Cranes time. 04/15/2012
 
As every year in early April, the cranes arrived. Not alone, I have to say: whooper swans, goldeneyes, goosanders and Canada geese came with them to fill every early crack which makes a pond in that slab of ice which still is, and still be for a few more days, the lake. And in the gardens chaffinches, bramblings, redpolls and siskins in blasts, in battalions.
The cranes are special, though. Special because of the animals they are, and special because they are here, just out of my home; I can hear them singing from my garden, as they explode their blaring calls from a distant shore, and you’d never believe that such a powerful sound could come out from such slender and graceful necks. They land in small groups or pairs, and slowly graze on the exposed banks.
Some will leave soon, bound for new waters northward; others will remain in the area, choosing a swamp around here to nest . You can see them along all the shores: here nearby a couple who start a nuptial dance for a little while; behind it another group in distance, in the sky a family is gliding towards a bank out of sight, and each time they cross a look, a trumpets concert starts, only to vanish with an echo.
The following pictures are unpretentious: they are just photo memories of special travelling companions.
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I have to be honest: I have no idea why it never came up to my mind before. Moreover, the snow is definitely one of the typical products from a Swedish winter; perhaps having it around for seven whole months a year made me giving it for granted, I don't know. So only last January, after five winters in Särna, I decided to check if it was possible to get decent photos of snow crystals, and just with a plain, homely equipment, so to speak.
I realized I already had what needed: a tripod, a flash, a 105 mm macro lens and an adapter ring to join it - thread to thread – with a classic and cheap 50 mm, in order to achieve a higher magnification. A series of not photo-related items, which could be found in any house, completed the shooting set up.
So far, so good: I just needed... the snow; but not any snow, of course, because we have shovelfuls of the usual one (literally, my back knows). There are specific conditions that facilitates the fall of snow in well-formed single crystals: absence of wind in height, temperatures between minus 10 and minus 15 degrees, and probably some other weather factors I'm not aware of, but which I suspect more directly tied to the good, old luck. As known, without it even the best technique is powerless.
And, of course, these conditions have to keep coming for several days, in order to get the best chances to find good crystals (which is all but obvious) with a continuity. From this point of view Särna climate proved to be a perfect helper; then it was just a matter of using a good magnifying glass and be patient (warm clothes were kind of useful, too). This way I put together a gallery of shots that worked as feasibility study, and which I plan to try improving in the winters to come.
Here some of them, and please forgive a more intrusive watermark than usual.

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Rural Geometry. 03/31/2012
 
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Sometime you just have nothing really significant, or not even interesting, to write along any single photo, so you just offer something you think it’s pleasant enough to be shared. This is the case: a little exercise of geometrical composition which goes back to few weeks ago (when snow was still there).




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A few days ago Särna hosted, as is traditional at this time of year, the Polardistans, one of the most important European sled dogs competitions; possibly the hardest, considering that the participants have to be entirely independent (in a race up to 300 km long in its more challenging category), carrying all the food and equipment by themselves. Forty teams from all over the continent took part, finding themselves fighting a night blizzard that forced many to retire.
Not my usual stuff, but I actually enjoyed it. Here is a short gallery of shots before the start and along the first segments of the trail.
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Li'l Cloud. 03/01/2012
 
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The lake of Särna in a late February evening; the town remains discreetly sheltered along the opposite shore, already wrapped in the shadows. It’s been a warm February, the warmest in the five years of our life here: a worthy conclusion of a temperate winter following a very mild autumn.
The beginning of March is the entrance into Gidádálvve (springwinter), one of the eight seasons of Sami people: daylight has increased almost by magic, both in duration and intensity; the sun shines high and the temperature range between day and night is important. To the point that solar energy succeeds in raising a thick evening fog on a lake still solidly frozen, which will remain so until the end of April.
That very energy has fueled for hours that thermal on the hill over there, and it still has the strength to climb on its vertical, condensing into an atmosphere colder and colder as the sun goes down.
The little cloud suddenly appears, catching fire with the last light. Few minutes, just enough to take a picture and contemplate the scene, before the shape of the mount Fulufjället to the west makes both dissolving in the twilight to come.
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Black Blot. 01/25/2012
 
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A male capercaillie, caught while nibbling _pine needles, stands on a tapestry made ​​of white snow, hoarfrost and milky sky.

As always, click on the thumbnail to enlarge. In this case, even more so.
 
 
_A quartet of pictures taken yesterday in the village, for the first post of the year; nothing more than what the title says: postcards, no attempts to perform Great Photography here, just a way to gather moments, lights and glimpses, change them into memories to share with friends or accidental visitors, wishing to them all a happy 2012.
 
 
At last the snow settled on central Sweden also - and it couldn’t be otherwise - although still not in a "Scandinavian" amount. Enough to justify going out in the woods; not enough to get views of them in line with the "winter wonderland" effect of stylization and simplification that snowy landscapes usually provide (and I usually expect). With such a low level of the blanket, brush and branches of the undergrowth remain in sight to mess with the purity of the whole. Therefore I thought to go with the good old motion blur, in order to dilute the "impurities" while maintaining clearly visible the side of the trees crusted with snow (I've been waiting for it a long time), which in any case would not show any detail. Blades of sunset enriched an already fascinating scenario. When you have to do with photos so alike, it’s dificult to tell which one is better, which deserves the title of "nice picture"; here, more likely, none of the three, but that is what I could get in this December so far.

And talking about similarities, the most careful of you will find some between the second picture here and the motion blur one in this post: when the elements in a picture are few, similar and simple (the trunks, in our case), the rules of a balanced composition can lead to photographs which look actually pretty the same. The other parameters involved (light, colours) make the difference, in these cases.
Photography is like music (and I’ll like to return on this topic): the involved parameters are finite in number, but their combinations are endless.

By the way: Happy Holidays to everybody. Or better: God Jul och Gott Nytt År!
 
 
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Ice Spiders
_ The lack of snow persists. The landscape keeps an atypical appearance for the beginning of December: looking at the forest of conifers, it would be virtually impossible to tell whether we are in May or late autumn, without take a look at the calendar.
There is still room, then, for the games of the cold: a few degrees below zero are enough to transfom the shores of Lake Särna - and any other expanse of water in the region - into canvas over which the ice seems to enjoy drawing the most amazing shapes. Here it is a couple of images that ideally complements the last year's collection "The Icy Ten", taken in the same circumstances, which you can see here in the 2010 Chronicles.

Here next, the water surface was solidified with a crystallization phenomenon that created regular geometric shapes: it happens when the temperatures drop suddenly within a single night, from just above zero to minus ten degrees.

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Waves
_ In Särna, the lake sports small but delightful beaches made by fine sand, methodically arranged by the wind, and by the even slightest backwash, in the shape of those classical, minute waves that you expect from the sand at any latitude. The water entering and flooding them is the first to freeze, and creates a double scheme of mirrored sinuousities beneath a thin layer of ice so transparent to be invisible, if wasn't for some still free sand blown by the wind, which rests on it, taking the shape of long strips of gold.
This gold moves rolling on the ice with waving motion - in all respects similar to a snake - and run all over the lake: one of those rare moments when I regret not having a videocamera in my hands.

The snow is expected in very short term, and once it will be here there will be no way to play with the ice again, until October of next year.

 
 
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_ Yesterday I met a female Capercaillie especially friendly and cooperative. Instead of just stealing some of those furtive shots which are usually connected with such accidental encounters (and which always leave a bad taste in the mouth, under the point of view of personal fulfilment and empathetic relationship with the subject), I took advantage of its kindness watching her for quite a long time.

And admiring her: the massive body, perfect to keep the heat, is also a masterpiece of mimetism, wonderful in its warm and marbled tones culminating in the tawny breast; the thick plumage on the powerful claws; the bill, an ideal tool to cut handfuls of pine's needles, taken away with a strong torsion of the neck: a move clearly visible in one shot of the sequence you can see after the break (click on Read More). I spent 45 minutes together with this remarkable bird, keeping myself discreetly in distance; during this time she just occasionally looked at that unknown shape which was producing strange swishes at six frame per second.
Until she decided, for once in total quietness and freedom, it was time to move to another tree.