It was quite awhile ago since I posted any photos. At the same time, I’m having a little project at my Facebook-page with “One Image a week”. So I thought about this brilliant idea to use the at both my Facebook page, and here. 🙂
This photo was taken at lunch time this Saturday. I spent the weekend in Vemdalen, a ski resort in Sweden, and the wind during these days were hard, to say the least. This is taken at the top with an iPhone 5S.
What I enjoyed with the scene was the contrast between the wind and the sunny sky, at the same time as the snow passed by, creating those small white dots that almost looked like stars.
While you’re at it; do you see the face in the clouds?
As I previously blogged about, I really like dark photos. They are hard to accomplish, and they need a lot of thinking to come out good. Even so, I’m trying to explore this type of photos, and during my photo capturing hours in Piteå this was one experiment where I tried to keep the darkness in the photo.
Best wishes for Saturday.
Link to other posts about dark, infrared and B/W-photography
– Autumn in B/W
– Infrared Autumn Photo
This day, the day before Christmas Eve will always be strange. Three years ago my foster-brother Ola Hansson passed away, on this day. I still think about him a lot, and hope that his memory will be kept among all of us that he touched in his life time.
Instead of writing something new, I reblog a post from before in honor of his memory as the great person he was.
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I guess this blog post is as personal as it gets, but at the same time this blog is about “life in general” so I’ve decided to share some thoughts around a personal subject.
Since I’m going to Piteå shortly from now; a trip that I’m really looking forward to, this will be the first time in winter since last christmas and I guess there will be memories from last years visit. Last christmas was a really odd one. My foster-brother, Ola, that lived with our family during my whole up-bringing passed away on the evening of the 23:rd of December.
This picture was taken the next morning, in the morning of Christmas eve. At that moment, when the picture was taken, we still hadn’t got the message.
The morning was really chilly and calm, and in many ways respectful of what we didn’t know at that stage. Now, 10 months later I guess this picture means a lot more than just trying out a new camera that was the main purpose for this picture.
My brother lived in the southern parts of Sweden, and I guess we hadn’t spoken nearly as much as we should’ve done, but last year (in 2010) that changed, and we had started to make some plans together. Not big plans, but nice small ones. Ola had been ill in the winter/spring of 2010, but we all thought that he now would fully recover. Our plans came to a sudden end during the christmas Holliday… Will never forget when my father answered the phone and I instantly could feel what’ve happened.
I’m really proud of my brother. He made a remarkable life journey both in his private life as in his career and in many ways he could be a role model for many others. When Ola was in the middle of “högstadiet” (between middle school and high school in US) his grades were really poor (around 1 in Swedish terms) and he struggled in many parts of life, and the future, to be honest didn’t look that great but one day my mother and Ola made a deal.
My mom asked
– Ola, do you want to stay home from school for two days?
and you can guess what the instant answer was? 🙂
– Of course!!”, he said with a big smile!
My mother replied:
– Ok, you can call in sick but you have to do one thing during the days you stay at home, and that is to study for the test that you will have a few days from now.
Ola thought that this deal was great! And I can imagine that it was a great feeling that a parent told you to call in sick… so he stayed home, listened to his KISS-albums, but he kept his promise, he studied!
When the test results came back Ola had the best score in his whole class, and he was proud, he suddenly felt as if he was as good as anyone else, and this wasn’t so hard! This was a big day of change for him in his school work, and I guess in his overall life. When he left high school he had 11 (I think it was out of 13 or 14) 5:s (grade A+ internationally) and the rest was 4:s (like grade A:s).
I have so many stories about Ola; like the first time when he was baby sitting for me and my sister and mixed cinnamon with cocoa and made us, in a strong bossy style, drink half a litre of that brew, not listening to our loud childish complaints. A horrifying moment at that time but afterwards a great laugh, and all about young minds.
After finishing school and he had left his national services behind, he then after a few years of work in the paving industry, started his own firm in the same branch. A firm that got really successful.
After some time he also met his wife and started a family. A family that I know he loved above all.
With love and respect
This song was performed by Ola Sigfridsson at the ceremony
– Walter Hagen
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”
― Emily Dickinson
Currently we’re receiving a lot of snow here in Stockholm. The airport is closed, the public transportation system is out, but the roads are still pretty ok.
It may sound strange but I kind of like these situations (as long as nobody gets hurt), because it brings people together. Everybody is friendly, and starts to talk to each other without anything more to talk about than the current weather. Maybe that explains why Londonders and Dubliners are among the most friendly people in the world (due to all rain)?! 🙂
This is a pic from the early stages of the snowfall, and it actually snows even more right now. But as long it’s possible to stay inside there is no reason for complaining.
Best of wishes for the evening
“I love snow for the same reason I love Christmas: It brings people together while time stands still. Cozy couples lazily meandered the streets and children trudged sleds and chased snowballs. No one seemed to be in a rush to experience anything other than the glory of the day, whenever and however it happened”
― Rachel Cohn, Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares
“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
― Steve Martin
The first snow has arrived in Stockholm just in time for Advent.
Cold days like this are super for a morning stroll, and when it comes to many photographers best time of the day, “The Golden Hour”, it’s great for us Swedes that we easily can combine a good long sleep and still enjoy those early moments. At least in Winter….
This is the first real week in Stockholm with “full spring”. In Sweden this is some amazing days. It seems like everyone just un-freezes from the Winter and there are happy people all around.
What’s also really amazing when spring arrives (as in the autumn) is the lighting conditions for photo. I can’t exactly tell you what it is but I think it get’s so much easier to get good shots, even with an iPhone-camera, so I’ve been quite busy taking pics during the days this week.
First of is a pic of Kungsgatan two days ago during lunch hour. What I like with this view is that there are very few who takes any pictures here (maybe it’s due to looking silly on a shopping street.. I don’t know 🙂 ) while I think this view holds one of Stockholm’s nicest views of great architecture.
This pic is taken with HDR and then adjusted with Photo Toaster to get a touch of an older look.
I hope you all have a have a great week!
Last week I had a business meeting in Sälen, which is a famous ski resort here in Sweden. Since I have a friend that lives at the same place, I decided to stay over the weekend and what a weekend it turned out to be, especially Sunday with blue skies, just -3 degrees.
This is a pic from a ride with the snowmobile. Will get back with more pics during the week. What I liked with this view is the trees that almost gives a surreal experience and even though I’ve been in the Swedish mountains I’ve never seen them as frozen as this.
Hope you all have a great start of the week.
This morning I took a really long walk. At the moment it’s pretty cold in Sweden (-20 degrees in the morning and around -12 degrees Celsius in the day), but it’s also so beautiful. I’ve always loved winter and these clear blue days together with the snowy scenery is so great and it’s almost like you don’t wanna go inside again, even though it’s pretty cold.
So I got up early, stopped by at 7-11 and bought myself a big Latte and off I went. What a great way to start a weekend.
Two photos from today that started cloudy but around noon, it was clear blue skies.
So, this is Sunday evening. The end of a week, that in many ways feels like a month! The week started of hectically with all the work that needed to be done, before getting up from bed at 3:30 Tuesday morning to jump on a plane to London for the ICE fair, so Tuesday night was a night out, and do I need to tell that my eyes were both pointing at my nose?!
Wednesday went by pretty quick. Had some nice discussions during the day and in the evening I had a great dinner together with some new acquaintances and a colleague of mine. Back at the hotel I found out that an old school friend from Piteå also was in London. 15 minutes later we had a beer and shared some laughs at a restaurant and talked to a French woman in her 60:s about life in general, and the history of Europe. A friendly conversation that made some sudden U-turns at the end when she started to repeat “I wanna kill, I wanna kill”…. 🙂 so, we jumped in a taxi and finished the night down at Picadilly.
Thursday afternoon I went back to Stockholm and had a full night of sleep. Friday morning I had some really interesting business meetings before I went on a conference with me and my colleagues company, DevCode. We stayed at a conference center called Skepparholmen which I really recommend! Great service, great view and excellent food! In the evening we spent two hours in the outside pool, surrounded by snow and all the boats that enters / leaves Stockholm. Magic! A good conference that I think can be important for the future.
Suddenly, it was Sunday. A week that went by as fast as it can and at the same time feels like it was an eternity.
To get back on track I spent the whole Sunday walking in the spring like weather in the woods in Stockholm. Don’t think that are any better ways to slow down and fill up the reserves again.
I hope you all had a great week too, and best wishes for the new week.
Sweden is experiencing the warmest November, and start of December in 200 years. It has almost been like spring. But today we got our first snow flakes and there is more to come according to the weather people.
A Christmas with Christmas lights towards rain drops isn’t exactly a Christmas so I keep my fingers crossed for a White Christmas.
These pics were taken during a walk yesterday evening, bringing my small Olympus with me.
Hope you had a great start of the week
Today is the first day that really feels like winter. On my way to work I had to walk through leafs that were all covered with frost, and I had premiere in wiping the ice from the cars windows. But it’s a really beautiful day with blue skies.
Really looking forward to the first snow.
Saarimner.com 