The Quiet Picture

It was such a great weekend, you’d almost be fooled into thinking it’s summer (if it weren’t for the fact that the temperature stayed in the ‘teens). Perfect for motorbiking, in other words!

Despite the bike, I’m not really a motor enthusiast. Actually, I’m not even a motorbike enthusiast - I just have my Tricker and that’s perfectly enough for me. But this old tractor, it was just begging to be photographed so I parked my bike and obliged.

And then afterwards, I fiddled with just about every slider in Lightroom to edit the life out of it!

It’s been over two years since my last visit to the Gröntjärn lake, so I was really looking forward to today’s trip. Gröntjärn is one of my all time favourite (photo) locations, and I used to enjoy every visit there. And there were plenty of visits, during those five years I lived in Ljusdal.

The most interesting thing about this little lake is the water level. I’ve seen it at almost flood level, and I’ve seen it shrink into small pools. Today, it was something in between, and as beautiful as ever! Judging by the shoreline, it looks like the water level hasn’t been very high in the past years. Plant life is decorating the shores with its greens and even trees are starting to get a hold on the slopes. But, come next flood, and the shores will be stripped bare again.

What a great day, visiting an old favourite and finally doing that long motorcycle trip I’ve been talking about. Lovely!

As wonderful as my motorbike is, it has one big shortcoming - it can’t carry any gear. There’s no package rack, it’s not suitable for side bags, and the tank is too narrow for tank bags. Of course, this is a trail bike and it’s not meant for long trips and hauling gear, so I had to get creative to figure out how I can attach a tripod and some other gear on it, and also carry a couple of 1-liter fuel bottles in case I wanted to go for a longer ride (because that 6-liter tank puts a serious limit to the range).

In the end, I was able to solve all three. There’s now have a rack in the rear, a tripod holder on the left and a tank bag which holds the fuel bottles. Since the weather has been what’s been this summer, I haven’t needed the extra fuel yet, but the rack and tripod holder are in use. Not pretty, but it works!

The tripod holder and tank bag are genuine leather articles that were made to my order. They cost quite a lot, actually, so it’s a bit shame that I haven’t needed them that much. Maybe I get lucky and we get an indian summer which would allow me to go on that long road trip…

The bog star, or grass of parnassus (Parnassia palustris) is a flower that definitely deserves a closer look. It’s not hard to find if you are in an area where it grows (bogs, as hinted by the name) because it’s just about the only flower that is still in bloom this late in the season. The first time I remember I ever saw it, was in September a few years back. Now in early August, they have just started blooming and I could still see plenty of buds today.

The bog star is exquisitely beautiful, an absolute delight to see through the macro lens. The pattern in the petals is unrivalled and you’ll find to your surprise that this white flower is much more colourful than you’d expect at first look. Even the leaves are beautiful, as reflected in the Swedish name “hjärtblad” (heart leaf) as this flower is sometimes called here.

* * *

The image is completely (well, almost completely) processed in Lightroom for web release, meaning that LR is increasingly becoming my one-stop-shop for all image processing. I tried the option to add a copyright watermark via the LR export dialog, but it’s not possible to change the font and I found the default style horrible. After some searching I found a plug-in that can insert a graphical watermark during the export process so I can now use my old copyright text, straight from Lightroom. The only thing I’m not happy with is that LR doesn’t seem to compress the jpg’s the same way as e.g. Photoshop does, so the file size is bigger than it should be. If I take down the quality, then the image just gets pixelated. So the “almost completely” I mentioned is that I export the image to Irfanview and just simply save it with a quality setting that gives me the right size without completely messing up the image. A couple of quick clicks and it’s done - and I’m waiting for better compression in Lightroom 3, maybe?

The opportunity to photograph the ghost orchid was so unique that I just had to get back there, this time with the zoom lens to capture the environment as well. I should mention that “ghost orchid” means different flowers in North America and Europe. Dendrophylax lindenii is the American ghost orchid, and Epipogium aphyllum is the Eurasian ghost orchid.

It was raining quite a lot but the Stormjacket came through for me so I think my camera is safe. But as far as Sundays go, well, I just can’t think of anything better than walking through a rain soaked forest in cool weather!

I only had one more orchid left to find in Loos - the ghost orchid (Epipogium aphyllum). It is probably also the most fascinating of all the orchids, as the English name implies. The Swedish name is skogsfru, literally translated as “wife of the forest”, the Finnish name metsänemä translates as “mother of the forest”. I think that the English name best describes the nature of this unpredictable flower. Now you see it, now you don’t - it comes and goes as it pleases, appears in one place this year and then is gone for ten years until the next time, or maybe it will never show itself again but suddenly appears some way on the side of the first place. It blooms only for a short time and then withers quickly and leaves no trace of its existence, it doesn’t even have any leaves to remind you that it once grew here. Just to show exactly how mysterious it can be, it threw in a surprise for us that even my guide had never seen before. We found a group of no less than 16 plants, and then nearby a group of 10 that was so tight it looked more like a ghost orchid bush. Normally you’re more likely to find groups of maybe 5, and even more likely just some lonely scattered flowers here and there on the forest floor. The orchid in the picture is one of the lonely ones, beautifully decorated with rain drops.

That large group of ghost orchids is still haunting my memory, if you please pardon the pun. It was an orchid encounter I won’t soon forget!

I’m normally not easily impressed, but I was absolutely floored when I was looking at this photographer’s work - Charles Cramer. Just awesome, the style is right up my alley and I only wish I could take pictures even a fraction this good!

I know that the gear doesn’t make the photographer, but I suddenly developed a craving for a medium format camera… Or why not large format while I’m at it. Phase One P45 is only three times the price of a small car!

It was a rather disappointing July actually, just marginally better than last year. Only the last week of July was really warm (warmest I saw was 32°C in the shade), otherwise it was rather cool with showers on many days. All in all, July was kind of like June inversed (June started warm but finished cool).

NB: Observations missing for 4 days. And as it happens, those missing days were some of the warmer days in between the cooler ones in early July.

* * *

Temperature (High): 26°C
Temperature (Low): 9°C
Temperature (Average): 18°C

Barometer (High): 1020 mbar
Barometer (Low): 994 mbar
Barometer (Avg): 1006 mbar

Total of sunny days: 1

Rain: 64 mm
Days with rain: 15

* * *

2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008

The candle larkspur (Delphinium elatum) has been on my wanted-list for years just like the nettle-leaved bellflower in the previous post. Except that I didn’t know it was the candle larkspur until today - I’ve just seen this tall blue flower grow behind an enclosed pasture, but never got a closer look. Either I’ve completely missed the peak of the bloom (out on vacation) or the pasture has been closed (horses). But now I noticed that the pasture was open, and the flowers are at their best. So there I was, looking up at the flowers - that’s how tall they were! Wishing for a higher tripod is normally not something you do with flower photography, but I found some shorter individuals and got to marvel and photograph this stately flower up close. Very impressive!