Yesterday was national holiday in Sweden and the annual horse race at Gärdet. A huge recreation field here in Stockholm. The track that is rebuilt every year at this place is not flat as most other tracks. I think that the jockeys like it. The weather was sunny and there was a huge audience that were allowed in for free. Here is my selection from my 1148 exposures.
😀 Pelle
It came and it went. Like all other days. The final day at Täby Galopp in Stockholm. Sun, clouds and artificial lights gave different looks to the races, and the images. Together with two colleagues I produced an exhibition for the event. It was well received and I am very happy for that. It gave me a possibility to talk to the viewers. Some did not see the point in unfocused, blurred images at all. So I told them that I do. To me it is not that important to recognize jockeys, horses or owners. I am looking for speed, power and color. So also yesterday. Here is the result. A few more images to add to the series from Täby. Next race is another track, different light and angles. Exciting and a new challenge.
I accept that challenge!
😀 Pelle
I am in the need of a sauna just coming back from a cold day at the race track! So how do the jockeys feel when they are coming in from a long day on the horse back? Many horse backs that is, since they ride so many different horses during a race day. The weather was testing us, how much we could stand.
Not many races left at the old track now. The 18th next month is the final day. As always there is a new page to be turned and to experience. That will be interesting. Here is the selection of images frpm today. Enjoy! 😀
By the way, are there saunas for horses!
And they did! We were all happy to be back on track today again. And everybody enjoyed the good weather. Not only horses and jockeys but photographers and audience too. Horse racing might be an all year sport but bläh! for long underwear, gloves and heavy shoes. Colors are also back in the sport. I enjoyed this very much, I hope you do too.
🌞 Pelle
It´s been some time since I visited a horse race. However, yesterday I went back to Täby Galopp. The track is old and it will soon be closed down and replaced by a new one. At Bro. A place also just outside Stockholm, but in another direction from Täby. It will be interesting to see how the races will develop there. Täby is like Venedig. Beautiful in its decline. Lots of patina that attract us photographers.
A rest for eyes and mind was healthy. Time to refocus and find new details and ways to capture my images. But of course I recognize all the events. I get good exercise since I am not always standing at the goal waiting for a winner. That is what many of my friends and colleagues have to do. It is their job to catch the winner. And after that the winning horse, jockey and owner. Instead I can concentrate on investigating other parts of the race with all preparations and other post race activities.
Here is a selection from yesterday, enjoy! 😊 Pelle
Stockholm is built on many islands and water. This is what the boats and quays look like now. From todays short walk at Skeppsholmen. It is -7 C and the fingers are freezing.
This new year, 2016, what are we going to do with it? Are you among those who makes promises? Are you good at it? I don´t do promises for a new year any more. If I decide to do something I do it as quick as possible. ( That doesn´t always mean immediately. 😉 ) No need to wait for a special year. That might just take too long to get it done. A man has got to do what a man has got to do… So, what do I wish for the new year? Same as you I guess. Without trying to win a Mr. World competition, peace on earth. Wouldn´t that be nice? Don´t ask what the world can do for you. Ask what you can do to/for the world. I think that if we all do the small things to us and our friends, and the people we meet, that will make a big difference. Small and big goes well together here.
OK, promise!?
A good day for me starts on my short walk to my studio. ( Breakfast reading today´s news is also fine ). If I meet a friend to say hello to, or If I can smile to a parent whose child is jumping in a puddle. That is a good omen for the new day.
Of course I will challenge myself with some now projects and images again this year. Can I arrange an exhibition with a selection from my horse racing images, or my working gloves? That would be great. And I am open to surprises. Things that I didn´t expect. This year will include an extra day at the end of February. Be sure to use it well!
The first blog of the year will include some images from the archipelago. And some new horse racing images from last Sunday. It is suddenly a white winter up here in the north.
By the way, have you seen and read some of all the articles about the best of 2015? Amazing images and engaging stories.
😊 Pelle
Seconds after looking at those wunderful waves, here is more water that I just discovered. Through another photographers lens and they look so different. But just as amazing. I think. See the slide show for more images.
The Japanese photographer Toshio Shibata is fascinated by water — in particular, the way it interacts with man-made structures. For the later half of his almost-40-year career in photography, he has explored this relationship in novel ways, hiding horizon lines and taking the perspective of the water itself with his camera, visually evoking its rushing sound.
Each of Shibata’s photographs depicts a different kind of human intervention in the natural movement of water, many of them the kind of mundane engineering projects we rarely think about. “To me,” Jacob Cartwright of Laurence Miller Gallery, which recently opened a show of Shibata’s work, said via email, “the essence of his work is taking ubiquitous yet frequently disregarded parts of our contemporary landscape and transforming them into something visually uncanny through formal invention.”
There is, probably, a worlds best in everything. Also in photographing waves. The photographs are amazing and in the film, he explains more. Things I never thought about in my little pond. It is all in the details. I will not argue about his talent and I love that he goes into the water. He is not on land with a long lens, he is really up close. Not afraid of getting wet. Any competition out there?
At first glance, these photographs look like looming mountains, standing guard over a dark universe found in a Tolkien novel. But look again: These images are actually the ocean’s waves, captured at their peak point of crash. It’s almost spooky how powerful they feel.
Photographer Ray Collins is the man behind these amazing images, which seem to capture the wave’s most crucial moment, just before it crashes and sinks back into the water. Collins bought his camera in 2007 with the hopes of shooting his surfer friends, but quickly found that he had a knack for photographing the water. His photos have been so successful, in fact, that they have been used in international campaigns for National Geographic, Patagonia, and Apple.
http://www.lifebuzz.com/sea-mountains/
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/oct/23/philippe-halsman-astonish-me-in-pictures
Marilyn Monroe in mid-air, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis goofing off, the Duke of Windsor in his socks, and Salvador Dalí nose to nose with a rhino – Halsman’s freaky frames defied gravity and convention
The top image is a true classic. Not made with a modern SLR capturing 10 images per sec. A true master of the trade!
See for yourselves!
😊 Pelle
On a photographers mind 