Nope. No morning walk. I ended my night shift at Hökarängen station - with a sky rainy (mainly drizzle) and dull light levels. Therefore I went home instead.

In the afternoon much more of that emerged from a little low pressure area, even resulting into a couple of lightning strikes in my area, as a tiny "front" passed with increased rain showers. (I slept during that time, and didn't hear a thing). Now the main rain area resides over Stockholm and it's east coast.

Rainy babe

I am not against taking images in rain - on the contrary - when you think of how wonderful photography has been done in rainy weather. Yet, for me it isn't my think - especially not with a Fujifilm GFX camera *LOL* I could think of walking in the rain with an Olympus OM-1 camera instead.

The perfect camera for rain and snow, due to it's very strong protection (I believe Olympus cameras are among the most weather rugged cameras on the market, if not The most weather rugged ones).

Weather Book arrival

Speaking of going out... my Swedish weather book from 1988 is at the 'post office' now.

Weheeee !

The thing with "Photo walks" - past and present

I must say, that in the past 15-20 years, I've been terrible with "Photo walks" - mainly due to that i almost never seem to go out specifically for doing photography. Especially not since I moved to Rågsved 2010. Most of my photography has been "on-the-fly", to, during and after work, often on my way home. The only times I have been out was, when there was either an event, or i tried to test a specific project (such as light painting).

But the casual photo walk - for the sake of taking photos like I did in the 90s - vanished along the road. And changed further, when digital cameras came into my life. Almost as if doing photography "on the side", but not as a main activity. (analog film was in a way far more demanding. So, I was always keen on doing it less sloppy. Well, the margins for "sloppiness" were much, much less, if you wanted really good negatives.

With digital cameras, the margins for "sloppy photo style" increased.

Albeit in a paradox way; they increased due to higher ISO, giving more leeway in even darker scenarios - at the same time, sloppiness got more easily revealed due to the high definition and resolution of digital sensors, compared to film negatives).

This year

Therefore, going out for smaller photo walks after work very early mornings during this summer, has been highly unusual for me - given that i almost never really go out just to focus on photography. As of now i have been around 10-11 times out after work after 05.30 - often around 2 hours. Something I haven't done for decades.

And have to say; I love it. Even if that hasn't always lead to images.... like this morning *LOL* I do like my increased engagement.

When winter comes along

Later, when early winter comes along, I am not sure how enthusiastic I'll be. I am less likely to go home first, and then go out again. After all, early mornings for me are equivalent with going out late evening , when you're getting sleepy. On the other hand, when the sun goes up late, when I have to go home first - and then go out for photography... I mean in December the sun goes up after 0800 in the morning.

On the other hand, there is plenty of other types of photography possible in the winter.

• Studio photography to name one.
• Macro photography, which is super fun.
• Oh, and perhaps it is time again, to make digital copies from film negatives (which i haven't done for over a year).

Now with the 102 MP Fujifilm GFX 100s II camera, I can make Copies of those long Hasselblad XPan negatives - with one shot only - without stitching - since the sensor has such high resolution, that even after I crop it down to the XPan format - plenty of megapixels are left.

Making it easier to deal with that unusual negative size (24x65 mm).

Late autumn, dull winter - is perhaps more about that I use smaller, more mobile cameras. Such as the Olympus OM-1 system, with all its lenses - giving lots of leeway to continue to do some autumn and winter magic. It doesn't all have to be made with the (for me new) Fujifilm GFX 100s II mediumformat camera ;-)

I forgot... light painting

This kind of died out late spring, because of the huge and totally unexpected conflict at work with a female colleague, which I/we considered to be a friend to us; the lies and betrayal similar to that of a sociopath... (This conflict killed a lot of good vibes and inspiration - at least for a couple of months). On top of that, nights got too bright in June leaving less room, or any room, for light painting at night, when there isn't one.

Now that the nights get longer again, starting to stretch over more hours - I could take that genre up again. Especially with Sal some evening, could be fun. (He and I spoke about doing this together).

Given that the Olympus camera has that super cool longtime exposure feature, allowing you to leave the shutter open as long as you wish, without overexposure. I used this the first time in my light paintings this year. Earlier, i just left the shutter open, but was limited of time, as the images gets brighter and brighter, the longer you expose.

Now, that is obsolete !

A pity that the Fujifilm GFX cameras don't have that feature. Nor the Canon EOS R cameras. Which brings me to another area or issue, regarding longtime exposures... >