Early snow in Stockholm

by | Dec 14, 2010 | Photography

For all of you who do not live in Sweden I can tell you that we have an unusual amount of snow for the time of year. Also the temperatures are lower than we are common with in December.

Early December I was traveling to the Netherlands to visit my family. On a beautiful Saturday morning we had some real snow showers there creating a mere 15 cm of snow. Unfortunately overnight temperatures went up and rain came. By the time we woke up almost all the snow had gone. Unlike the situation often in middle and north Sweden this is quite common in the Netherlands.

Anyway, last weekend we had beautiful weather around Stockholm, thus it was time to take out the cameras and make some snow shots. It was a cold experience though, with temperatures as low as -15 degrees C I was sometimes knee deep in the snow trying to find the perfect composition.

With the sun setting already before 3pm combined with the low temperatures you get to see a  fantastic colored sky with blue’s and magenta’s.

Stockholm’s City Hall by night II

by | Sep 11, 2010 | Photography

This week conditions were much better in the city center around City Hall. As you might recall from my post two weeks ago it then was cloudy, I was late and the tower was not lit.

But this week I guess I was lucky and we experienced a very nice late-summer evening with a blue sky. I was in good time to set up my equipment and make test shots. On top of that all the top of the tower was in full light. Here is one of the results.

While I was taking images it struck me what a beautiful panorama view you have when you look from Riddarholmen towards City Hall. The view stretches all the way from Södermalm to the left, over the water following the bridge to Kungsholmen, than City Hall and the futuristic looking new World Trade Center in the background of the archipelago boats to the right.

I took a series of 5 images covering the whole panorama. Back home I used Adobe Photoshop’s photo-merge tool, which works fantastic in the latest version (CS5), to create a panorama photo. You can see the results from this weeks shoot at City Hall in my Sweden: Stockholm gallery. Obviously the panorama photo does not view well on screen as it it too small to get the full impact, but once I have printed it at 100x25cm it will look great.

Stockholm’s City Hall by night

by | Aug 31, 2010 | Photography

Tonight I went out into the city of Stockholm for some location spotting. Stockholm is regarded as a beautiful city, in my opinion it absolutely is, and I am determined to shoot more images in my home city. After the success of last year (see my previous blog-post here) I felt like discovering more good sights and wondered why I had waited so long…

One of the main sights in Stockholm is city-hall (Stadshuset). It lies beautifully on the waterside facing towards the south island of the city, Södermalm. I went to Riddarholmen, a small island just in between, as I figured to have the best view on city-hall from there.

Unfortunately the conditions were not great. First of all I was a bit too late and had to rush setting up to catch the remaining light, second of all it was cloudy and third of all the lights in top of the main tower were not lit. I was happy I went anyway as I could test my new tripod (Manfrotto 190CXPro3), so I shot some images. One of the results you can see above. I will definitely come back to this location under better conditions, i.e. clear sky and with a bit of luck with the lights lit in top of the tower. I will keep you posted.

On my way back I crossed the bridge towards the old city (Gamla Stan) and experimented a bit more with long shutter times while the traffic was rushing underneath me. Here is the result.

The new Manfrotto was a pleasure to use. It was easy to carry, quick to setup and I just love the new ballhead which gives me the ease of use I was looking for in a tripod.

The only thing that remains now is that I do not wait another year until I take out my camera in my home town.

Annie Leibovitz at Fotografiska

by | Aug 23, 2010 | Uncategorized

Finally I went to Fotografiska in Stockholm this weekend. This new photography exhibition center opened back in May 2010, but I did not manage to go any earlier.

Photo: Annie Leibovitz

The Annie Leibovitz exhibition “Annie Leibovitz, A Photographer’s Life 1990 – 2005” is absolutely amazing and truly inspiring. It is moving to see how her private work is blended with her professional work.

The exhibition will continue until September 19, 2010 so if you happen to be in Stockholm take your chance and go visit Fotografiska!

Additional photographers who are exhibited at Fotografiska (until September 5, 2010) are Vee Speers, Lennart Nilsson and Anders Petersen.