Let me start by introducing myself. The face behind the images I sell and the instagram page soniasnaturescapes. I am a wife, mother of three (daughter and twin boys), an ex Paediatric Nurse turned dog walker, with a passion for the outdoors. I am also crazy about furry things and we currently have one retired Alaskan Husky sled dog (you can read more about her story here) plus two guinea pigs and a hamster.
I love hiking in the mountains, especially in early autumn (less mosquitos but still lovely weather!), paddling out around our archipelago on my stand up paddle board, or being on some sort of arctic winter expedition. I am very lucky in my outdoor adventures (which you can read more about here) to have access to remote, rugged, raw, and wild spaces of nature. I get to take photographs of the most stunning locations. I love sharing these special places with other people, both here in my shop for your own homes or over on my instagram page. My happiest place is in my tent in some isolated location, with a hot chai in my Moomin mug, taking in the peace and solitude.
So, what is the purpose of this blog you might ask? As well as introducing myself and giving my shop a human face, I thought it might be useful to help others out. The aim is to try and do a post a week that gives some helpful hints to try in your everyday lives with your photography. Now do not panic. I am no technical whizz, so these are very simple things I have learnt over the years. Yes, I do have a camera I can use manual settings on, but I also take a lot of my photos on my iPhone. When I am away on my outdoor adventures, especially the hiking ones, I need to reduce the weight I am carrying. So sometimes I can only take my phone. Throughout the posts I hope to tackle a tip, hint, or topic a week, and where possible show how it can be done both with the iPhone and the camera. Sometimes a post may just be tips for the iPhone. Take a look at these images.....some are with the phone and some are with my camera. Yes, the quality is always better with my camera, but the phone performs very well and can often save my cold fingers as it is faster to use!
Each blog post will also have an image of the week that I have taken at some point, and an image from the website that you can buy. I will be expanding on when and where these images were taken giving the story behind them. For the image this week I have chosen some woods I took on a recent yomp.
I often take the children on mini adventures out in nature. This photograph was from a recent trip out with them in the woods. The Swedish forests can be very moody and atmospheric. The darkness lends itself to an air of mystery, and together with the hint of sunlight peeking through, that is what I like about the image. What feelings does it bring up in you? What do you like or dislike about the image? Let me know in the comments.
This was taken after a long days hike in the mountains of Northern Sweden on my phone. There was a hanging bridge bouncing around precariously in the strong winds and I had our husky with us. She neither likes hanging bridges that move with no sides, or going over the noisy raging rivers that are underneath. To be honest, I am not a big fan either! I dumped my heavy backpack, so i could concentrate on her and getting her over it. When I came back to retrieve my backpack I quickly snapped two images. I did not even check them. It was only later that night wrapped in my warm sleeping bag and relaxing in the tent, that I did look at them. I realised I had caught the fleeting sunlight at just the right moment, and with the dramatic clouds, it made for a beautiful image capturing the power of nature in the mountains.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this first blog post and learning a little more about myself and the images, and thank you for taking the time to read it. I would love to hear from you in the comments, via email, or the contact form. If there are any topics you would like covered in the future, please leave suggestions in the comments. The next blog post will be about two ways to instantly make your photos more interesting. Please take a visit to my instagram page where there is a lot more to see. You can always request an order from there if you see an image you like that is not on my shop page. Lastly, it would be a huge favour if you could share this blog post for me. It would help my shop a lot!
Subscribe on the blog homepage to never miss a blog post:-) Get notified when a new post is published.
Comments