Friday, January 14, 2011

Christmas Aftermath

It is always wonderful and uplifting to visit Sweden, to see relatives and friends, in particular my two grandchildren. They give so much joy, but also unpleasant reminders. I seem to catch one cold or other every time I see them. They are used to, and possibly immune to, a wide range of germs, bugs and bacteria, but I am not. Their nurseries are like crucibles of everything contagious. The children act like little middle men, like bridges, like carrier pigeons of colds and other curses. It took me over two weeks to get rid of this last nasty cold. And this came at a time when I work more hours than I normally do.

Outside it does not look like Christmas anymore. The snow has gone and we had 12 degrees today. It is dark, wet and windy. The extra light reflected off the snow has been replaced by some dark matter, which does not lift your soul exactly.

On the other hand I have just received a belated birthday and Christmas present from my wife. I ordered it from Amazon in the UK, but since it has to go through the military sorting office in London, it normally takes another five days to get here. It is a third lens for my Nikon camera, a Sigma 300 mm lens, which is both heavy and looong. I will be needing my tripod for it when it is fully extended in order to get sharp images. This is particularly important since there is no built-in vibration reduction (anti-shake) mechanism.

I am hoping to be able to take better close-ups of for instance birds, and also to experiment with macro photography. It is possible to achieve pictures with great detail. So hopefully I can show  some examples of that once I have practised a little. I just need to hold my breath and steady my hands.

Signing off with two pictures of days now long gone.

DSC_0871 DSC_0996

5 comments:

Vagabonde said...

I like your shots of the candle in the snow. It looks like the snow is thick. Here, in Georgia, we had a lot of snow a week ago – quite something for the Deep South. I made a post about it. The snow had iced on top of the snow and it looked like meringue. I do not have a close up lens for my Nikon and wished I had. I’ll look forward to seeing your close-up pictures.

Veronica said...

Here we have had WET WET WET .. since the monsoon started on 11 Dec we have had only 3 days without rain .... and it is STILL raining (around 800mm)! While we are ''used to" rain it has developed a sort of cabine fever in me - crazy when the daytime temperature is 30c! It is the low pressure - yukky, now I just want to sleep ... but I have to work!

Veronica said...

slip ... cabin fever!

swenglishexpat said...

Vagabonde - Thank you. The snow creates beauty, but also problems. One does not seem to come without the other, and it seems your mood sometimes decides how you see it.
I have been short of time lately for both blogging and photography, but I will probably soon put up a few examples of my efforts.

Veronica - So I should stop complaining about our wet and windy January. Goodness me! How do you cope with it? That is a lot of water.

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