Magnus Lindbom is a self-taught professional photographer from Sweden.  He earns all his money from photography-related work such as writing articles for publication, leading photo tours and workshops, and selling prints.  His goal with photography is “to inspire others to venture out into nature and experience for themselves what so many of us are missing in today’s hectic urban life”.  His concentration on landscapes (both color and black and white) have given us some amazing photos which seek to capture feelings rather than the place it was shot.

This photo, entitled “Magical Morning”, was taken at Tyresta National Park in Sweden.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the serenity that this photo conveys.  The mist on the water hides any ripples that would convey energy while allowing the reflections of the clouds and trees to come through with good clarity.  The gradations in the tone are nice and smooth, which definitely adds to the feeling of witnessing a serene morning sunrise.  As the scene appears to be backlit, that makes the gradations of tone (not to mention the great exposure) all the more impressive.  While I’m not a fan of placing the horizon in the center of the frame (something I have been guilty of more than once in the past), here the mist blurs the horizon enough to make one have to imagine it’s there.  In turn, the mist also makes obvious where the water meets the land.  While this helps the viewer see where the reflection begins, it does put a damper on what would have been the appearance of the land floating in the air.  In terms of composition all three elements (land, water, and air) are in good balance, with all three competing for, but none winning, attention.  The symmetry of the land and its reflection are almost insignificant when the photo is taken  as a whole.

All in all this is one of the best entries in this year’s “Folios” edition of Silvershotz.  The tones and mist definitely convey a sense of serenity and calm, enough so that the location of this scene is the very last thing I thought of when I looked at this photo.

More of Mr. Lindbom’s work can be seen by clicking here.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Click to see full size

Comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Croatian Nenad Saljic fell in love with photography and the mountains in his early teens.  Of course, life has a habit of getting in the way and in the course of some life events, he pretty much left his passions unpursued.  Fortunately for Saljic (and the rest of us) he rediscovered his passion for photography and has graced us with some beautiful black and white photos.  In 2009 and 2010 he produced a series called “Matterhorn”, which are, of course, shots of The Matterhorn in the Pennine Alps.  The photo below, entitled “Evening Clouds”, comes from this series (click on picture for a larger view):

Few things can bring forth the image a grand conjuration than watching clouds borne from orographically influenced winds.  I was treated to a few myself as a Weather Observer in the United States Air Force, although admittedly nothing to this scale.  I’m reminded of the great eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I wonder if this is the last thing that most of the rest of Middle Earth will see before the shadow of death descends upon them.  One almost gets the feeling of being a Hobbit watching from a hiding place as the conjuration of evil begins to really take hold.

The play on the tones is the part that sets the mood of this photograph.  The dark foreground tones suggest a hiding place – we have our safe vantage point and as long as the mountain can’t see us we are safe.  The moutain itself is mostly low-key in tone.  Toward the bottom it is lighter and gets darker as you go up, which suggest that a transformation of sorts is taking place.  Of course, the clouds are the stars of this photograph.  The brilliant white stands in stark contrast to the rest of the photo, letting us that we are in for something.  The beauty of the clouds belies both the violence that produced them and the violence that is sure to follow their conjuration.  And when one looks at the fact that the peak of The Matterhorn is enveloped by the clouds, one can’t help but get the impression that they’re in the path of the full force of what’s to come.

Of course, these clouds are merely the result of updrafts over the surface of the mountian.  Even though I can’t see the rest of the sky, I would safely assume that support for these clouds is almost non-existent at a few miles from the mountian itself.  Of course, not many people outside the meteorological community (or those who live near the mountain) would necessarily know that.

Normally when we see photographs of the power of nature, it’s in the aftermath of whatever phenomenon took place.  This photograph provides a rare glimpse at how powerful nature is, even on a small scale.  What makes this photograph even more powerful is that it almost seems to contain that power, even though we know what’s coming toward us.  The play on the tones of the photo suggests a doom scenario where Mother Nature is releasing her full power and the viewer, unfortunately, is about to be caught up in it.

Saljic uses HDR processing pretty extensively in a lot of his more static work, which unfortunately makes his finished photographs look almost like rasterscan line drawings.  His “Matterhorn” series (at least from what I can tell) is free of HDR processing, which sets this series apart from most of his other work.  You can view more of the series by clicking here.

Would anyone like to discuss this photo further?