*Always good to sample the goods first!*

Christmas Market Time

December 08, 2024 in Photography

The three months ending the old year and beginning the new (November to January) are usually the slowest photography months for me, usually because the light is pretty much non-existent bar a few days when we have clear skies and (maybe) some snow covering the ground. Those days are good for photography, but otherwise…perhaps not so much. I usually put my camera away for much of this period since I find the lack of light so uninspiring. However, to combat these photographic doldrums and feelings of “why bother” I ventured into the center of Malmö to see if the ongoing Christmas market stalls and people there would inspire me.

Walking in a winter wonder land...

November 23, 2024

…well…that might be pushing it a bit to call it a winter land around these parts in Sweden, but we did get a couple of hours of snowfall the other day so there was actually a little bit of accumulation of snow on the ground. So I will go with the winter wonderland reference for now. It’ll all be gone again in a day or three since we’re getting rain soon.

Today though we had clear, blue skies which made for very good winter light, perfect to capture a few quick snaps while I took a walk in my small town neighborhood. Given how many kids I saw with various forms of sleds used to slide down the minuscule hills we have I wasn’t the only one enjoying the rare bit of sunshine combined with the snow!

*This would be way too cold for me! Good thing they wore waders and lots of layers!*

So nice to be out by the seaside!

February 07, 2024 in Photography

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.

...'tis the season to be jolly (etc etc)!

December 09, 2023 in Photography

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.

*A rare moment of sunshine in central Malmö, Sweden*

Hello darkness my old friend...

October 31, 2023 in Writing, Project, Photography

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.

Out there at night...

January 14, 2023 in Photography

A second blog post in less than two weeks’ time…what is this? Is there suddenly a return to old times when I posted several times a month? I don’t know honestly, but I figured that I’d post something of my recent stroll through the twilight and first hour of darkness in Malmö. I was there for a board meeting at my photo club and some other errands and figured I’d arrive a little early and give myself some time to walk around with my Fujifilm XT-3 and a 35 mm 2.0 lens.

First photos of the year

January 10, 2023 in Photography

Last weekend was the first outing with a camera for 2023 and I went to my usual monthly Photographers' Brunch in Malmö, Sweden. We're a group of 10-20 photographers that meet up for a Sunday morning brunch followed by a slow stroll through the streets with our cameras, ready to take a picture or two.

The 365 Project Mark VI - Month Two

March 05, 2021 in Photography, Project

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.

Ice, Ice, Ice Baby!

February 24, 2021 in Photography

First…apologies for the title…it was too obvious a pick (also, now you’ve got that dreadful Vanilla Ice cover on your brain for awhile…congratulations!)

The weather this winter has been…interesting. As I write this during the last week of February we have 12 degrees Celsius (54 Fahrenheit) and birds are chirping away outside while some tree thought it a good idea to release pollen into the air, way too early for my eyes to appreciate it. A week and a half ago we had -10 Celsius (14 Fahrenheit) at night and it was definitely thick longjohns time if you wanted to spend extended amounts of time outside in the dark!

In the halls of the mountain king...

December 16, 2019 in Photography

Yes, that title is blatantly stolen from an orchestral piece by the Norwegian composer Edward Grieg (but he’s been dead for over a century, so he can’t complain much), but in a way it fits the location that I visited last weekend. The Tykarp Cave outside Hässleholm in the northeastern part of my home province Skåne is an old underground limestone quarry (that closed in the late 1800s) that you can visit year round as a tourist attraction, but this particular weekend they held their Christmas market.