We are a having a great winter weekend here (long weekend – we had Friday off as well). A good amount of snow, frosty trees and 10-15 degrees below freezing. Perfect! I’ve been spending most of the daylight outdoors, sometimes shooting, sometimes skiing, sometimes just walking around and enjoying the conditions. Today I went out on three occasions – first to watch the sunrise, then to ski a couple of rounds, and finally to watch the sunset. Well, sunset was the plan anyway, as there were scattered clouds in the south-west so I figured that the setting sun will light them nicely. Only problem was that I was out too early, because yesterday I had gotten to the right place just at the nick of time so I thought I should give myself a bit more margin. Too much, as it turned out. I was at my planned sunset spot an hour before sunset, so instead of waiting and freezing myself, I decided to walk to another spot. Which I did – but I still had half an hour until sunset and furthermore, it looked like the sunset was not going to be much of a spectacle so there would be nothing to photograph anyway. So I decided to walk homeward and when I got to the church, I followed down the road instead of going via Furuberget. There’s a photo op a small bit down the road and I was hoping that the light would be right, but it wasn’t. So I just walked down to the foot of Furuberget and noticed that the sunset that was not to be was going to be anyway… I could just see the orange glow in the clouds above. But what could I do then? I had Furuberget between me and the sunset. I decided to walk a bit up the mountain anyway to get a view east (not enough time to walk all the way up and then find a subject to shoot), I wouldn’t see the sunset but I would catch the last light on the hills opposite. And glorious it was. The snow covered forests were coloured pink by the last rays of the sun… the only problem was that the hills are only half covered by forests, the other half is cut forest. So there was nothing to photograph. Nothing. I had been right about the sunset but my timing was awful. Then when I had second guessed myself about the sunset, I had gotten it wrong in the worst way. It was an awful lot of walking and nothing to show for it. But let’s be positive – at this rate, I will work out those Christmas chocolates in no time flat!

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The image is for illustration purposes only (taken at sunrise). It’s the view from the top of Furuberget with Norrbyn in the foreground and Dåasberget at the back. So when I say ”the hills are only half covered by forests”, this is what I mean – it’s all patchwork wherever you look, so making photographic use of the high viewpoints is tricky unless you specifically want to include these scars in your image. Sometimes I wonder what this place looked like a 100 years ago… But, having said that, forestry is one of the main livelyhoods in Sweden and I have to admit that sometimes I find those clearings useful myself so I should really just pipe down. After all, none of my viewpoints would exist if the hilltops were covered by forests!