The Chronicles of Särna

A house.

2/26/2018

Uninhabited, dilapidated and even a bit lopsided (although you can't see that in the picture)... but still a house. It has to have roughly a century on its tired shoulders, made of histories smells noises and more or less like my house here in Särna, a few meters from it. A home, and for a long long time.
Sometimes it's nice to leave aside the artistic expression and the great sceneries and go out with just a standard lens to look at glimpses of "home" with other eyes.

Unique Forms of Continuity in (a Forest) Space

9/20/2017

(Boccioni, forgive me) Autumn has come to Särna, and it's a good one.

My Kitchen and Other Animals (or, 10 Years in Sweden)

4/29/2017

Today marks the tenth anniversary since my moving to Sweden. A few days later, I began the publication of the Chronicles, my most personal space, to tell the story of what it meant to live where - until then - I had simply traveled; especially from a naturalistic and photographic point of view, of course.
Since then, 530 images of "home" and other places in the North where I have been and loved have appeared, including this one on the side.
You can browse the very first years here (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) and the following ones in the monthly archives in the right column on this page.

To celebrate this birthday I could not find any more appropriate shot than this recent portrait of one of the protagonists in those pages: my garden’s squirrel.

A local (zero kilometers) photo if any, in fact just 90 centimeters, measured. This is the distance that separates the kitchen window, where I am having my meals, from the feeder for birds (and other animals). Nothing special here around: every Swede living in rural areas (probably 80% of the whole country) has a feeder in shape of a cabin full of food just outside the kitchen and shares meals with other guests, looking them in the eyes from the other side of the glass. I'm no exception, and as an immigrant who craves assimilation and wants to adapt to local customs, the feeder was just the second accessory added to my tiny palace (the first being a bed) after the moving.

The list of encounters from my window in these 10 years is quite long, and several shots are in these Chronicles: from the great spotted to the grey-headed woodpeckers, from the roe deers (garden’s aficionados) to the waxwings, to the sparrow hawk, and even the ring ouzel. But it’s the squirrel, though, the steady presence through this decade (not the same one, I guess...), and the one I always greet with the greater pleasure.
And it’s also the first time I am able to catch an image of “the” window - and as a result of my home – through its reflection in the hematite pupil of its perfect profile.
(click on the picture to enlarge it)

Hawk Owl

4/8/2017

Looks like we'll have a quite good owl year... ;)

And now it's Spring

3/31/2017

With the arrival of thaw, whooper swans have arrived too.

It's October

10/8/2016

And waxwings are coming. And fieldfares and redwings. But I'm waiting for the waxwings above all. The picture is from a hour ago, taken while I was sitting at the very desk from where I'm writing right now. Life is beautiful.

Rein-bow

8/13/2016

When you go to Nipfjället in the summer you can be sure to get big male reindeer or dramatic skies. Sometime both of them together.
(click on the image to enlarge it)

Sanctuaries.

6/16/2016

Nesseby, Varanger: quite a famous site among birdwatchers and nature photographers. A solitary and white wooden church oversees a suggestive place: your eyes look at 360 degrees of beaches, low rocks and tidal areas. A hot spot for first-rate sightings, not the only one in the Varangerfjord, but certainly one of the most fascinating and productive.
It wasn't the case during my recent trip: scarce and distant observations. The church itself, however, is a subject that deserves attention and a bit of time spent to search for somewhat different looks than the usual postcard... with the help of a couple of complacent house sparrows (well... rather church sparrows here).
One way or another, birds never disappoint in the Varanger.

I love clouds.

6/6/2016

I'm now back from a travel to another North, one as much beloved as my "home range" one: the Varanger Peninsula, where the sky is a show for its own, a worthy background for the beauty which a nature as wild as seldom elsewhere in the continent gives in spades.
To the left, Tana River Delta; to the right, evening clouds over Ekkerøy

Cock on a Hot Tin Roof.

4/13/2016

April: capercaillies time (and also time to update this blog, after a very flat end of winter, from a photographic standpoint). After I've celebrated the beauty of the females, always underrated (take a look at this post in Genius loci project), here it is the male.
A small group of birds has seemingly chosen a cluster of old cabins in the forest as courting playground. This male picked up an elevated spot, perhaps to enhance its visibility toward the females.
In order to better appreciate the beauty of this bird, I am adding a 100% crop of the original image on the right.
(click on the pictures to enlarge them)

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