundled up and the sleet falling from the skies (we rarely get much snow down here in the south). This is from my usual “hunting ground” along the pedestrians only streets in central Malmö, but there’s just something about the precipitation streaking across the image and the people out and about, making their way through the mess that attracts me to it.

*Day 355 - December 21: Flying with the setting sun*

It is a bit of a cliché to take a picture out of a plane window, but when I was given the privilege of seeing Venus for hours upon hours as I made my way west across the Atlantic I had to try to take a picture of the scene…even though my cell phone couldn’t capture the epicness of seeing the sky aglow outside the window. Once I arrived in Chicago and the plane descended towards O’Hare I was granted the second privilege of the flight, seeing downtown with all the skyscrapers all lit up. That time though I decided to just enjoy the moment, rather than try to take a cell phone picture of it…it wouldn’t do the experience justice at all!

*Day 361 - December 27: Down by the river*

During one of the drives in the area around Austin with my beloved and delightful host we came to San Marcos, a small university town (where she studied) and we had lunch at the Kerbey Lane café there. They had an outside patio right along the San Marcos river and I couldn’t help but capture the lovely scene. It wasn’t until I looked at the photo on a larger screen I noticed that the two people in the right hand corner are a photographer and his model shooting a portrait. When I took the image I just noticed two people that would make a nice contrast to the flowing water and the trees. I guess I got lucky there!

*Day 365 - December 31: Last light of 2021*

This picture was taken as the sun was going down on the last day of 2021. In the past 365 projects I’ve used fireworks pictures as my last picture of that year (you can see for yourself in the previous years’ galleries available on this website), but this year I felt this one was a good choice. My beloved host and I were out riding in the car, going down random roads in the Texan countryside as the darkness slowly descended upon the area and just before the sun went down on December 31 it gave me this brilliant moment of light, making for a good closer to 2021.

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Tomas Nilsson 2021-11-04 Tomas Nilsson 2021-11-04

The 365 Project Mark VI - Month Ten

The fall color season hit us with a vengeance this year, bringing out the yellows, reds and browns with full force. I hadn’t really been out all that much shooting those colors for a few years, because I felt that I’d done it already and I was just trying to re-heat a souffle. This year though I guess I had been “away” from that sort of photography enough that it felt somewhat new and interesting again. Hence October of 2021 had lots of fall colors among my 365 images.

The title image of this post is absolutely an example of these colors. It was taken at Alnarp Agricultural University, in their delightful park/gardens. It’s a place that is good for interesting scenes at all times of year, but perhaps especially now during fall, when some trees are still green while others slip into their late-season “garb”.

I haven’t done anywhere near as much street photography in 2021 as I hoped I would do at the start of the year, but this is an example of it. I was in central Malmö, Sweden on an errand and had brought my camera with me…just in case. Even though I tend to be careful about taking pictures of kids in public (at least without explicit permission from adults in their company), I just couldn’t refrain from taking a photo of these three, mostly because the smallest kid was so adamant about carrying her own bag into the convenience store.

Sometimes it is fun to play with perspectives; to try to confuse the viewer for a few moments. This is one of those images, where the magnificent sky is actually not the sky but a reflection of it in the very calm waters of Lomma Harbor, just outside Malmö, Sweden. It is pretty rare for the water to be this still, but on this day it looked very pretty. This is also a case where the cellphone image (which this is) is actually better than the version I took with my regular camera. That’s not always the case…but here it was.

*Day 286 - October 13: Last ride of the season*

Technically I don’t know if that WAS the last ride of the summer season for the operator of the boat, but it certainly felt that way with many other boat owners being busy winterizing their boats in the harbor at Lomma, Sweden. I am not a boat person at all - I prefer to stay on terra firma - but I do enjoy taking pictures of harbors and the shapes that boats gives us. They make for interesting lines, contrasts and well…shapes.

*Day 290 - October 17: Tell the trees your stories*

Every once in a while you come across a scene that makes you wonder what the story is. Or in this case - stories. These paper notes strung between the trees were covered in children’s drawings and it made me think that the children were letting the trees know their wishes and dreams. At least that was MY story from seeing this in the woods at Torup, outside Malmö, Sweden.

*Day 303 - October 30: Photographers in the wild*

One of the best parts of being on the board of the my photography club, apart from the friendships formed through the years, is the annual photography weekend we do together (at least during a normal year…last year we had to postpone it). This year though, we were able to go to the Röstånga area, about an hour north of where I live for some good photography, good food and a lot of good time together. In this picture, Kenneth and Sussi discuss Kenneth’s homemade pinhole camera by the shore of the Odensjön area, while the fall colors decorate the background.

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Tomas Nilsson 2021-08-03 Tomas Nilsson 2021-08-03

The 365 Project Mark VI - Month Seven

It’s a new month again, so therefore I have a summary post for the previous month, the seventh one for the year. We are just done with the month of July and as often is the case in Sweden we’ve had a mixed bag of weather, from sweltering heatwaves to enormous downpours with lightning shooting across the skies.

The cover image is one that I took on the first photographers’ brunch/photowalk I’ve attended in 18 months. I took part in my last such event in February 2020 and I didn’t attend anything like it until this month, once I’d gotten the second shot and done the recommended waiting period. It felt exhilarating as well as a bit uncertain to do that event, to interact with other people again. I wrote about it in more detail in my previous blogpost.

This image is an example of the fact that taking a camera along whenever you leave the house is a good idea. I just went for a walk to clear my head after being cooped up inside for the larger part of the day and went by a large shrubbery patch that had sprouted a selection of different beautiful flowers. Get close enough with the XT-3 and a 35 millimeter lens and you have a nice flower picture.

This image is pretty self-explanatory I think. To me it also means an immense feeling of relief. At long last I was able to receive the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine and could start thinking about a return to normalcy (or whatever constitutes normal once we’re out of this pandemic).

It’s also most likely going to be the only time I put a selfie in my 365 picture feed! There are so many prettier things out there to take pictures of!

Another of those pictures taken on a stroll to get some fresh air…this one I took at the Skrylle recreational area, a place I’ve returned to so, so, so many times through the years. This particular image is taken along the Ulastigen path, a more nature, less exercise type of path where there’s not as many people as there usually are on the other paths. To my Covid paranoid brain that sounded just fine…to have the path almost entirely to myself!

A benefit of being up early in the morning (in the summer anyway) is that sometimes nature awards you views and colors like this! Taken on an empty street in the small town of Staffanstorp, Sweden.

I’ve never been much into macro shots of insects…in fact I tend to avoid them if I can, but occasionally I get a little bit closer than my comfort zone to take a picture. Especially if it involves somewhat friendly insects like these bumble bees gathering nectar and pollen from a flower in Malmö, Sweden. If it was wasps…nope…staying away from those guys, but these were not interested in suddenly attacking me, so it was all good! I liked the contrast between the blue flower with its round ball appearance and the two insects on it, and the fact that you can see other flowers in the background, yet they nicely out of focus. :-)

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Tomas Nilsson 2021-07-01 Tomas Nilsson 2021-07-01

The 365 Project Mark VI - Month Six

Half a year has gone by since I snapped the first image in this project and now we’re in the home stretch! Just over 180 images have been uploaded to my Instagram account and here on my site from January 1 to June 30th and I am pretty content with the stuff I’ve shared so far.

This year, just like last year is totally affected by Covid-19 and honestly I was hoping we’d be a lot further with the return to normal life (at the start of the year there was talk about everyone here in Sweden being fully vaccinated by June 30th…and we’re still a loooong way from that), but it is a very good thing that more and more people are getting both their shots, bringing the number of infected, hospitalized and dead way down by the day. We’re getting there!

The cover image of this post is from the early days of the month when I was out at Trollskogen Nature reserve outside Lund, Sweden for a bit of a stroll with my camera(s). This family had just discovered that right at the water’s edge a whole heap of tadpoles were swarming, to the point of coloring the water inky black. I liked shooting this candid moment…it’s been a while since I’ve done that sort of photography!

This image was taken at the Scania swimming area in Malmö, Sweden during the season closer event for my photo club. We gathered (socially distant of course) at a barbeque area to have some hot dogs and beer and do a bit of photo walking among the people enjoying the warm weather and setting sun. I must admit I was hesitant about going (covid paranoia etc), but I am glad I did, because it was very enjoyable seeing fellow photographers in person and to shoot some street photography again.

The title of this image might be a bit too much “on the nose”, but I couldn’t help myself. I included it in this post, because it’s an example of an image I wouldn’t have taken if I hadn’t brought along my camera for my stroll in the neighborhood, a place I’ve lived in for many years now and where it’s difficult to find something “new” to photograph. It still pays off to carry your camera, because if you find something interesting you can capture it.

*Day 170 - June 19: ...and I'm out of here!*

This image is one of those “oh man I got lucky there” shots that we photographers should appreciate and treasure. It is taken at the Möllevången square in Malmö where there was a bustling produce market with a lot of stalls selling vegetables and fruits, with many opportunistic sea gulls catching whatever food fell to the floor. This one was sitting on top of one of the canopies, scoping out the food situation and I managed to capture it just as it took off. Thanks to the Samsung S20’s excellent camera I managed to get this shot without it being too blurry.

This image was taken during the same outing as the one above (although posted a few days later) at Möllevången Square during my first street photography photowalk in a long time. I wrote about that outing in the previous entry on this blog, how rusty I felt at shooting in the streets but how enjoyable and invigorating it felt afterward. At first I thought of posting this image in color because the kid had a very colorful FC Barcelona team jersey on, but I decided that all the various colors in the scene distracted from the situation, of him having a quiet moment to himself there in the shade…so down the monochrome route I went.

Another monochrome image, shot at Lake Krankesjön outside Lund, Sweden. This is a walkway through a large reed bed that leads to a hide where you can observe a lot of the birds that make the lake their nesting habitats. I only had a 35 mm lens on my Fujifilm XT-3 so my bird watching capabilities were pretty limited to say the least, but it was a lovely day at the lake all the same! I converted the image to black and white to emphasize the wooden walkway and the way it curves back and forth through the reed bed.

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Tomas Nilsson 2021-06-02 Tomas Nilsson 2021-06-02

The 365 Project Mark VI - Month Five

The weather is warm, the days are long and the colors are plentiful. Early summer is here after a long and cold spring where we’ve all been waiting for the slow return to normalcy. For me personally it feels a lot better to be able to be out and about taking photos of things when there’s long afternoons to make use of, and even better that I’ve been able to get the first vaccine dose at long last, with the second planned for early July. There’s light at the end of the tunnel…and it’s not likely to be an oncoming train!

The images from the month of May are more or less all related to the explosion of color that the warmer weather has brought on. Flowers have burst forth as well as the canopies of leaves on trees and bushes, making for a very technicolor scene around here. For a photographer who has shot a lot of black and white street photography in the last few years it is quite a change…but probably one that I needed, especially this year!

The cover image is from the Slottsparken gardens in Malmö, Sweden where they were having a tulip festival and I had the privilege of seeing these particular tulips (with lots of other colors and varieties). You might think I’ve exaggerated the colors in this image but they really were vibrant like this. I am not a flowers kind of guy, but it was quite uplifting and enjoyable to see all the pretty flowers on display that day.

*Day 123 - May 3: Everybody jump for the camera!*

This is one of those situations where you might go “what the heck is going on” and I wouldn’t blame you! I was up on the roof area of the Emporia shopping mall in Malmö during a photo club photowalk and I spotted this group of people about to do some group exercise (outdoors like most stuff these days) and all of a sudden this person in a bee costume and his/her handler (the woman in the pink jacket) wanted to take photos with the exercise group. Someone suggested they’d do a group jump and I guess that idea appealed to them. At least some were able to sync it well enough with the mascot!

*Day 126 - May 6: In search for good wood*

I’ve included this image not because of its photographic qualities (I am not sure it has that many) but because of how much of May was dominated by this renovation project my dad and I busied ourselves with. We were tasked by my mother to build an enclosure to hide the new recycling bins provided by the town and I can’t say I blame her, because they are quite the eye sore. In the end we managed to build something that amazingly turned out pretty much exactly the way we had imagined it. And we didn’t poke any new holes in ourselves with various sharp tools! I’d call that a success!

I think I’ve taken a version of this image every year for as long as I’ve been shooting with digital cameras; there’s just something about seeing these little white harbingers of spring that makes me want to take a photo of them! They are wood anemones and for a few weeks they blanket the forest floors in many areas around here, catching that brief time period before the trees’ leaves cover them and block the sunlight from shining down upon the flowers. This particular image was taken at the Knivsåsen Nature Preserve outside Lund, Sweden.

This image is one of those moment when I am a bit sad that all my images for this project are in the square format, because in reality this rainbow covered the whole sky, making an almost 180 degree arc across the sky. I could only fit in about a third of it with my phone’s camera, but even that bit is pretty nice-looking I think. It was taken on a very early morning in Staffanstorp, Sweden.

Seeing family is one thing that’s been lacking during this year of distancing, so whenever it’s possible to do so in a safe manner it’s been a delight to do it. The little dog in this picture belongs to my brother and the safe hands she is enjoying belong to his father-in-law. That little lap warmer is a Bichon Havenese dog and she was definitely enjoying the company of the extended family during the celebration of my nephew’s birthday. She’d spent a long time on my father’s lap, then on mine and then more time like this on Rolf’s lap! Family time is sweet and clearly that dog made the most of it!

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Tomas Nilsson 2021-04-03 Tomas Nilsson 2021-04-03

The 365 Project Mark VI - Month Three

One fourth of the year is now done and over and things feel a bit more cheerful than they did a month ago at the end of February. I don’t know if it is the longer days, the warmer temperatures or the fact that vaccines are finally being distributed in larger and larger numbers…or a combination of all those things. My guess is that it is the combo! Anywho…time again for a blog post with some thoughts about a few of the pictures I uploaded for my 365 project, this time for the month of March.

The cover image is one I uploaded on the last day of the month, and it is definitely one that brings feelings of the summer that WILL be here…eventually. It is taken at the harbor in Limhamn, just to the south of Malmö where a lot of boat owners were busy prepping their boats for the season, while some had gotten theirs ready and in the water already so they could heat out for what I am guessing was the first sailing for the year.

*Day 63 - March 4: Hold the train for me, please!*

Like I said in the blog post on March 16th I’ve been really strict about not shooting much in densely populated areas, just to be as safe as possible, to the point where I REALLY missed it. Therefore it was nice to have a stroll around in Lund that day since I had errands there anyway that day. I shot this at the train station which was a lot less populated than it usually is at that time of day. I guess that’s a good thing for the level of contagion…but perhaps not so good for the train companies’ bottom line…

This is another image from a short stroll in Lund, this time at the Botanical Gardens. While the indoor café there was closed there was nothing stopping people from having a rest in the outdoor area. I enjoyed the reflections in the water of this lady reading on her phone while her little companion surveyed the area around them.

I think I’ve included images of snowdrops in almost all my 365 projects (at least it feels that way), but they’re just such a welcome sight for winter and gray weary Swedes in general, and me in particular. Seeing these guys poke through the ground (and in some years through the snow) just makes me cheer up a little bit, because they’re a sign that spring IS on the way.

There are locations in the vicinity that I’ve gone back to again and again through the years, camera at the ready and this 18th century manor house at Övedskloster is on that list (although it’s been awhile since I was there last time). It’ll be a few more weeks until all the greenery and flowers are at their peak beauty, but I found the stroll through the gardens very enjoyable all the same.

If snowdrops is one indicator that spring is on the way this scene is another. Every early spring day when the sun shines the benches along the southern, sun-facing and wind protected side of the Lund cathedral is full of people, and that seems to be the case even in these Covid times, although many tried to maintain some space between each other (I hope those that sat clumped together were part of the same “virus bubble”).

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Tomas Nilsson 2021-03-05 Tomas Nilsson 2021-03-05

The 365 Project Mark VI - Month Two

The older I get the faster time flies by…it’s hard to believe one sixth of 2021 is already over. I guess we’re still in some sort of holding pattern, still waiting for a change from March 2020 so that the “real” 2021 can start.

The second month of the year, this short month, was full of weather contrasts. We both had warm-ish spring days as well as bitterly cold days (and nights especially when the mercury…or whatever’s in thermometers these days) plunged to -12 C (10 F). That made for some rather unusual winter scenes here in southern Sweden where it usually doesn’t get that cold for any prolonged period of time beyond a day or three.

The older I get the faster time flies by…it’s hard to believe one sixth of 2021 is already over! I guess we’re still in some sort of holding pattern, still waiting for some change from March 2020 so that the “real” 2021 can start.

The cover image is from one of those outings, to the beach area at Klagshamn, just south of Malmö in southernmost Sweden, where normally at this time of year you would NOT see a vast sheet of ice covering the shallow waters. This year though the area was full of ice as well as people enjoying the unusual experience with a picnic out on the ice, skating around or like this fella who had parked himself WAY out there to do some ice fishing, much further out than I would have done (being a Captain Cautious I stuck much closer to the shore)!

Sometimes you don’t know quite what attracts you to a scene, what makes you press the shutter button to take the picture, but there was something about this tree that made me go “hmm” and press the shutter when I was out at the Torup recreational area for some fresh air after being cooped up inside for most of the day. It wasn’t until I transferred the image to the computer and looked at it that the image of a ballet dancer popped into my brain on a more conscious level, but perhaps it was there already out in the woods, I don’t know.

*Day 39 - February 8: Socializing while distant*

Like so many else out there we in the Malmö Photographic Society have had to cancel and postpone so many of our usual activities until Covid-19 is over, but the board still has to meet regularly to discuss what we can do in these circumstances. For the longest time we could we meet in our club space, with good distance between our seats, but when the Swedish authorities limited gatherings to a maximum of 8 (we’re 9 on the board) we went digital and for a while we’ve had to look at each other “on TV”. It works, but it’s definitely a lacking substitute to seeing your good friends in person!

This image was taken on the same outing as the title image above and I must say that while I admire the woman’s guts I would NOT want to take a bath like that! Especially when there’s no sauna nearby to heat up in afterwards! She wasn’t the only one either that day who dared to plunge into the nearly freezing sea. Those crazy Swedes!

The weather shifted drastically just after I was out by the sea ice to take the picture above and just a week later people were out enjoying the first somewhat lukewarm spring day. No snow or ice to be seen and lots of people out and about by the water, still maintaining good social distancing thankfully. This image was taken at the Western Harbor area of Malmö, Sweden, overlooking the still unpassable Öresund straits towards Denmark.

*Day 58 - February 27: Parallel Shadows*

This Corona year (from February 2020 onwards pretty much) in a photographic sense has been a lot about finding areas where I can go without having to bump into other people too much, and while it feels like most of the local places have been visited (multiple times in many cases) there are still areas I’ve not visited yet. That was the case for this place, the Dalby Norreskog area. The name means Dalby North Woods, and while I’ve visited Dalby Söderskog (Dalby South Woods) many times through the years, this was the first time I’ve gone to the northern part of that area and while not as impressive in its forest and trees as its neighbor I enjoyed the stroll underneath the tall beech trees. Give it a month or so and it will look astonishing with its ground covered in white spring flowers and bright green foliage peeking through, ready to spring forth!

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