Carpe Naturam

Carpe naturam, photo taken with my Samsung NX300 with 30mm glass - completed using Lightroom.

What Work Brought Me

In a pause, while taking a ride on my bike, I cought this photo. I bought the bike in question, last season, as a reminder of the proverbial upside of getting a steady income from my day to day job. Biking is at its best a slower type of transportation form, which allows me taking in the scenery around me.

It allows me to think more clearly, and even better, just be.

I will leave you with another photo, a straw next to the local river Klarälven. How did I get there? Through biking...

The Luminous Moon

This is a photo I've taken of the moon using my Pentax on a tripod. The place where it happened were the countryside of Gaperud, Värmland - the ambience can be quite magical there. Something I am reminded of when no clouds are covering the stars, is the stark contrast between how this natural light can appear so differently compared to the city. Partially thanks to the lack of artificial light the situation is always more luminous and enchanting. Needless to say the trees appear very different then during the day. I am very happy how this image turned out, and I might add that the photo itself involved zero post processing.

Trädstudium

I found this picture while browsing some of my older works. This is one image in a series of mine, a kind of photographic study that I've come to deeply enjoy. If you've read this blog before, you've probably seen similar images posted.

I haven't had the chance to update this blog lately, and very few words have found its way here. This does not however reflect the amount of activity that is going on in my life, lots of things are happening. But I believe precisely because of this that this will continue to be a more sparsely updated outlet. And the slowness involved has also been great in a way, the texts are after all not dependent on their newness. So feel free to browse the archives, and pop in from time to time to see what happens.

There will still be life signs here. Traces of activity which does not fit in any other medium. Music & images and otherness involved. Thanks for coming here.

Two Images of Summer

I'd like to share two photos I took yesterday, with my modest cell phone camera. I and two dear friends travelled to beautiful Näs, to visit an older couple whose garden was a cornucopia of berries, flowers among other things. Some post-processing was involved. Thanks for passing by.

Moss on a Tree

For this photo I used a quite modest Sony compact camera, while standing on a ladder next to one of the trees in my family's home in Gaperud. The colors of autumn becomes more and more apparent as each day goes by.

The Snow Abides

We have had so much snow lately. And with days such as these: when the sun paints everything in colors upon a brilliant and yet cloud free sky, I see little reasons to complain. Yet, many are longing for spring to make haste and travel to this part of Scandinavia.

I am starting to feel this longing too. I cannot say that it has yet resulted in what the author of the blog The Word Cellar describes: namely the want for clementines and exotic fruit. But this is perhaps not far off. Even in my winter loving world, I am starting to long for the next phase of the cyclic seasonal evolution.

Moving light, captured 2010 in Gaperud.

While I am writing this I am happy to announce that I am working now. Full time. I landed the job as a writer about things concerning social psychiatry and have just written a contract that lasts six months from now to august. Although I am hoping to be able to work an extended period of time, I try to remain in the 'here and now', which is always easier said then done.

Entering Vindelkroken

Mining for minerals and ore in a natural reserve. Taste the words and reflect upon that notion for a short while. This is what mining company Blackstone Ventures wants and has acquired prospecting rights to, in the northernmost parts of Sweden. They will soon start to drill for minerals near the Sapmi summer village Vindelkroken.

If you wish: watch this short video created by independent documentary creator Stéphane Lombard.

The legalities are complicated and I have read about the company using juricial loopholes to be able to prospect the area, but no matter the legal sides and turnabouts, I really hope that they will not be able to continue this project.

Syterskalet - Used here under a Creative Commons license, originally from Wikipedia.

I am not alone in this notion. Communities of people with Sapmi background and culture, being an indigenous culture which inhabits the northern part of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia, are largely against mining in their traditional area of living.

Parts of the Sampi's historical way of making a living for themselves has been trough herding reindeer's. There are claims being made that mining would disrupt the animals natural habitat and also change what has this far been left untouched.

I am writing this because I think it's shady at best to start industrial projects in natural reserves, there is something I believe that many people would recognize as wrong on a very fundamental level.

I also believe that values which includes a support of biological diversity and the preservation of the beauty of the natural habitat needs to be strengthened, so that there is a balance between industrialization and biological sustainability.

Waves of Wind

It has been quite windy lately. I think I have mentioned on this blog that I like windy days before. It is true, I like them very much. Everything seems so much more alive and less mundane when the wind is moving things around in its unpredictable ways.

There is something powerful when you are experiencing the forces of nature first hand. It takes me out of the kind of everyday thinking where I may be just kind of passing time. It also opens up my imagination to the less then ordinary sides of life and I feel connected to my surrounding in ways which makes me feel alive. Wind makes the surrounding dynamic, moving and alive. Trees bend, leaves and dust scatter around, and if you are outside it is impossible to ignore it.

Taken a sunny day during spring 2009

When I am outdoors these windy days I like to use my camera. It seems as if I am able to go further into the experience when I use photography to help me, as if I allow myself to pause and take the time to actually see that which is around me. If I have had a day which I feel kind of miserable and isolated, this can break that spell and replace that with a sense of connectedness.

At the precise moment when I press my shutter I find myself reflecting a world which is bigger then I might feel spending to much time alone with my own thoughts.