A few days after returning from our Jutland road trip, we set our for a new adventure: another trip to Oslo on the big Oslo ferry. Now, it was only a little over a year since we had last been in Oslo, which I wrote about here. Still, we always have a nice time away from the grind, and it always presents another photo opportunity to me.
Like last time, my photography started as we were departing from Copenhagen. Last time I complained about my lack of a proper zoom lens. 100 mm was my longest option. This time I went equipped with my 70-300 mm zoom lens that I purchased since our last trip. It made a big difference, including with the bottom two images of this batch, which were all taken at a focal length longer than 100 mm, the bottom one making use of my entire 300 mm range.
I take the below picture every time we go on the Oslo ferry. It's just such an obvious leading line. I like this year's version well enough to include it here.
How rude of this cargo ship to block the view of Kronborg Castle just as we were sailing by! But I actually like this image quite a bit. It kind of symbolizes how the strait of Øresund was always an important trade route and how Kronborg Castle used to make sure no one went through without paying tax to the Danish king. It doesn't work quite like that anymore, but other things never change.
Our only full day away from home was spent cruising around Jutland, from the east to the west and back east. The first image is from Himmelbjerget (Sky Mountain), which is one of the highest points in Denmark. It's not really a mountain - we don't have mountains in Denmark - but a hill with a pretty amazing view. Unfortunately, light was rather dull so my pictures of the view were not as good as this picture of the tower that you find on top of the hill.
The light had returned a few hours later when we arrived on the west coast of Jutland and the Wadden Sea - an area where you can walk far off the shore during low tide. I didn't walk very far, but I shot the place to pieces with my camera. In the end, the images were not as good as I thought when I took them, but this one is not bad at all.
The next image was also taken in the Wadden Sea area. A classic minimalist composition of a sunlit field. The light was amazing. Shadows from fast moving clouds swept across the field resulting in a scene that was half sunlit, half covered in shade.
On our way back to the hotel in the evening we came across the most beautiful row of wind turbines. The golden hour light was absolutely exquisite, and I just had to turn the car around and go shoot this scene even though it was 8 o'clock in the evening and we hadn't had much food all day.
And that's how an amazing day of sightseeing and photography ended. I was happy with my images overall, but also felt that they could have been better if I had been more familiar with the areas that we visited. The importance of knowing a place can't be overstated, in my opinion.
Day 1 of our road trip vacation to Jutland. On the way over there, we stopped at a place called Camp Adventure, which recently got a new attraction: a 45 meter wooden tower that rises above the treetops enabling you to see for miles and miles. But first we had walk through a little forest where other visitors were zip-lining above us. The leafs were green and lush, and the sun was shining, which was all good and well inside the forest, but which made my images taken of the view from the tower a bit too contrasty and harsh, so I haven't included any. I did include one of the tower, of course. That's just an epic subject with its spiral shape.
Now we're talking! A 30-minute drive to Tegner's Museum, which I also visited in the spring, paid off big time. Golden hour, dramatic clouds, and beautiful purple heather made this one of the best photo shoots of the year. I frantically ran around trying to capture as much as possible while the light still lasted. I was very happy with the result, which included the below self-portrait, and the second image where you can see my wife on her way back to the car. What you don't see in any of these images are the bronze sculptures that are randomly distributed in the area to great effect. I did take pictures of them, including some that I liked a lot, but while they work well when you walk around in the area, in my images I prefer the.unspoiled nature and have no need for man-made art to enhance it.
It seemed like an easy shoot. After all, the park around Frederiksborg Castle always has plenty to offer. But boy, did I struggle. The light was harsh and horrible. In the middle of August, late afternoon is still way too early to get good light. I took very few pictures and not a single one of the castle. These two were the only ones that were remotely interesting, and they could have been taken almost anywhere. They say nothing about the park.
Altogether, the first half of August has put me in a real photography impasse. Some of it is due to harsh summer light, and some of it is just me being a little bored with my usual locations that don't seem to offer anything interesting at the moment.
A new record for fewest images per kilometer covered. I must have walked 5-6 kilometers and took less than five pictures. There just wasn't anything interesting to shoot. However, when I came home and saw the first of these two images, I was actually quite happy with it. That composition has potential! The S-shaped road, the bridge across the creek, the rural atmosphere. I checked my sun position app and found out that the sun would set on that horizon in October and decided to return to the spot by then.
The second image of the day may only be included because I want to include at least two. It was a very beautiful forest path with the low sun creating beautiful light between the trees, but the fact is that I took the picture a few seconds too late and had to enhance it quite a bit to capture what I had just seen, resulting in a picture that's probably a little too enhanced.
My first outing in August resulted in a mostly rather unremarkable set of forest images. Let's just say, the forest was more impressive in real life than i was able to capture in these images. I did experiment with some focus stacking in the first image and higher f-values and a resulting blurry background in the second one, something that I have not been very succesful with in the past, but this time it turned out okay.
A beautiful summer day in the greenest nature this country can produce. I followed a well-known path along the creek called Pøle Å, but this time I continued beyond the point where I usually turn around. I really had no idea what I would come across. My astonishment was great when, after another few minutes of bike riding, I came across the most beautiful section of the creek I’d ever seen. Green leaves from the shore reflected so sharply in the water, you could hardly tell where the leaves ended and the reflections started. More green foliage from overhanging branches completed this wonderful, extremely photogenic location.
After shooting the first two images (and several more), I continued a few hundred meters down the path along the creek to where it flowed under a small bridge. I set up my tripod on the bridge, put on the 300 mm lens, captured the third image, which I think turned out nicely.
The last image was a panorama taken back at the first spot, but in the opposite direction as I was heading home.
I will most certainly visit this place again, not least in the fall when the leaves turn orange and yellow.
A long walk in the forest that started with me taking shelter under a tree to keep myself and my camera dry from a rain shower. After that, I spent most of my time in a pine forest, which I absolutely love. Unlike a lot of other forest, pine forest is usually very clean looking without the chaos that other types of forest often present. Pine forest is straight lines and mossy, uncluttered floor.
The second image was taken as I was leaving the pine forest. There was just something about that wall of trees, where the pine forest changed into deciduous forest, that kept me there for a long time experimenting with various settings. That included the third picture, where for the first time I played around with moving the camera during a long exposure to make it blurry. That seems to be a whole discipline within forest photography. I think the exposure should have been longer than the five seconds I used to make it really great, but I was reasonably happy with it for a first attempt.
Last but not least, an image from a spot in that forest that I cannot walk past without shooting pictures. It's like, within a 30x30 meter area there are 3-4 stellar compositions that are all quite different. I posted another image from that location a while ago shot in the opposite direction.
I drive by this area every day on my way to work (yes, there is a big highway five meters behind the photographer) and have recently noticed that the herd of cows roaming around has grown. So on this evening I specifically went out to see if I could capture some cow pictures. Now, you can't be sure that you will see them. It's a big area, and the cows are often way out of sight. But I was lucky. The cows were out and about, grazing and drinking water. Thanks to my 70-300 mm lens and some beautiful golden light, I caught some really nice images, I think.
A fairly short walk experimenting with my 70-300 mm lens within a forest, which can be difficult with so much getting in the way. In the first image I had a clear view of maybe 100 meters and used it to create this image. It was made stacking three individual pictures to make it sharp front to back. I had to hurry as it was pretty windy and the sunlight between the trees kept coming and going.
The second image is just an example of the nice bokeh effect that I can achieve with the 70-300 mm. Nothing spectacular. And last, a fence that I have shot many times before, but never quite as succesfully. For some reason, fence images often turn out better when you use a long zoom.
My first visit to the nearby nature area/abandoned farm since discovering that they are turning it into a new residential area. Fortunately, the builders had not made as much progress as I had feared, and there is still plenty of open land left, so untouched that the weeds are as tall as small trees. It was difficult to walk through, it was quite windy, and the sun was still high in the sky, so conditions for photography were not great. I was afraid I wouldn't come home with anything worth keeping, but I'm actually quite pleased with these three images. In the last two, I tried to experiment with some pretty tight crops. It goes against my nature, but I think they turned out well.
