Another festival for me
My last blogpost was related to the Malmö Festival, which is put on by the City of Malmö for a whole week with lots of food trucks, many performances and other culture events, including big artists playing in front of tens of thousands of spectators. This blogpost is about another festival in Malmö. Same city, but VERY different! The NGBG festival is put on by volunteers and the participating artists and culture workers, many of them independent artists, and it’s held along a rather worn down street called Norra Grängesbergsgatan, filled with car washes, workshops and second hand stores. Over a weekend in early September there were at least 400 different events at well over 20 stages, housed inside the workshops and stores where normally cars are serviced, as well as on temporary stages along the street that was blocked of with a huge cargo container at each end of the street.
Busy market day!
Summer is market season in my part of the world and over the years I think I’ve been to almost all of them at one point. One blank spot in my market memory was the one in Sjöbo*, even though it probably is the second largest attendance of all the province’s markets after the one in Kivik (I’ve not seen official numbers but the expectation was for 100,000 visitors over two days, so that will give you an idea). So to remedy my lack of visits to this market I convinced my photo buddy (a.k.a. Dad) that we should drive the half-hour east and experience this market.
Photos in a haze of exhaust fumes
There is an annual tradition in my small south Swedish hometown of a big motor festival right around June 6th (our national day), or at least a weekend close to that. This year that happened on June 7th and the whole of Main Street as well as several side streets as well as the town park were blocked off to be part of the parade and later display area for the dozens and dozens of vehicles that people wanted to show off and see for themselves.
Season Closer by the Sea
One of the nicer traditions in my photo club here in southernmost Sweden is that we close out the spring season with a gathering outdoors where we cook hot dogs and have a beer or two (non-alcoholic options available too of course). We are usually out by the ocean since it’s right there for us, and this year’s gathering was no exception.We were blessed with pretty nice weather and the hot dogs were great, as was the company! One of the possible themes for the evening’s photography was “structures and surfaces” so some of the photos in this post were inspired by this theme.
Pictures from a Town Fair
One of the annual events in my little south Swedish hometown is the Bonnamarknaden (literally meaning Farmers’ Market, although there’s not much related to farmers these days). I don’t go down there every year, since it tends to be more or less the same thing every year, but I figured I’d have a go at it this year, since I’ve not done much street photography lately. I can always do with some practice, to keep my observational skills honed and ready!
Park Life
There’s been a bit of an unintentional hiatus due to medical issues in my immediate family (most of which are thankfully on the mend now). I’ve not done a whole lot of photography lately; somehow the snapping of pictures isn’t all that important when such things happen…however, saying that I have done at least a few snapshots that I want to share in this post.
There's a spring in my step...
For a few days it was un-seasonly warm and toasty around these parts of the world and sun worshippers came out in droves in parks in the city. I too felt the need to get some fresh air and move my legs a bit after being a bit too sedentary for too long, so out to my regular walking area I went - to the Skryllegården recreational area outside Lund, Sweden. However, unlike my usual 3K walk I chose to do the 5K one this time, since I was by my lonesome and not with my dad, who finds the 3K plenty enough for his liking!
Cold by the coast
When the sun shines on a cold winter morning (the thermometer was at -6 C or 21 F) it feels just right to pack oneself and the constant photo partner (a.k.a. Dad) into the car and head down to the coast at Falsterbo. There’s just something special about seeing that horizon line that makes me feel more harmonious inside!
Night Streets
I wrote in the last blog post that I didn’t really have any plans for what I am going to do with my 2025 photographic or creative year and that still stands. No clue yet…however I also wrote that I’d try to get out there more to take more pictures, even if it is still pretty meh around here as far as light and weather goes. It IS getting better though, the days are getting longer and you don’t risk freezing body parts off when out and about (provided you wear sensible clothing of course!).
The start of a new...something...?
The year is just started and in some ways it is a “clean slate”. All over the internet I’ve seen people post articles about what they’ve got planned for this year, various projects that they’re starting up, subjects they want to focus on in their photography, and that’s great for them. Personally though I do not have a single project idea at the moment. No upcoming exhibition, no book project and not even a single trip planned. In previous years I’ve done lots of posts in late December or early January proclaiming what I have planned for the new year, or what I hope to do, but other than the 365 projects I did for a few years in the 2010s I rarely finished, let alone started, many of those projects.