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.
Late Summer Colors
Seeing and photographing vibrant colors does well for a mostly black-and-white street photographer sometimes! That’s why I’m glad I spent a few hours on a nice Sunday outing to go the Alnarp Agricultural University, outside Malmö, Sweden. I’ve been there so many times through the years but I still find things to photograph, since each time they have some new plant or flower on display.
It's Festival time again!
It’s August and the kids are returning to school, according to ancient traditions, and according to traditions, but not quite ancient ones yet, it was time for the Malmö Festival to happen. From Friday to Friday the center of town is full of market stalls, food trucks, carnival rides and various performances on several stages. Previous years I’ve done multiple visits to the festival and photographed performances in several locations. This year though I settled with a walk in the city, shooting some street photography among the many visitors to the festival.
Out in the streets of Skåne
This summer, after I came home from my delightful (but too short) trip to the US I’ve gone on a few little “day trips” to do some street photography here and there, but not to the extent I used to do before the pandemic. I guess I’m still trying to re-kindle that flame, that urge to spend hours upon hours out on the streets, snapping hundreds of photos, then you find those rare gems among them during editing. I’m getting there though…step by step I suppose.
Rainbows...lots and lots of rainbows!
At the risk of repeating last year’s blogpost too much I must say that I do enjoy shooting at the Pride Parade in Malmö, Sweden. It’s such a celebration of diversity and inclusion and letting everyone be who they really are. However, when I walked around the warm-up area next to the City Library I couldn’t really feel the enthusiasm I’d felt last year, the first time since the pandemic that the Parade was back. That had nothing to do with the Parade or the subjects in front of me, it was all me. I recently came home from a three week trip to the USA where I ended up shooting several hundred pictures (still to be processed)…so I guess I was a bit photo-ed out.
A good time by the seaside
About a month ago it was time for the season closer for my photo club and we had decided to have a bit of a hot dogs and beer moment by the ocean at the Sibbarp camping site just south of Malmö, Sweden. We’ve been there a few times before and it’s such a delightfully pretty site…provided the weather behaves itself! We definitely got lucky with that on the day, the sun was out in full force…almost too full in fact, making for quite a few overexposed images on the memory cards. That could have been my fault too of course, being a dummy with my camera…
Nerds on Parade!
Once again it was time for the local Science Fiction book store to put on their Nerd Parade through the streets of Malmö, an event put on to celebrate Towel Day (May 25th), to honor the legacy of Douglas Adams, the author of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. For practical reasons the parade was moved to Saturday May 27th and the gathering point was outside the City Library, where nerds of all ages and interests began to gather.
A stroll along the water
It is a nice feeling to know that you don’t have to travel to an exotic location to end up with a lovely group of pictures…sometimes it is enough to look in your local area and you can find something nice. In this case the area around Höje River just on the outskirts of the city of Lund. The city in their wisdom has decided to preserve the area around the river from development and it is such a nice experience to walk along the water, take in the scenery and hear the birds sing.
Small town market time again
It’s been quite a few weeks since I posted to this blog, mostly because I haven’t really felt I had a coherent group of photos to post as a “story”. I’ve been out and about photographing the oncoming spring, but not to the extent that I have a selection of photos to share. Today though I think I do have a little something to share.
Green, Green, Green!
For many years going across the waters to Denmark to experience and photograph the St.Patrick’s Day celebrations in Copenhagen was an annual ritual for me, a marker that spring was approaching, and that warmer weather wasn’t far off in the distance. During the pandemic that was obviously suspended and only came back last year, on a slightly smaller scale. This year though it was fully back in my opinion. So it was a delight to photograph and enjoy together with my fellow photographers from the photo club. I did NOT expect there to be 10 of us going across the water (last year we were only 2), but the more the merrier!
Sunny days are their own reward!
Slowly but surely the light is returning to the northern hemisphere and when we had a rare sunny day I just had to enjoy the last few hours of it on the streets of Malmö before my photo club’s bi-weekly get-together. The shadows were pretty harsh, but I enjoyed working with them, rather than cursing them for “interfering” with my images. That sunlight was almost warm on the face…so who am I to complain about it?