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 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 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!