Grisslehamn & Singö

Grisslehamn & Singö

The June 2011 wallpaper was based on a photo I took end of May on the east coast of Sweden near the village of Grisslehamn. I promised in that post to show some more photos from that trip. Here they are.

The above text layered image is based on the photo below. This photo was taken at 11pm in the harbor of Grisslehamn. I had just returned from my evening tour at the coast.

The harbor was just 100m from my pension. The photo is built from 3 individual images, stitched together using Adobe Photoshop’s photo-merge to get a slight panorama effect.

Earlier during that evening I shot some seaside photos of the waterfront. The coastline is very rocky near Grisslehamn.

The next evening I went to the island of Singö, just north of Grisslehamn. This is the location where the June 2011 wallpaper was taken. The below photo is a wider framed photo of the same island, Svartklubben with the lighthouse, with a rock formation in the foreground.

North Sea coastline sunset

North Sea coastline sunset

Since I am spending some time in the province of Noord-Holland (in the Netherlands) I have the opportunity to visit the coastline on a regular basis when the weather situation allows for some sunset photography. Besides that I love to photograph sunsets I simply also enjoy just watching the sun disappear in the sea creating a wonderful mixture of colors in the sky.

The attached photos are all long-exposure images from resp. 13, 20 and 30 seconds. I have used GND (Graduated Neutral Density) filters to capture more detail in the foreground by blocking excessive light from the sky and exposing both fore- and background optimally. The images were taken near the city of Schoorl at Camperduin.

Although the colors are warm in the photos it was a cold experience taking them. All three photos were taken in the past few weeks and as it is still early in the year the temperatures were only around 5 degrees (C) with a strong sea wind making it feel like freezing. My fingers were all cramped when I left the scene.

I am considering choosing one of the photos for the free April 2011 calender wallpaper, but I am hesitant which one to pick. Which would you like to see as the April 2011 calender wallpaper? Please comment!

Dreaming of summer evenings

The autumn is approaching and the evenings are already rapidly getting darker. Temperatures are dropping and more rain is upon us. It is only one and a half month until we change the clock to winter-time. It is time to dream about wonderful summer evenings.

The past summer in Sweden has been great and with good weather, nothing to complain. However, when I was browsing through some old photo folders I came across images from 2002 when we spent some summer weeks in Cuba. Memories went back to the evenings we spent at Maria La Gorda, they were spectacular.

Maria La Gorda was then a small diving resort in the far west of Cuba. It was recommended by one of my business contacts, who had been there recently. To get to Maria La Gorda was not the easiest. In a five hour drive a taxi drove us over bad roads and in high speed towards paradise.

At the time Maria La Gorda existed of nothing more than some simple cabins near the beach (see photo below). During the day there was little more to do than sunbathing, snorkeling or joining a boat ride for some scuba-diving, and that was just what we did.

During the evenings we could enjoy the sunset, walk over the beach and relax with a Cuba Libre in one of the many beach chairs under the palm trees. Is there anything more one could wish for?

I remember that holiday as the first one with a digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix E885, ancient by now, and with only 3.2M pixels. The first photo in this post was taken with it.

The second photo in this post was taken with my Nikon F801s, that I had bought back in 1992, and was thus 10 years old, but reliable as always. I mostly used positive film at the time and would scan it in with a 35mm scanner.

The above photos, as well as some other newly uploaded photos, including bad weather over Maria La Gorda, can be viewed in the Cuba gallery.

Stockholm’s City Hall by night

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.