Wedding Season

Pro tip. If you are in Stockholm on a Saturday looking for photo opportunities I can highly recommend a visit to Stadshuset. City Hall, as there are normally a few wedding parties there. Oh, and a heads up. I am waiting for a new router for wireless broadband, should have made the switch 18 months ago, but that never happened for some unknown reason. So my internet connection is a bit wobbly at the moment as Telia, my provider is shutting down the old network

The warden tree

The oak standing in the courtyard at Stockholm City Hall was planted to function as a "warden tree". According to Nordic cultural tradition, "warden trees" serves as a dwelling for friendly protective spirits and grants the farm prosperity. I copied that sentence from the City Hall Facebook site. I took this photo a few days ago as I thought the Autumn colors looked great.

Autumn Wedding

A short visit to Stockholm City Hall. If you pick the correct day of the week, chances are that you will walk into a wedding shoot, as Stadshuset is a very popular place for that sort of thing.

Antiques Roadshow

I often stop by Stockholm City Hall on a whim as it is a good place for street photography. Got a bit lucky here as they were filming for the upcoming season of The Antiques Roadshow. Antikrundan in Swedish. Hosted since quite a few years by Anne Lundberg, she is the woman in the blue dress. She filmed a short sequence as I stopped and watched, and I think she did three takes here. In between all the waiting. The garden down by the Riddarfjärden bay was absolutely packed with people. And they all had something with them to be valuated by the experts. The queues went on forever. So I decided to go for a walk around the garden with my mirrorless Canon. The guy on his knees had brought with him a few old swords. You can also see one expert talking about a few knives. And much more. Oh, and when I left, I decided to bike over to a favorite lookout point and take a photo of City Hall. That is of course the last photo and if you have good eyes you can see all the people queuing in the garden.

The Royal Barge

I have a few photos of the Royal Barge to show you. In Swedish, known as Vasaorden, and Kungaslupen. Owned by the Swedish Navy. It spends most of its time at the Berga naval base in Haninge, next to my favorite beach, btw. Only used for Royal weddings. Or visits by the Japanese Emperor. Or when Queen Elizabeth II visited. And also, one hundred years ago during the opening ceremony for Stockholm City Hall, a building designed by Ragnar Östberg. Back then, or two years before, the original barge was destroyed in a fire. A replica was built in time for the celebrations a century ago. And it was also used by the King and Queen last week as they made their way to the gala dinner at City Hall. The barge is 18 meters long. Made from oak. It takes 18 able seamen to navigate the oar-driven barge, and they could be seen practicing that on early mornings out on the Riddarfjärden bay last week.

November Light

Walking through the garden at Stockholm city hall on a November afternoon. Parts of the garden is currently closed off because of some sort of work, so I aimed the Canon at some of the visitors. You often see people looking up here as there is a lot of old and interesting paintwork to behold. The stone bench up against the wall is always a good place for some light reading.

Going Underground

Work have started on the new underground bus terminal in central Handen. Part of the big project Haningeterrassen. Already delayed by 18 months. The building in the background is City Hall, still called Teliahuset by some (old), locals.

Groovy Reflection

The last photo of 2013. The big window at City Hall in Handen, with a few Christmas decorations still shining. The building that you can see in the reflection is the Stena building at Poseidon's Square.

Window of opportunity

My old zoom lens have retired. The Canon 75-300mm worked fine for a decade, despite a few accidents along the way. As I don't have much money I decided to buy a Tamron lens, the very cheap AF70-300mm. I picked it up yesterday and this was the first photo I took. It's a window above the entrance to City Hall in Handen.

And the winner is...

Haninge is taking part in something called Sweden - the new culinary nation. Yesterday three (lucky), jury groups gathered at City Hall in Handen. One group, seen here, were to decide about the best locally made pastry. The winner gets a diploma and 5000 SEK. The winning pastry will also be served at all café's around Haninge for the next year. If you have read this blog recently you will know that I have spent a lot of time at a particular cafe. I have told the owner, Henrik, about this event a couple of times. Last Friday he finally decided to mention it to the pastry chef, Diana Nordin. She was a bit upset about being told about it with such short notice, but still decided to give it a go, and guess what she won! Here's what the jury had to say: A winner because of the design and the taste that shone in it's simplicity. An added bonus was the resemblance of a boat. Haninge has a long coast and a big archipelago so designing the pastry to look a bit like a boat was a smart move by Diana. Best Pizza was won by Isa Akan from Brandbergen, and best Herring by Lotta Nyman from Dalarö. There will be many food events in Haninge this week and from tomorrow anyone who wants to can try the school food at a few chosen schools. More facts in Swedish here.

Sky Reflection

A new political platform (something about the spirit of Haninge), was signed by the local politicians just inside the entrance to City Hall in Handen a couple of days ago. That happened a few hours after I took this shot so I didn't stick around for that, but I figured this (probably by now very familiar), window would work for Skywatch Friday.

A Cloudy Sky

The weather has been kinda awful the last few days. We had some snow earlier in the week. Most of it is gone now, but the sky is still grey, so for this Skywatch Friday post I decided to show you a photo I took last week. It's one of the big windows at City Hall in Handen.

The Man in the Tower

All of a sudden I heard someone shouting, but I couldn't figure out from where the sound came. Looking around I noticed a few people staring up to the roof of City Hall. And there he was. The man in the tower. Climbing high up in the cell tower. Must have been a technician fixing something. Another worker was standing on the roof, but I have no idea what they talked about, but it made for a few good photos so who cares!

Skywatch Friday.

City Hall Reflection

The big window above the main entrance to the Haninge City Hall building in Handen. As Christmas is approaching I count five light candelabras. If you recognise it it's because I take a picture here every now and then.

City Hall Reflection

Part of a big window at the City Hall building in Handen. It used to be known as teliahuset (The Telia Building). Last year that company moved out and the politicians moved in. The reflections comes from Najaden. A large building overlooking Lake Rudan. There's a hotel there. And a night club. And a gym. And more. I have a thing for windows and reflections and has to take photos every time I see a cool reflection.

Christmas Window

The big window at City Hall in Handen.I have photographed it before, but figured it would look different during Christmas. I can see eight light candelabras.

City Hall

Another look at City Hall in Handen. The local politicians moved in here a few months ago. It used to be known as Teliahuset before that. Normally there's a giant antennae on the roof, but as Kenny Lex (a flickr contact),threatened to climb up on it to take pictures I removed it! To access some parts of the building these days you need to fill out a form and the top floors are closed. I sent a mail to them with the idea (nicked from Kenny), to build a tower on the roof and open it for the public. From that tower you would be able to see Lake Rudan and much more. I got a quick response saying that the idea would be passed on to the people in charge.

A few reflections

Groovy reflection in the big window at the entrance to city hall in Handen. The reflection comes from a few buildings along Nynäsvägen. Bigger photo.


I've been tagged by Kim from Seattle Daily Photo. I get to list eight things about myself that you probably don't know, and in turn tag eight other CDPBloggers to do the same. So here we go.

1. As a teenager I accidentally started a forest fire by throwing away a cigarette but. I ran away and didnt tell my parents for a while as my dad was a member of the voluntary firefighter squad in Tungelsta.

2. I have spent a night under the stars on a Greek beach with a Greek Goddess.

3. Yesterday I sold a photo posted here some month ago for 2000SEK to be used in an ad campaign for dairy products.

4. I don't own a mobile phone. And never have.

5. When I was sixteen I won a school tournament playing Badminton. I wasn't dressed or anything, played the matches in my jeans and in the final, beat a pro player. He wasn't very happy about that. I was.

6. Suffer from a few phobias, but I will not tell you which ones.

7. Arrested by the police for bicycle theft together with two friends in Tungelsta when I was 12 years old, (young and stupid). We had stolen quite a few bikes and hid them in a garage belonging to one of my friends family. As we stole the last bike (brand new), the owner (who we knew), watched us as he called the cops.

8. I get lost easily. Everywhere. In Stockholm, in the forest, on vacation. So I have decided to buy a hand-held gps-unit and start geocaching.

I'm tagging the following eight people or blogs.

Per in Stockholm.
Gerald in Hyde.
Abraham in Brookville.
Glenn in Torun.
Neva in Inverness.
Meg in Nelson.
tog of coral gables.
Fénix in Boston.


These are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. List eight (8) random facts about yourself.
3. Tag eight people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving them a comment on their blogs.