SUMMER FOLLY

The Summer Season seems to have a profound impact on the mind of us Swedes. Not so much on people of my age of course. For us old-timers, Summer means mainly sleeping bad at night and staying sleepy during day-time, combined with a welcome lessening of pain in joints and muscles. But the youngsters become a lot more lively in the warm season with its long days; a lot of partying is going on and extending long into night and even mornings.

Yesterday morning I woke up early – as so often happens to me in June and July – and tiptoed out to the balcony to inspect the scenario of Hammarby Sound in the early morning sun, already shining at 4 am. All was quiet – no breeze disturbing the view – and I delighted in observing the sky's rosy locks being mirrored in a wondrous way by the calm waters underneath.

Suddenly, a terrible screech shook me out of my meditative trance! And, with a woosh!, a swarm of seagulls sailed by me, one of them only inches from my head. I am glad it managed to bypass me at the last instance, otherwise who knows what had happened to my scalp! The ruckus got worse by the second and gradually it dawned on my that all those birds were rising from the large harbor crane standing on the quay some 100 meters to my right. Looking at it closely I saw, to my great surprise, a whole flock of the gulls attacking some youngsters who attempted to climb the crane! Juvenile exuberance being met by angry birds, disturbed in their nesting activities, I have to assume.

Swarted by the valiant defenders, the youngsters quickly abandoned their climbing expedition and proceeded, in a rambling fashion, along the quay in my direction. With rambunctuous shouts and hootings, waking up the whole neighborhood, they stopped just below my balcony and exclaimed that it was bathing time! No sooner spoken than the first braves were already undressing and jumping into the (ice-cold) water. This suddenly sobered them up and, considerably subdued, they continued their journey along the quay. Soon, calm reigned again over the sound and I returned to bed for another hour or two of uneasy sleep.

NO RAINY SEASON THIS YEAR?

Summer weather in Stockholm used to abide by strict and never changing rules. In the first week of July, all the factories were closed, as were most restaurants and other services, and people prepared themselves for three weeks' holiday. Cars were cleaned, tents repaired, coffers packed and barbecue equipment brushed up. On first Holiday Monday, the rain would start and stay with the hardy Swedes throughout the three weeks. That notwithstanding, people insisted on having a good time and nobody complained. They knew that the sun would reappear from behind the clouds eventually, and render the working weeks in August and September more enjoyable.

These times of collective enjoyment are long gone. Nowadays, the holiday season is spread out over three months and people choose their three or four weeks within that period whenever it suits them. But the rain seems to remember those good old days and is persevering with its July exercises year after year.

This is why I was looking forward to a visit from Austria last week with some forebodings: would the Weather Gods use the trodden path once again and greet my unsuspecting visitors with a steady downpour? The weather report did not look promising; rain was foreseen at least every second day. But, unusually, it never realized. Each morning was blessed with heavy clouds or fog, but the sun always prevailed and we had warm and sunny evenings.

Have a look at this morning´s conditions around 3.15 am. Heavy clouds were hanging over Hammarby Sound, allowing barely a glimpse of the early sun. But when I am writing this, at 4 pm, the sun is again enjoying itself, swimming in a blue sky, and tickling my nose where I am sitting in front of my computer.

Lest you think that weather trends are shifting, please be informed that Southern Sweden was drenched in heavy rain yesterday afternoon. There is hope yet for a normal July Season!

THE MORNING LIGHT IS BACK!

In several decades of – more or less – organized working life I acquired the habit of getting out of bed at 7 AM. Up here in the North, this goes against the natural flow of life most of the year. In wintertime you have to force yourself up despite a depressing dark and in summertime the sun is far ahead of you and already blazing when you stumble out of bed after a sleepless night. 

But, twice a year, nature is accommodating your wish of a natural day circle. This happy state of nature starts at end of February and lasts about a month ahead. In autumn, October is the beneficial month. This is the time when the rising sun is tickling your house at the appropriate time to rise and there is no need for a wake-up call from your mobile phone (or your wife). 

Take a look at the title picture: isn't it nice to be welcomed by such a rosy view precisely when you are supposed to get out of bed and prepare your morning coffee?

This may sound trivial to you, but fact is, that the mind works at its best in those two beneficial months, when nature is leading you on to a new day. This is the time to start writing your memoirs, or polish the proof of a theorem you have been pondering all winter but unable to come to grips with. As a young student I was well aware of this effect and concentrated my learning efforts to those precious few months of the year. 

Even if much older now, I am feeling the urge again to learn something new. Time to open Adobe's "Classroom in a Book" again and start practicing a new program, called DREAMWEAVER. This will, I hope, enable me to put up a website on Internet, by speaking the obscure languages of the HMTL, the CSS, the JAVASCRIPT, the XML, the PHP, as well as an abundance of other new concepts. We will see where this leads and I will keep you posted! 

WHITE ON WHITE

This winter is supposed to be a mild one, but weather conditions far too the East have put a stop to that: a mighty High over Siberia has stretched its wings to cover most of continental Europe, with some tendrils even reaching as far north as Stockholm.

When I woke up this morning, around 8 am, serene stillness was reigning over Hammarby Sound. White ice greeted white sky slowly turning pink, and the Sound was completely frozen over. The sun had not yet risen over the horizon, but soon it would appear to shed more warmth over the scenery. It was Sunday morning and no large boats had been trafficking the strait since Friday afternoon, preventing smaller boats from daring the thrip.

Whilst bathing in that white and peaceful splendor, I spared some thoughts for less fortunate people down south. Apparently, temperatures in the minus tens have been prevailing for some time as far south as the Balkans, leaving people down there wide open to the travails of extreme frost. Whilst these poor Southerners are freezing (some even to death) in their barely sheltered lodgings, here in Hammarby Sound we barely notice that it is minus 18° outside this white morning. My apartment is keeping a constant healthy 21° inside, whatever temperature may be hounding the air over the Sound.

Whilst I am contemplating this, time has passed and it is now already 9 am. The sun has briefly won over high fog and is shedding its splendor over the ice. Time to come to closure with this blog and hurry outside, to benefit from clear frosty air on my nose and ears!

FATHER FROST IS BACK!

Yesterday was quiet Saturday, so I lingered in bed for a while longer. When getting up, around 8.30, I realized that I had almost missed a charming scenery. All was calm, no gushes of wind to speak of. Ice was slowly forming on the waters, with Fog shrouding Hammarby Sound, waiting for me to document it for you trusted readers.

The day before had been relatively warm and humid. In the wee morning hours of this Saturday, the air must have gotten progressively cooler, condensing out the humidity into a myriad of tiny icicles forming the mist you are looking at. You have seen this type of picture before on the blog, you say? "Yes!", I have to admit it, but would like to add that foggy scenery stimulates my aesthetic senses, so you have to bear with me, whilst waiting for the fog to lift.

You will not be disappointed, since it indeed did lift a couple of hours later. You may ask yourself where all the icicles had disappeared to. Well, the picture below provides you with the answer. It was taken around 1.30 pm. As you can see, the fog had transformed itself into a needly carpet, covering ground and trees with its glittery whiteness. It was a pleasure to behold, far beyond the camera's ability to put it on screen. 

After this, starting during the following night, rare snowflakes began to drift down from a heaven completely calmed and completed the job. This morning, around 9.30, our cosy community was fully covered in white, foreboding the winter that had dallied for so long, but will now certainly stay with us throughout February, the coldest Winter month. Still, I expect this to be a normal Stockholm Winter, so tomorrow the snow will be gone again, or – which is worse – turned into mush. But this is the price to pay for not having to endure arctic conditions in our part of the world.

FOGGY BOTTOMS

After two loong cold winters, it seems that this one will be reverting to the long-term trend: generally humid days with intermittent snow or slush, soon to be gone again and replaced by periods of milder weather. November has hitherto been exceptionally warm, foreboding a relatively benign holiday season. With warm days and cool nights, fog is building up at dawn, to be dissolved only later in the day. When I stepped out on the balcony this morning at 11 AM, this enticing scenery met my admiring eyes. As you can see, I did not forget to document a picture for your benefit at the mystical date of 11.11.11. 

The scenery and foggy air reminded me somewhat of Summer mornings in San Francisco and Berkeley, when temperatures were not that much higher in the morning. There too, they could hover around 10 degrees C. Of course, later in the day, they would rise rather harshly towards the twenties and thirties, whereas it was not getting any warmer here in Hammarby Sjöstad today. The fog cleared off eventually and the late afternoon brought with it another nice scenery to admire. The setting sun illuminated, just before 4 PM, the clouds over Hammarby Sound in a kind of cosy Alpenglow that is rare to behold around here. 

I HAVE BEEN WAITING LONG TIME FOR THIS!

Rainbows are among the most endearing landscape motives to capture on film, but also the most difficult to render. You may recall that I had the good luck of seeing my first rainbow over Hammarby Sound already shortly after moving in, back in August 2009 (Rainbow over Hammarby Sound). But there was a certain dearth of those wonders of nature further along; let's face it, there has been no single picture of a rainbow since then. Well, I simply was never at home, or when at home, never looking out of the window, when these dramatic views appeared. They are not so rare, after all.

But this autumn I was doubly blessed. Already three weeks ago, the first lucky moment arrived, with not only one, but two of the beauties manifesting themselves at 4.20 PM. The second occasion came today, just half an hour later in the day. But that half an hour, together with the three weeks' delay, make quite a difference in the general appearance of the motive, don't you agree? As landscape photographer, you have to be grateful for whatever light is prevalent at the moment, and make the best of it in post-processing. But nothing compares with mother nature when it comes to proper dressing of a dramatic scenery!