Capturing the Moment: “Att fånga Stunden”

January 30, 2012 by megalagom 7 Comments

I decided to take advantage of the empty streets of Sweden on Sundays. No people means no judging eyes. I have been having a lot of difficulty taking public photos without feeling like a complete fool. Or a tourist. Either way its not the way I want to feel when I am trying to fit into a new country. I’ve even started taking photos with my iphone to be more conspicuous. Its an odd feeling trying to blend in. Whipping out a camera and taking photos of ordinary things breaks that image.

So,  Sundays are now photography days. Instead of downgrading to my iphone to be more sneaky I’m going the other direction. Hubby gave me a tutorial on how to use his SLR camera and I’m very excited to start taking great photos. For now I am practicing on quiet Sundays until I am comfortable. I’d rather be taking real photographs and be seen as a photographer because of the huge fancy camera dangling around my neck than a naive tourist (Maybe living in NYC has this effect on me). Of course I will always have my regular camera in my bag, ready for anything. There’s an awesome SLR Simulator/Tutorial here, very helpful when you get to toy around with the different functions like the ISO, Aperture, and Shutter speed and see how they effect your photo.

I’ve loved photography as long as I could remember. I wanted to take classes in college but it was too expensive for the equipment. I always wanted an SLR camera to be able to capture those amazing shots you see in magazines and photography blogs. To be able to capture the depth, the crisp detail, the emotion, the feeling that a regular camera just can’t muster up.

I ventured out with the camera Sunday at noon, excited but not really knowing how to take a good photo with this new (to me) camera. This is practice, I told myself. The thing is I’m really the instant gratification type of person, I hate being bad at things. I get discouraged if I’m not good from the beginning. For now I used the Auto setting and learned how to hold the camera, how to zoom, to to focus. To be honest I didn’t know where the zoom or focus were until half way though and i didn’t learn how to turn off the flash until today, so most photos were nothing special or even terrible. I know how to take photos, I know what they look like and what makes a photo good, it’s a lot of relearning with an SLR camera though.

It was a gloomy and gray day, which didn’t help…and neither did the -3 degrees Celsius (27 F) with no gloves (great timing to lose them). I was too cold to really get the perfect shot or angle of anything. Instead of perfecting or getting closer, I moved on knowing that my fingers were going to freeze at any moment. Hopefully next Sunday the sun will be out to brighten up my photos. It’s a process, and more than learning for myself I thought it would be nice to show a couple of photos from my slice of Sweden. (aside from the library and food)