A Fall From 400 Meters...

For years I have wanted to do aerial photography from a small plane or paraglider, and when a facebook and cycling friend mentioned that his brother was available for hire with a paramotor I jumped at the chance. Michael Gawlik runs Snow n' Dust and we met at Ribersborgstrand in Malmö and discussed a flight over hills of Skäralid to see the fall colors. The weather outlook for the coming days was not good, but the weekend looked promising. So on Friday night with a last look at the weather report we agreed to meet at Skäralid the next morning and take a flight. A good-natured farmer let us use his field for a runway and the result was both a short You-Tube clip and some great images It's an interesting sensation having your feed dangling at 400 meters...

and

http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher

Peregrine Hand-off

I don't know what it is about the peregrine falcon that has made it one of my favorite birds to photograph. Maybe it's the fact that they were nearly wiped out in the US back in the '60s before anyone understood what DDT did to their eggshells. Or maybe it's the fact that they are the fastest animal on the planet, able to reach speeds of over 200 mph (320kph). That speed alone makes it a less than optimal bird to try to photograph. It's just too fast, and during the 10 years I have been photographing them I have only a handful of decent pictures to show for it and most of those taken when the bird is sitting on a branch doing nothing interesting. So the series below which represents about 40 hours of watching, waiting and hundreds of missed shots, is somewhat of a dream come true, an adult peregrine handing off a meal to a juvenile bird. Truth be told the pictures are nowhere near as sharp as I would have liked them to be, but after ten years, you take what you can get. If only there was some way to get a GoPro camera mounted on a peregrine...

More (less interesting) peregrine images can be seen at
http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher/peregrine

Sunset Shootout; Empire State vs. Top of the Rock

No longer satisfied with the Southern California sun during the long Swedish winters, My daughter Kristina insisted we visit New York City as well, and definitely not during the winter. So after enduring the Swedish winter with many days at -20C we also got to experience NYC at 100F. Thankfully all the tourist attractions and Starbucks have both A/C and WiFi. Even when it's hot the breeze and the view is great from both the Empire State Building and the Top of the Rock.The views are different enough to warrant visiting both buildings for the sunset and the lights coming on.

Sunset from the Empire State Building

and as night falls the view gets even better

Sunset in HDR

Sunset from the Empire State

Nightfall from the Top of the Rock

According to recent surveys in the Gehrisch family this won't be the last time we visit NYC...

Happy New Year

For the 25 years I have lived in Lund I have never been able to get a really interesting picture of the Cathedral (Domkyrkan). The Cathedral is in the center of town surrounded by a park with lots of high trees on one side and a busy street with tall buildings across from the front. It's always funny to see people trying to photograph the church, they squeeze into the doorways of the buildings to get one foot further back since few lenses are wide enough to fit the entire church into one shot. A few years ago I bought a 17-40mm lens, which was a step in the right direction,

but first when I bought the 14mm Samyang manual lens was I able to photograph the Cathedral in some sort of context. But it still needs something special. So when fireworks in the park were announced for the New Years celebration I finally got my wish. Excusing myself from a New Years party to go photograph the Cathedral got more than a few comments...

And as luck would have it after the fireworks ended some friends invited me back to another party, which turned out to be quite a lot of fun as well...

Of course you have to plan for a shot like this so I made several visits to check the angles in the days before New Years, including this shot before sunrise...

http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher

My Best Shot at 2011

Another year gone too quickly. I don't now where it went, but thankfully I took a few good photos to remind me what a great year it was...

An owl on a stick on Jan 2, that had to be a good omen...

A business trip to Stockholm also brought some memorable photo-opps, here from the Katarinahissen

A sunrise in April

May in Scania brought beautiful weather and great light

A two week trip to Iceland with the entire family was spectacular

And even the fall brought some beautiful sunsets in Malmö

The year ended with a beautiful sunny and cold day in Lund, Sweden

And another 9670 pictures from 2011 are proof that it was a pretty good year.

All the best for 2012!

The Icelandic Diet; for "REAL" men only...

During both our trips to Iceland my son Johan and I lost about 5 pounds in two weeks. So although Kristina (16) wasn't the least bit interested in birds, nature, hiking or wilderness, the prospect of losing weight that easily had her sign on for the first family trip to Iceland.

The diet is easy:

1. Get up at 4 AM, have toast and coffee for breakfast.
2. Don't bother making any lunch or snacks. Just bring along your dehydrated trekking meals and your Primus stove.
3. Photograph anything that moves or sits still until 2PM
4. Enjoy your trekking meal in the Icelandic countryside. Maybe take a nap.
5. Keep photographing until 8PM.
6. Enjoy another trekking meal, or if you happen to find a restaurant or grocery store try the local cuisine.
7. Take some more pictures until 10:30
8. Go to bed and repeat.
   
   (On second thought maybe I should call it the photographers diet?)

The only problem with the diet was a schoolteacher named Lena who also happens to be mother to Johan and Kristina and insisted that this would simply not do and instead provided us with a two week plan that included always having a supply of sandwiches or snacks. 

A great meal in Reykjavik

Needless to say the diet failed miserably, and we weren't allowed to wake the ladies up at 4AM either. I'm not sure how the vikings made it work on Iceland, but I'm pretty sure they didn't have any Swedish school teachers along...

The geyser Strokkur

During two weeks we traveled the entire perimeter of Iceland along the Ring-Road. We made 3 stops at geothermal springs to bathe, including the Blue Lagoon outside of Reykjavik, the community bathhouse in Myvatn. 

Now I just have to see if I can convince the family to join me to see the Northern Lights during the winter...

Jökulsárlón Glacial Lagoon

Think you're having a bad day?

An Arctic fox in the West Fjords

The road to Myvatn

Johan Gehrisch, enjoying a fantastic dinner in Isafjordur

Dinner on Flatey Island; going hungry was not allowed by Lena...

Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavik

More of my images from Iceland can be seen at

http://www.pbase.come/kingfisher/iceland

My Blue Stockholm

I am spoiled by living  45 minutes away from Copenhagen. Travel to Stockholm is a pain. The reasonably priced flights are before 7AM or after 6PM. And since most of my visits to Stockholm have been business trips over the day, I have had very little opportunity to do any serious photography in the Swedish capitol. But an extended project has put me in Stockholm for several days, and the long Swedish days and the long twilight in the late spring provide fantastic light even at 8PM. An evening walk through "Gamla Stan" (Old Town) provides endless photo opportunities...

 9PM from the Katarinahissen

10:15PM at Stortorget (The Main Square)

11:15PM at the Royal Palace

11:30PM the City Hall

Midnight at the harbor 

Shooting this late you will need a tripod, since the typical exposure times are between 5-30 seconds. But it's worth the effort, a stable, travelers carbon-fibre tripod only weighs a couple of pounds and only takes a few seconds extra to set up. Using a tripod will also allow you to stitch together multiple images. The image of the Royal Palace actually consists of 10 images taken in portait format with about 30% overlap and then stitched in Photoshop.

Other images of Sweden can be seen at
http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher/sweden