Black Friday starts now!
Get your Christmas gift shopping done early with my Black Friday sale! All my prints are 50% off until November 27th.
Click here to go to my online store. Shop early and save 50%!
Swan Lake
You’d think that photographing swans (or any other waterfowl) would be easy when you live on an island with plenty of birds around. And it is, most of the time. Not when you set out to photograph them, though.
During my usual walks along the coast, I could see many swans paddling quietly around the island, foraging, or cleaning their feathers, always close to the shore. So I’d think, “I’ll come back and take some photos.” Then I’d come back with my camera, and one of these two things would happen:
1) They wouldn’t be there. At all. Gone. Hasta la vista, baby!
2) They would be far away at sea, out of the reach of my telelens.
But time, patience, and perseverance paid off, so I could take the photos—eventually 😉. These are some of the photos I was able to take after several frustrating attempts.
Have you tried taking photos of birds or animals?
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New Macro Lens: Canon RF100mm
I finally gave in and replaced my old macro lens (the beloved Canon EF 100mm ƒ2.8 Macro). I was reluctant to let it go because it is a good lens, albeit a bit heavy. It lacks image stabilization, though, and it’s not a problem if you use a tripod. I, on the other hand, seldom use a tripod. I like to move around freely.
Enter Canon RF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM. What a difference! It has a new design, is not as bulky and heavy as the old one, and fits much better in your hand. And most important, it has image stabilization. Even if handheld, the combined camera and lens image stabilization let me get sharp images at f/5 – something I couldn’t have dreamt of with the old lens. After checking the first photos I’d taken with the new lens, It was easy to let go of the old.
So, here you go, a few photos taken in my garden with a Canon R5 camera fitted with the new lens. Which one do you like best?
Pssst! The top image is available to purchase as a print or digital download in my online shop, along with other flower photos.
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Damselflies and Dragonflies
This is one of my favorite photos, mating emerald damselflies (Lestes sponsa). The top one is the male; females lack the bright blue color of the males.
Damselflies are most common in July and August, so I spent the last couple of weeks by the small lake near our house photographing them. Emerald damselflies are found mainly near stagnant water (lakes and ponds, canals, etc.), rarely along flowing water. Aren’t they beautiful?
A well-camouflaged winter damselfly (Sympecma fusca). They like to perch among reeds, where their muted colors allow them to blend in.
They’re related to the emerald damselflies (Lestes sponsa) and, like them, can be found near stagnant water; but they don’t have their bright red or blue colors.
Western Willow Spreadwing (Chalcolestes viridis)
Moustached Darter (Sympetrum vulgatum)
Another photo of that moustached darter.
Which photo do you like most? My favorite is the top one, the mating emerald damselflies, even though it was hard to choose, I love them all!
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Time to Shoot Macro!
I’d grown so fond of my tele lens (Canon RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM), which works so well for both wildlife and flowers, that I’d completely forgotten my macro lens (Canon EF 100mm ƒ2.8 Macro) that I used so much until a couple of years ago.
I truly loved that macro lens, an old design that still works; poor thing, forgotten in my photo cabinet, at the back with old lens caps, batteries, and what not. Time to take it out and show it some love, I decided. So, here you go, a few photos taken in my garden with Canon R5 fitted with that macro lens.
Which photo do you like best?
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Gorgeous Glory of the Snow
Lovely glory of the snow in the morning light. These photos were pure luck. I did plan to scout the woods for a field of Scilla to photograph, but I didn’t need to in the end. As I was returning from an early seabird photo session, this incredible sea of blue flowers caught my eye while waiting for the traffic light to turn green. It turned out there was such a field next to one of the parking lots of our little shopping center! Since we order most of our stuff online, I rarely go by that lot. So there you have it, as a photographer, you need both preparation and luck 😉.
Both images are available to purchase as prints or digital downloads in my shop, along with other flower photos.
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Spring in Stockholm!
Spring has finally arrived in Stockholm, at last! I have hundreds of photos of the Japanese cherry trees blooming in Kungsträdgården in Stockholm already, yet I go there every spring to take a few more. I can’t help it!
Both images are available to purchase as prints or digital downloads in my shop, along with earlier cherry tree flower photos.
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New Freebies: Easter Cards
Easter is around the corner, so I added some new cards to my Freebies page. They’re completely free to download; feel free to have a look and use what you like, no strings attached.
I hope you like them. I love working on greeting cards; I don’t feel any performance anxiety as I’m not an illustrator. It’s just a pleasant hobby, and it makes me happy to see people using them.
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A Desert of Waves, a Wilderness of Water
It seems I talk a lot about my writing creative process on the blog at the moment – which is quite natural as I’m working on a book. So, today I wanted to offer you an insight into one of my recent photo projects for a change.
A few weeks ago, I dreamed about huge waves crashing thunderously on a rugged beach. The full moon, high in the pitch-black sky, illuminated an alien landscape.
No trees or shrubs, no dwellings, no boats. No people. No animals or birds (I knew this in my dream). An utterly deserted landscape, devoid of any life. Nothing but the huge rocks and the surf glittering like tiny diamonds in the moonshine. Nothing but the endless rumbling of the waves and the cold silvery moon. “A desert of waves, a wilderness of water” (Langston Hughes).
The dream made such an impression on me that it haunted me for several days. I couldn’t get that desolate landscape out of my mind. So, I did what any artist would do: set to work. I wanted to capture that landscape in my mind in a series of photos, and I knew it wouldn’t be realistic photos from the beginning. The atmosphere called for something else.
As luck would have it, we live by the sea. So every day, I would go down to the beach and experiment with ICM (Intentional Camera Movement). The light, the color of the sea, the clouds, they all factor in. I knew how I wanted the photos to look like; I tested different settings and motions; I learned patience. And got the photos I wanted.
As an artist, you’re always struggling to create the vision in your mind in whatever medium you’re working in, only to fail when you do – more often than not. But this was one of these dream projects where I didn’t fail. I love how the photos turned out.
You can see the rest of the photos in my photo gallery and buy prints in the online shop if you like them too.
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Happy World Photography Day!
August 19th is World Photography Day, an annual celebration of art, science, and history of photography.
Why August 19th, you ask? On August 19th, 1839, the French Academy of Sciences announced the Daguerreotype process, the first to obtain a permanent image with a camera. History was made that day, and the long road to photography as we know it today began.
The best way of celebrating it is to share your best photos with the world. The one above is one of my favorites, a close-up of a pink bleeding heart in my garden.
Happy World Photography Day!
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- Why Buying An Expensive Camera Doesn’t (Always) Matter
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- How To See the World Like an Artist
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