Jenny
Etikettarkiv: stockholm
Photographing the Archipelago
A slow boat to the archipelago
There is a fantastic opportunity for you when in Stockholm to get some greate scenery, take one of the boats into the archipelago, there are several different companies that makes day-tours or similar that you may go on. Most of these boats will take you through the archipelago which is thought of being one of the most beautiful things you can see here in Stockholm.
There are mainly two companies you can check for taking you around the archipelago, one is ”Waxholmsbolaget” and the other is ”Strömma Kanalbolag”. The ship shown here is from Strömma. On the Internet you can find a plethora of information about these two lines, also in English, just follow the links.
There are mainly two types of cruises, one is the get there as as fast as possible and the other is we take it slow, enjoy. I prefer the slow cruises and to have dinner on the ship as well as a great opportunity to view the archipelago.
Equipment
I recommend:
- Wide-Medium lens 18-70mm (24-105)
- Telephoto lens 70-200mm (135-300)
- Hot-shote flash
- Cleaning equipment for lenses
For equipment I would recommend to get both a wide-angle and a telephoto lens. There are lots of beautiful scenery that does the wide angle justice but at the same time you may want to reach out with a telephoto lens and get the shot from far away, there are hundreds and thousands of small islands that you may enjoy through the telephoto lens. Focal lengths should probably be about 18-70mm for your wide angle (DX camera body) and 24-50mm for the full frame camera. The telephoto should probably range 70-300mm in an idea situation although DX cameras may get away nicely with a 200 mm.
If you can not pack two lenses, go for a superzzom, something like 18-200mm and use that extensively. Normals and fixes lenses do have their uses but they are more difficult to use from the boat and better used when you are ashore again where you may use them as you would in any other situation.
Hot-shoe flash is not a bad idea at all, can be used to lighten shadows and for interior shot of the ship as well as good to fill in when taking shots of people for portraits.
Tripod while I almost always recommend bringing it is not very useful on the boat for shooting telephoto, the boat has a lot of vibrations from the engines and the rolling of the waves at sea does not help. However it may be quite useful for you when you are ashore again – though I think that for this kind of trip you might be better off without it.
Cleaning equipment is very much necessary, you may get brackish water sprays at sea and you need to get that off the lens before it dries in and form saline crystals that may scratch your lens badly when you polish it later. Wipe off the water, rinse with lens cleaning fluid and wipe that off as well.
Keep a standard platsig bag for you whole camera if the weather is bad or could become bad, you may want to shoot in the rain anywyay and always bring the towel.
Best places to go
It depends a lot on what you are looking for. My personal favourites are to go to Birka, the old viking city where you have a lot of things to see and photograph, Waxholm is another nice place to go to over the day and of course Fjäderholmarna and the ”Thousan Island Cruise” can be warmly recommended!
If you have more tips you are welcome to leave them as comments!
Europride 2008 – Stockholm
We sat out pretty early anticipating a lont of people in town for the big pride parade. This year bigger than anything seen before and although the weather was not so nice it was already people on Hornsgatan, one of the major spots where people gather to see the parade, at eleven in the morning, two hours before the start and three hours before they were expected to arrive at this location.
After a brief breakfast at Café Puck we staked out a good position slightly above the street the parade was going to come through. The weater then quickly turned to worse and a light drizzle started. And then it turned into showers and then quite heavy rain. Did not matter, people were gathering by the thousands anywat.
A 152 groups were marching today and countless of other people, supporting and cheering. Notable events from the parade were the Gay Police community, proud parents to LGBT children and nothing could hold back the lovely mood, not even the pouring rain!
I think the best moment that I had from the whole parade was the proud parents when they walked in, the cheer that rose from the crowd was ear-deafening and the appaluds never seems to cease! It was heart warming to say the least.
I had good use for the towel that I have on my list to bring always for excursions, but of course this time I forgot it and was saved by Jeanette who brought one! (She does that a lot. Saves me, that is.)
The light conditions were far from ideal, it was raining and it was difficult to get the shutter times required to freeze motion, therefore you will see some motion blurring in the pictures, and I needed to use the 18-200 lens this time to be able to capture both wide angles and zoom in on single faces. Wit an aperture from f/3,5-5,6 it was sometimes difficult to get good exposures. But some of the pictures came out pretty good in my own opinion.
Fortsätt läsa Europride 2008 – Stockholm
Solna Badlands
The Solna Badlands is a term created jokingly when we went there to photograph the industrial decay in the area that was partly due to that all companies had to leave the place in order to make room for the new national arena.
Several companies dealing in scrap metal and other such businesses were more or less abandoned over the day and this resulted in an interesting place where we set off to document it before everything was torn down to make room for ”Swedbank Arena” the new national arena here.
So we set off on a cloudy overcast day to the Solna Badlands. Some of us had been there before and for some it was the first time. We found several interesting motifs to photograph and here is a collection of my own personal favourites from the expedition. Fortsätt läsa Solna Badlands
Early Morning in Gamla Stan
Gamla Stan is the old town in Stockholm. It is generally a lovely and photogenic place but also very often full of tourists. To avoid the crowds I made a date with a good friend JAKB there to shoot some early morning pictures and this is the result of this excursion.
The light at this time of day is quite fantastic, especially from a cloud-less sky in the summer time as this day was. Even if it was a little chilly the light was quite fantastic and walking through old town at this hour with hardly anyone else about is a very nice feeling.