Taking my camera for a walk again...
Once again I found myself in my usual little woodland area, not too far from my home, namely Skryllegården, just outside Lund, Sweden. I had gone there more for the fresh air and a bit of a leg stretch along the 3 kilometer jogging/walking path, but it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t bring my camera! So pictures were of course taken…and they are now shared on this blog.
Colors in the Park
For those who are used to seeing my often high-contrasty black and white street photography this blogpost might be a bit out of the ordinary, but I too sometimes crave colors! When the skies were clear, the winds low and there was a hint of warm late summer warmth in the air I decided to drive over to the park and gardens at Alnarp Agricultural University outside Malmö, Sweden. There I could see that there were still plenty of colors to be seen, and I was able to capture some of that in these images. There is an abundance of different flower and plant varieties, and I am not able to identify a single one. That is okay with me though; they’re pretty to look at and that is enough for me! Pretty is good!
Early fall at the mansion
It’s been quite some times since my last uploaded post to this blog, mostly since I’ve been “buried” behind a screen with an ongoing book project and some other things lately. My photographic output has been quite low, and not really worth making a full blog post about. Now though I do have a bunch of pictures that together are worth uploading.
It was a lovely Sunday and the sun was shining from a nearly flawless blue sky with warm enough weather to leave the house with no jacket on. I figured I could do with a bit of a photographic as well as physical exercise so on the way to the Svaneholm mansion I grabbed my constant photo buddy (a.k.a. Dad) and off we went.
Here comes the Pride parade!
Taking a bus to the center of Malmö to photograph and show support for the annual Pride parade has become a part of the summer “ritual” for me in the last ten years or so (Covid years excluded of course) and it’s always fun! For a street photographer who often converts his photos to black and white it is also a welcome change in the photos into all colors of the rainbow (and then some!). As I always write though, it’s not just a celebration of everyone’s right to self-expression and love, it is also a protest and a show of strength and unity. I like seeing that!
One day at the market
Summer is market season in the southernmost part of Sweden so a street photographer will have plenty of opportunities to catch some good scenes. Therefore I decided to pack my shoulder bag and head to Sjöbo in the middle of the Skåne province for some wandering around all the knick-knack stalls, food vendors and amusement park rides. It was also a pretty nice day weather-wise so it felt good to be out of the house for a few hours after some rather dreary, gray and wet days.
Cars upon cars upon cars
Right from the start I will say that I am NOT much of a car person. I don’t care which car on the market has the most horse powers or what different versions of a certain car brand there are, so spending time photographing cars and posting a lot of colorful images of them online may seem slightly out of character for me. That is true, if we’re talking modern cars, but I do like seeing old cars’ design and the way people fix them up, many cars being close to 60 or more years old!
Season closer by the seaside
In my photo club we have a tradition of finishing the spring semester with an outdoor event with hot dogs, beer and a short little photowalk, and this year was no exception. We were originally going to meet up in the largest park in Malmö, Sweden, but had to relocate at the last minute because we realized that there’d be a huge running event through that park and the area where we’d set up our portable grills. That would not have worked, so it was a good thing there was a different place, where we’d been before, that worked very well.
Cosplay in the streets
One of the “rituals” of the year for me in the last few years (except during the Covid years) has been to photograph at the Nerd Parade in Malmö, Sweden in May. It’s an event put on by the local Science Fiction bookstore where people are encouraged to show off their pride in everything nerdy in sci-fi, fantasy and other genres of popular culture.
This year was no exception to that - even though I still have a lot of pictures from my spring USA journey to edit and put into a travel book of the adventure. I guess I needed a little visual break from the epic southwestern desert landscape! So a whole bunch of cosplayers parading through the streets was a very nice distraction!
Out in the green stuff again
I’ve recently come home from an absolutely amazing vacation to Texas where I got to see and photograph some pretty outstanding things (the total eclipse, the Texas spring wildflower explosion and the indescribably fascinating desert at Big Bend National Park to name just a few). I will share stuff from this trip eventually of course, but it’ll take awhile to go through the 2,000+ exposures so that will have to wait. In the meantime I will share this brief one day little outing to the nearby Dalby Söderskog National Park, Sweden, where I took a short (about 2.5 hours or so) walk through the woods, capturing the last few spring flowers still showing off their white hats before the trees’ canopies of leaves block them from the sunlight.
There's images out in them streets!
So far 2024 has been a very low-volume year for me when it comes to photography. I guess I hit that mid-winter slump that usually strikes when the light is almost non-existent and the weather seems determined to be the worst it possibly can be. So I am okay with there being a lull now and then (I’ve written about it several times before in this blog so I won’t dwell on it in this post. That was why I decided to hop on a bus into the center of Malmö for a stroll down my usual “hunting ground” in the downtown area.
So nice to be out by the seaside!
This winter it has been rare to see shadows on the ground when you wake up in the morning; it has been a VERY dark and wet season…either lots of snow and ice or more common around here…rain, rain and more rain! Therefore I jumped at the chance to get some photos taken with shadows in them and to get a bit of fresh air as well…without having to tote an umbrella around.
New year...what will that mean?
It’s been close to a month since I came home from my Christmas and New Year’s trip to the United States and my extended family over there. A lovely time was had and a few pictures were taken, but nothing I am going to share on this blog…family pictures can stay just that - family pictures - and not be shared with the world. That has also been the approach I have taken with my postings on social media in the last several months…not as frequent as before, mostly because I don’t think all my photos need to be seen, not even the ones I happen to be happy with.
...'tis the season to be jolly (etc etc)!
The weather has been unusually cold and snowy in the southernmost parts of Sweden this winter so it made for some extra Christmas vibes when it was time for the annual Christmas market at the Malmöhus Castle, the old renaissance fortress in the center of town. There’s just something special about walking across that causeway through the old gatehouse (thankfully no drawbridge or portcullis anymore) into the courtyard and experiencing the good vibes of the place.
The sun was back...for a few hours at least!
The forecast was for a Saturday of potential sunshine, so given that November often is about as dark and dreary as it can be here in southern Sweden I decided to head into central Malmö to enjoy the streets for a few hours in good (hopefully anyway) light, fit for some street photography.
Hello darkness my old friend...
It is Halloween (October 31st) when I write this and we are now in the period of the year when my photography usually takes a sharp drop in frequency. The daylight is getting shorter and shorter in these northern parts of the world - especially so after Daylight Saving Time is over - and frankly the stuff out there I want to take pictures of get less and less interesting. Foliage is rapidly falling off their branches and the all too frequent rainy and cloudy weather takes away many of the interesting shadows and potential light situations.