Isn’t it always about harmony, proportions, a symmetrical look, or things in life that used to be half way good and half way worse? Isn’t the glass always half full AND half empty at the same time?
Anyhow there are always obsticals and difficult situations. But we try to figure out what’s best. And after a long time not being able to move at all we were so unbelievably lucky to visit Sweden. We had a gorgeous time and found a few inspiring and most breathtaking calm places one could ever expect. We had ALL of the weather situations and are now finally made our way through the shallows of colour development and digitizing all the stuff back home. Not all is yet done but we will start over now with the journey here and take you with us along a beautiful van trip. And for starters the breaking of two of our analogue cameras at a time, at the same places was pretty much disappointing and mean and sad and challenging…
So there was not only warming sunshine, we also felt the strong storm and rain of what it means to be addicted to old stuff that needs maintenance and care in a completely different way than nowadays techniques used to. But in the end we managed to go to some outstanding places like the Kallbadehus in Varberg and captures those moments with our pinhole camera LIV.
It is one of two spas we visited in Sweden. They could not be more different! One is oozing the luxurious feel of a bygone era, the other one (Karlsham) looks – once again – like a spaceship has landed at the coastline. Either way we were quite lucky with the weather that provided a dramatic sky and an early setting sun with quite some moody dust moments over the water. In Varberg we made two exposures, one with some vistors included and one without. Contrary to what we expected, we liked the one better with people in it!
That leads to another point. We found ourselves mostly very warm welcomed and a lot of people reached out to us for a chat, while we stand with LIV and took our long time exposures. We were talking about the rainy Swedish summer, cameras and photography, nature, food and a lot more. In Karlshamn we got a tour around the sauna and it was amazing how wonderful it was placed and built. We were immediately captivated by its modern, graphic appearance and the warmth of the all-wood construction. The looks from the outside and seeing one person after another arriving by bicycle, entering this great building (probably to shake off the working day) made us curious. And as if the manager had read our minds, he came outside to us, where our tripod with LIV was placed and offered us a tour to the inside. The looks while already in winter jacket and with all that equipment packed were a bit surprised but everyone was so relaxed and kind. No wonder with this view through a huge fantastical glass front over the bay – just priceless. And when you’re sitting there and need a break to cool down, you just go for a refreshing dive into the sea downstairs. If you’ll ever have the chance to visit this place, we highly recommend it. (;
There have been also some pretty rough rides on which I thought we or at least the van would not make it safely. After I was completely drenched in sweat from just sitting in the passenger seat and trapping the handle, I found myself lucky to have ended up on a stony, very lonely coast side to wonder around on millions of ages old sandstone. The Colours and the light were magical for me. We were nearly on our own and somehow that place made me feel alive again, after a long lasting struggle. I could just sit there and breathe and stare at the sea or touch each and every stone just to feel the history we walked on.
Unfortunately that was the place when two of our cameras broke down. And so did Frank in a way. It’s not that easy to keep the head up, when you feel losing all the images you’ve taken in the last few days. So we really needed this wonderful place in the middle of nowhere on Öland to regain our batteries in nature. But we also spent some time in Borgholm and had some of the most delicious crêpes and galettes at the Norrings Crêperie. We can also recommend a little shopping tour for pillows at KOOKONs studio shop to get lost in all that beautifully manufactured, nature inspired ceramics and pillows made from traditionally Japanese new old stock clothing. We couldn’t resist ourselves and had simply to fight about how much we could take, not if we could find anything… That was maybe necessary for filling the broken cameras gap. But if you’re there you’ll understand.
These colors and the view are still something I carry around with me. It was such a great tour that we can’t summ it up that easily in one quick post here. We will need some more time to show the range of pictures we’ve taken and give all those places enough space. Additionally it took quite some time to recover from that shock and maybe we needed to find us some other new ways to go deeper into other styles of photography. But the memories we made, as unexpected they are, filled our glasses full with crescent moonlight and shooting stars all over the dark night sky somewhere in the middle of nowhere, with kindness of wonderful people, with stunning camping grounds and well treated nature, great food and a thriving explorer spirit. Maybe maybe that’s pretty close to superlatives, but why not? (;
