Joyous Carnage
It would be easy to get stuck on this first morning adventure in Sweden. To get stuck on the first day in fact. Our sunrise shoot at Havstensklippan was only the start of the first of several very productive days in Scandinavia, firstly here along the west coast of Sweden, then later in the mountains of Norway. Usually I’ll only have one story to tell from a single outing, but there was so much happening in just a couple of hours up here that morning that it’s impossible to keep a lid on the smorgasbord of weather that was boiling over the sides of the pot.
What was immediately clear was that this well chosen location had a lot of possibilities. Below us lay salty Havstensfjorden, spreading across the landscape in a north-south direction, chock full of forested islands, and beyond this, the Uddevalla Bridge, which perhaps had been the main draw in coming here for sunrise. At our feet was an expanse of textured rock, dotted with tufts of orange grass and small drifts of colourful heather. Then there was that distinctive group of pines on the right hand side. Surely I had to find a way of including them? Any views to the west and the open sea were blockaded by the thickly forested slope we’d stomped through to get here. Still, and unusually for me, this was a sunrise shoot. We could worry about west facing views this evening. Meanwhile, in the half light I began to try and make a decision as to where I’d plant the tripod before waiting for things to get started.
This was the second composition I found on the lofty platform of rock where from where we watched the soft orange band of light on the eastern horizon gradually bloom and burst in spectacular fashion across the landscape. The first had also included the group of tall and wispy pines, but it also featured a lot of dead space on the left hand side. It was only as I stood there drinking my coffee, contemplating lofty thoughts and wondering what had captured Steve’s attention over there on the other side of the pines that I noticed the far more generous clump of purple heather lurking in a small hollow to my right. I’d just clamber down and size it up and, oh yes that looks a lot better. I don’t really know why, but I hadn’t even been expecting heather. A month earlier it had taken centre stage at home for a while, and perhaps I thought I was done with it. But no, here was a brief reprise on a Swedish rock. All I needed was for the sun to rise high enough to light the pines and the heather, and then we’d be in business. With that in mind, I returned to the sunrise itself, which was drawing ever closer. I’d come back to this one a bit later. Meanwhile, things were kicking off in style, starting with the sun coming up behind the southern strut of the handsome Uddevalla Bridge.
Forty-five fun filled minutes and sixty frantically taken shots later I was standing in this spot again. The pines were positively glowing, a gently diffused morning sun reaching through the showers to pick out the trunks and breathe life into them. By now Steve had joined me, keen to see what had drawn my attention before I raced over to gatecrash his rainbow party just after sunrise. But while the trees were quite beautifully illuminated in the pale wash of sunshine, the heather lay stubbornly in the shadows. It seemed quite clear that the sun wasn’t going to rise high enough to spread its magic here for quite some time either. So I accepted the compromise and took the shots anyway. Besides which, another heavy squall was charging up the fjord towards us, and while the first one had scudded by harmlessly to the east, this one clearly had other intentions. We zipped up our coats, popped the shower caps on the cameras, and braced ourselves for impact.
A lot of images were taken in this crazy couple of hours when the late summer sun rose through the rain and filled the landscape with a filmy haze of greens, yellows and purples. With so much going on it was hard to stay focussed on any one scene for long, and we chased around the headland in pursuit of the bouncing light, reacting to rainbows and rainclouds, with brief pauses for the odd shot that had been spotted before sunrise, such as this one. Joyous carnage indeed. I might have struggled with the very early start, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. What a fantastic introduction to a country I’d never visited until now. With its first blows, Sweden had delivered a knockout punch. The morning madness at Havstensklippan was going to be a tough act to follow.
Joyous Carnage
It would be easy to get stuck on this first morning adventure in Sweden. To get stuck on the first day in fact. Our sunrise shoot at Havstensklippan was only the start of the first of several very productive days in Scandinavia, firstly here along the west coast of Sweden, then later in the mountains of Norway. Usually I’ll only have one story to tell from a single outing, but there was so much happening in just a couple of hours up here that morning that it’s impossible to keep a lid on the smorgasbord of weather that was boiling over the sides of the pot.
What was immediately clear was that this well chosen location had a lot of possibilities. Below us lay salty Havstensfjorden, spreading across the landscape in a north-south direction, chock full of forested islands, and beyond this, the Uddevalla Bridge, which perhaps had been the main draw in coming here for sunrise. At our feet was an expanse of textured rock, dotted with tufts of orange grass and small drifts of colourful heather. Then there was that distinctive group of pines on the right hand side. Surely I had to find a way of including them? Any views to the west and the open sea were blockaded by the thickly forested slope we’d stomped through to get here. Still, and unusually for me, this was a sunrise shoot. We could worry about west facing views this evening. Meanwhile, in the half light I began to try and make a decision as to where I’d plant the tripod before waiting for things to get started.
This was the second composition I found on the lofty platform of rock where from where we watched the soft orange band of light on the eastern horizon gradually bloom and burst in spectacular fashion across the landscape. The first had also included the group of tall and wispy pines, but it also featured a lot of dead space on the left hand side. It was only as I stood there drinking my coffee, contemplating lofty thoughts and wondering what had captured Steve’s attention over there on the other side of the pines that I noticed the far more generous clump of purple heather lurking in a small hollow to my right. I’d just clamber down and size it up and, oh yes that looks a lot better. I don’t really know why, but I hadn’t even been expecting heather. A month earlier it had taken centre stage at home for a while, and perhaps I thought I was done with it. But no, here was a brief reprise on a Swedish rock. All I needed was for the sun to rise high enough to light the pines and the heather, and then we’d be in business. With that in mind, I returned to the sunrise itself, which was drawing ever closer. I’d come back to this one a bit later. Meanwhile, things were kicking off in style, starting with the sun coming up behind the southern strut of the handsome Uddevalla Bridge.
Forty-five fun filled minutes and sixty frantically taken shots later I was standing in this spot again. The pines were positively glowing, a gently diffused morning sun reaching through the showers to pick out the trunks and breathe life into them. By now Steve had joined me, keen to see what had drawn my attention before I raced over to gatecrash his rainbow party just after sunrise. But while the trees were quite beautifully illuminated in the pale wash of sunshine, the heather lay stubbornly in the shadows. It seemed quite clear that the sun wasn’t going to rise high enough to spread its magic here for quite some time either. So I accepted the compromise and took the shots anyway. Besides which, another heavy squall was charging up the fjord towards us, and while the first one had scudded by harmlessly to the east, this one clearly had other intentions. We zipped up our coats, popped the shower caps on the cameras, and braced ourselves for impact.
A lot of images were taken in this crazy couple of hours when the late summer sun rose through the rain and filled the landscape with a filmy haze of greens, yellows and purples. With so much going on it was hard to stay focussed on any one scene for long, and we chased around the headland in pursuit of the bouncing light, reacting to rainbows and rainclouds, with brief pauses for the odd shot that had been spotted before sunrise, such as this one. Joyous carnage indeed. I might have struggled with the very early start, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. What a fantastic introduction to a country I’d never visited until now. With its first blows, Sweden had delivered a knockout punch. The morning madness at Havstensklippan was going to be a tough act to follow.