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Pascal intrudes: I’m delighted to introduce this first guest post from reader and frequent commentator Kristian Wannebo and hope you will enjoy it as much as I did. May it be the first in a long series 🙂 End of intrusion.
An un-light post, and, as well, an un-destination one.
Very un-destinstion – as I took a walk just around were I live, and without having decided where to:
GÃ¥lö, Sunday February 3d:It’s been snowing here (some 40 km south of Stockholm) a few times this week, and much more than usual. It was snowing again yesterday at around 0°C, so the snow sticks to twigs and branches in a falling temperature although there is a bit of wind.
So around midday (at maximum light through the all grey cloud cover) I put on winter boots and gaiters for the up to knee deep snow and went for a walk with an assortment of lenses – and double gloves, the inner ones camera friendly.
With snow I want sun!It makes the snow sparkle. It colours the snow yellow and blue and…
But in flat light snow can be its own light.
So I walked around the small summer houses here…
…and through the wood…
…down to the sea, here frozen and snow covered.
And then the sky had started to clear with a higher layer of grey clouds wind driven above lighter clouds allowing an occasional patch of hazy blue.
Snow falls,
softens edges,
clothes the ground,
autumnly naked.
Under snow-covered
bridges of icet
he brook whispers
the forest’s secrets.
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Kristian
I enjoyed your post, and the calm and quietness of your images.
Thanks Dave
🙂
Kristian
I agree with Dave, and I particularly like the monochrome effect of the colour photos.
Not sure if it was good planning or not; your subtle tones have survived online compression. I wonder if this is from subtle chromatic variation with the tone?
Regards Noel
Thanks Noel,
Not planned and I don’t know – being a beginner at postpr.
( A little micro contrast added, downsampled (bicubic sharpen) ÷4 to 100% jpeg plus ÷1.5 when published.)
I first wanted them all in colour, but found the brown colour of the tree stems to dominating.
I second Noel’s comment. The monochromes pop. The mix of luminance variation and focus variation in the first makes for a very mysterious and lovely image 🙂
Thanks Pascal,
It took some trampling under that pine tree to find a spot to frame the white pattern without colliding with the tree stem.
Well worth it (particularly as it wasn’t my toes being frozen 😀 ) Thanks.
🙂
No risk, good foot wear – as you hadn’t time for!
The risk is getting one’s collar full of snow if brushing against the branches…
Which would unvariably happen if shooting with a mischievous buddy (who’d kick the tree at precisely the right moment). Trust me, I’ve been on both sides of the bad deed 😀
My father and I had fun doing that to each other when we were out skiing in the forest, we pushed branches with our ski poles.
Was your comment that this is “an un-destination [post]” a little bit of unconscious humour? Not sure how anyone could drive in or out of the place.
But that aside, we all seem to disregard our own habitat as a suitable target for our photography. And yet I see things in your post, and all the others, that I’ve never seen in my life. I look forward to each and every post on DS, because they are ALL so interesting, in the photos they bring into my life.
I left B&W behind to devote what’s left of my time on this planet to digital, and its ability to bring colour processing and colour printing to my desk. I hardly ever think “B&W” now, for that reason. So I won’t comment there.
But I do love the “almost B&W” effect in some of the colour shots. I have spent a lifetime detesting the garish “Kodacolor” colour gamut, and I’d throw up if if starts to invade my life again.
As for shaking the tree – sigh – remember what happened to Isaac Newton, Pascal. Check the branches for heavy objects – don’t proceed before that! 🙂
No, this is a destination all right – of smallish summer houses, but a few (like me) live here.
In winter the last bit of road is often *very* icy, I need spikes to walk to the bus.
As I answered Noel, I wood have preferred colour for the snow – for the very reason you give, but the brown of tree stems and the unsharp dark green in #1 tended to dominate.
I suspect that in Dear-Susan-ish, it qualifies as an un-destination. For you, perhaps, it’s a destination – because you live there. But until you are besieged by crackpots brandishing selfie sticks, taking photos of themselves with the summer houses as backgrounds, and Pinterest refuses to allow any further pictures of it to be posted on their website, because they are outnumbering shots of Tower Bridge in London, I rather think the rest of us will regard it as an un-destination.
And I (for one) am jealous. You complain of the snow and the treacherous ice. In my entire life, I’ve only ever seen snow once, close-up. And spent the entire day making a fool of myself, playing around in it, like a 6-year old. As so many grey-hairs keep telling us – we always want the things we cannot have! 🙂
Hi Jean Pierre,
Do I read a slight jealousy? No? Are you sure?
( Anyway, the snow is almost gone again. So *now* I may have a reason to complain… – but not of snow&ice, even my bike wears spikes in winter.)
And thanks for a witty read!!
-:)
But we need to clarify some linguistics…
While I’m *here* (where I live) it can’t be a destination, can it?
And my photo walk *was* un-destination until (of course) I headed back – but is home then a *destination*?
( I think I’ll leave it there..)
And I’m not afraid of an influx of selfie sticks – 1 km away there are just 4 buses a day (8 in summer), unless you walk 3 km to the next road with hourly buses.
And the local buses take the summer passengers farther out on this peninsula to a popular beach & hostel and nice cliffs – well past here!
So there *is* a bit of un-destinationness!
By the way, Jean Pierre, you want snow? Right?
In the north of Scandinavia the snowy season usually lasts until sometime in April, so you still have time to plan a destination, 😉 .
Kristian, I did have another thought – unfortunately I hit “Post Comment” in a moment of distraction, and forgot to include it.
If the last 8 lines of your article are your own work, you can twin two careers – photography and poetry! I was highly impressed when I read those lines! 🙂
Thanks Jean Pierre,
🙂
Yes, the lines are mine, but lines come to me too rarely, so I’ve too little material…
I love your post, Kristian! Not just the pics (my faves are the last 2, and the one where tree branches burdened by snow resemble elephant trunks burdened by old age), not just the poem, but the whole. It made winter not cold, or harsh, but beautiful, and serene, and desirable. Congrats!
Thank you, Philippe!
🙂
Yes, that kind of winter is a bit dreamlike, especially when the sun is missing.
Well, if winter always was like that…
This time it lasted only a couple of days, now most of it has thawed.