Landscape: Winter Trees

Yesterday's unexpectedly clear skies gave me the opportunity to work with polarizing to try to capture the very beautiful snow covered trees that dot Stockholm at the moment. These pictures were shot in Edsbergsparken in Sollentuna, just north of Stockholm.

Landscape at the shores of the frozen lake Edsviken in Sollentuna

The contrast from the blackish branches against the white snow and blue sky is something I find very entriguing.

The polarizing shift with a wide-angle lens can be seen clearly in this picture, dark sky in the middle and lighter at the edges.

Stockholm Landscape: Stockholm from the Air

Today we took to the skies to get another perspective of Stockholm, up the Concrete Spire of Stockholm, also known as the Kaknäs Tower on the eastern shores. The winds at 141 m above ground turned out to be the largest obstacle to overcome when photographing from the tower; at 200 mm the slightest shakes will involuntary smear the the pictures nicely Gaussian for you. The ratio of reasonably sharp pictures from this outing were thus quite low. However, I managed to get the best pictures of the Kaknäs Tower I have ever created, where it was perfectly illuminated by the setting sun, standing out all orange from the cold blue of the ground and the sky.

Kaknäs Tower, Stockholm

Kaknäs Tower Close-up, Stockholm

Westerly view of Stockholm from the tower.
In the foreground Djurgårdsbrunn Road leading into Östermalm. In the background the Old Town with the City Hall.

Stockholm Landscape: Blue skies

The cold persists and after a week of very good photographic weather, Stockholm showed us clear blue skies in the winter. Yesterday's (urban) landscape session in central Stockholm gave me the opportunity to experiment with skies and optimal light. Yesterday's sunset was at 15:07, and to the east (away from the sunset) the good light (in my opinion) was only between 16:00 and 16:10, a small window of 10 minutes. The first picture below was taken in that window. To the west (setting-sun side) the good light begun at 16:15, but didn't fully mature until 16:25, from which it stayed good until about 16:50, when the west sky started to become too dark. The two lower pictures were taken with west skies as background. It's really amazing how long time the post-sunset light lingers in the sky this far north in winter.

View from the castle of Grand Hotel and The National Museum, Stockholm

Storkyrkan, Stockholm

The Royal Castle in Stockholm seen from the plateau to the west.

Stockholm Landscape: Coldest day yet

Yes, it was -15°C in Stockholm today. And with cold weather comes great opportunities; add to that a clear day and I got a backdrop that I have been longing for quite some time. Matilda and I went out, dressed to the teeth wearing all the cloths we could find, totaling not less than four layers! I repeated much of the subjects from yesterday, especially the Royal Castle - and the results are quite different from the moody skies of yesterday.

The bitter cold also tested the equipment. It is evident that you get what you pay for - my $7 Ebay remote shutter didn't love the cold and gave up somewhere in the middle. The camera and tripod did hold up (apart from frozen water in the build-in compass of the tripod!). A first for me was how extremely slow the LCD displays got, I have had cameras in the extreme cold before but I have never noticed this, where it looked like the f-stops on the LCD hesitated to change. Well, the liquid crystals of the Liquid Crystal Display were not very liquid anymore I guess :)

Smoke over Södermälarstrand. How can there be factories right in the heart of the city?

Högalid Church. All the birds of Söder decided to go for a flight at the same time.

Royal Castle of Sweden

Royal Castle of Sweden.

Quite a different picture compared to the one from yesterday. Note the ducks making a racket in the foreground, which I think adds to the picture. It is also interesting to see the work of different light temperatures (and some colored lights) reflected in the water.

Stockholm Landscape: Winter in Stockholm

Matilda and I headed out to Skeppsholmen, a small island in central Stockholm for a magnificent view of the Old Town of Stockholm. The light in Stockholm today was so so, but after some post processing there were a few pictures that actually showed to have at least some potential. I ended up using one of them as new header for the blog.

Old Town of Stockholm in after sunset light.

Old Town in Stockholm were I hope to convey how cold it really was!

The Royal Castle seen from Kungsträdgården.