The Battle of Bunketofta Memorial

While out scouting for photos today I drove past an interesting looking scene with trees, flowering rape and a green lane leading through the rape uphill towards the trees. After doing a semi-illegal u-turn at an intersection (all in the name of art...) I pulled in to this scene:

Kinda interesting with the wonderfully saturated summer colours, the leading lines and culminating in a point of interest. Not a great pic but certainly worth stopping for. Then I took a walk up the green lane towards the trees and took another photo:

That is when I noticed that there was something amongst the trees, just what it was I didn't know, but it piqued my interest. So yet closer:

Turns out to be a historical monument as a memorial to something called the Battle of Bunketofta. Why on earth it isn't marked on the roadside is a mystery and I think this needs to be addressed. If you can read Swedish then there is a short Wikipedia page in Swedish here: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaget_vid_Bunketofta but if you don't understand Swedish then here is the plaque that is at the site that actually gives much more information:

So quite a good find for the day even it was purely by chance. If you are ever in the area then look it up.

The Humble Dandelion

Many people seem to regard the Dandelion as a bit of a weed, a pest to be gotten rid of. However the Dandelion not only has health benefits for humans if used/consumed properly but also is great for the local bee population and hence good for our planet. Leave the Dandelions be and give nature the benefit of having them around.  Hurrah for the humble Dandelion!

 

Farm Building in Southern Sweden

 

Nature in Monchrome

This photo was quite boring in colour, just awash in pale green with nothing appealing at all to look at, however in monochrome it has more of a beauty for me as it highlights the leaves in a wonderful contrasty abstract pattern that puts natures order in the foreground. Amazing what stripping colour from a scene can do.
 

Flowering Trees in an Urban Area

 These trees (no idea what they are called) have been flowering for a couple of weeks now and are a really beautiful highlight in what is an otherwise slightly bland urban area. 

D850, 24-120mm, f/8.0, 1/60s, ISO8000, hand held and processed in DxO PL6.

Tree Silhouettes in Monochrome

Trees have wonderful shapes & forms and make great subjects for photography. Sometimes that great natural look is straight up. I used the 16mm Fisheye for this as it gives a great perspective. Converted into low-key black and white images in DxO PL6.

Abandoned in the Woods

While walking in the woods today I came across an abandoned childs push scooter looking a little the worse for wear but in working condition. I hope the kid finds it again... meanwhile I took the opportunity to photograph an abandoned childs scooter in the woods. 😁

Time To Reflect

Sometimes colour just gets in the way...

Spring Evening in Slottsparken

Just a few more assorted photos from the Slottsparken.

Art in the Slottsparken

The Slottsparken that I strolled around in earlier today not only has trees and flowers (as shown in the previous post), but there are quite a few artworks dotted around the park as well. Here are just a few:

Blooming Flowers Everywhere!

Spring is in full go in southern Sweden and there are flowers blooming everywhere. These are from a local park called Slottsparken.

These are all taken handheld on a Nikon D850 and my favourite lens, the Nikon 50mm f1.8G.

Landskrona Direkt

 A couple of my pics made it into the local News. Click on the pic to go to the post:

 

Three Quick Portrait Setups

A quickfire portrait photo session in order to do three different looks in succession by just adding, changing or moving a few speedlights. Always fun to keep the old hand in by way of this type of practical exercise.

I used a Nikon D850, Nikon 85mm f1.8 lens, four Nikon Speedlights all triggered wirelessly via a Nikon Speedlight Commander SU-800, ISO was 64 and aperture at f1.8 to get that shallow depth of field.

First off a single light shot through a snoot:

Contrasty and dramatic

Snoot was high, right and slightly behind of camera

The second shot I retained the snoot and added two lights aimed at the background, the light to camera left had the standard included incandescent filter attached and the light to camera right had the standard included fluorescent filter attached, both to influence the background in different ways. The light in the snoot was filterless.

More textured interest on the background

The snoot was left in the same position as the previous shot

The final photograph I used four lights and changed out the snoot for a shoot-through umbrella, I also brought it much closer to the subject. This had the effect of giving softer light. I also turned the two lights I used for the background in the previous shot and highlighted the side of the subjects head from slightly behind while shooting a gobo strip of light at the background.

Much softer light with lots of sculpting, depth & interest

All lights visible in this shot

The final setup I had the lights in three groups, the main light (group A) was at standard exposure, the side lights (group B) at -3 & the background light (group C) at -2.5. This gave a pleasing balance of light, at least for my taste.

All the light modifiers are from Elinchrom attached to Godox adapters to be able to let me use my Speedlights, except for the gobo which is from Magmod. I find that the Elinchrom studio lights are great in a bigger room but in such a small space they are way too powerful forcing me to stop down a lot more leading to me not being able to use the narrow depth of field that I prefer.

Below are some pics of the Godox mounts with Speedlights inserted. This is a budget conscious way of being able to use one set of modifiers for both the larger studio lights as well as the much smaller Speedlights.

Snoot

Umbrella

Reflector