Sweden, a dream trip come true! – Part 2- International Travel Photographer

Country side in Sweden, first frost of the winter, ice and frost covered trees,

It is time for part two of my recent “dream trip” blog post. A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to travel throughout Scandinavia on a commercial shoot to capture some beautiful photographs.

I love to travel and when I heard about this opportunity, I was all over the chance to go and photograph there. This blog post, I am going to feature Sweden and what we did while visiting there.

first freeze on a lake, frost covered winter trees,

Sweden is very close to my heart, as it is my home country. I grew up there and lived there until my early 20’s. This was a very special trip for me. I had the chance to go home to Sweden and enjoy this trip as a “tourist”. It was also a commercial traveling photo shoot with the goal of capturing beautiful photographs.
I traveled ahead of my group for about a week, this to have a chance to go to my home city and visit my child hood best friends and family.

It is very easy to travel in Sweden with public transportation. Everything is very safe and the trains are pretty timely. I traveled by train from Arlanda , the main airport in the Stockholm area up to Dalarna where my family still lives. I grew up in a small town about 2.5 hours north of Stockholm, called Säter.

Ice covered trees from the first frost of season

 

This is located in the southern landscape and region of Dalarna. It was great fun to actually visit there during the autumn when their schools and day to day business is in full swing. It reminded me off how it was growing up in that town. Usually I visit in the summer months, when most are enjoying the relaxed summer. Dalarna is a very traditional area, and is well known in Sweden from where the famous little red Dala horses are made and is a great place to visit to celebrate the traditional Swedish midsummer festivities.

This time I was visiting Dalarna during the time of the first snow fall of the season. Since I now live in South Louisiana, I was happy to have the chance to see some snow and enjoy the beautiful white winter weather. The snow did not last long, but was a beautiful experience for the few days it lasted. I was able to capture some beautiful nature landscape photographs from the first frost of the autumn season. I particularly love the photographs that shows the frost and ice still on the trees in the middle of the day.

I have a friend who is a sheep farmer and lives and works in that area where I grew up. It so happened that I was there visiting, at the same time as she was having some baby lambs born. I was certainly very happy to have a chance to go and visit her and photograph those adorable newborn lambs. I don’t get the chance to see these adorable kinds of newborns very often!

newborn lamb

These lambs were so sweet and playful and real fun to photograph!

Swedish newborn lambs
lamb licking a salt stoneSwedish newborn lambssheep eatingsheeps eating hay

Once the rest of my travel companions arrived to Sweden, I met them in Stockholm. We first went to the Vasa museum. Which is a maritime museum featuring the 17th century war ship Vasa, that sank on her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628. It is a wooden ship and was almost intact when found in the late 1950’s. The ship has been restored and is on display at this museum. The ship it self is actually quite large.  It is amazing how many artifacts they found on that ship from jewelery and canons to coins from that time, that is still in original shape.

 

There was also some time for us walking around Gamla Stan = Old Town Stockholm in the evening. This is a beautiful part of Stockholm that still has cobble stone streets and old buildings and architecture from the early 18th century. Some of the streets are so narrow, only about a meter wide in certain places. It is a beautiful place and very close to the working Royal Castle and many other historic spots. One is Stortorget. Which is a square that is the center of Gamla Stan- Old Town. This place has been there and has been known by its name from as early as year 1420. Today it is still a very busy place full of restaurants and cafe’s. Many tourist visit Stortorget while visiting Stockholm.

Stockholm is a city with long lasting history. It is a very picturesque city, with beautiful photo opportunities almost around every corner. The photo below is from Stortorget located in Gamla Stan, and the different colored buildings are a well known Stockholm landmark.

Gamla Stan, Stortorget, long exposure capture of Stortorget-Gamla Stan

We also had fun visiting the recently opened Abba museum. It was filled with anything related to Abba during the height of their popularity. I really enjoyed visiting this museum. This especially as I grew up listening to their music.

Abba Museum, Original clothes worn when winning European schlager song festival, with the song Waterloo,
Abba Museum

During our time in Stockholm we also took a boat ride to see the Drottningholm Palace. This is where Sweden’s king and queen reside. It was a beautiful autumn day with perfect weather for a boat ride there. This castle is not to be confused with Royal Palace in Stockholm, where the kings office is located.

21Sverige-Sweden-Drottningholms slott fountain

As a matter of fact the day we rode the boat Carl Philip to Drottningholm, it was the last day for the season that this boat was running that route. It was beautiful to see the gorgeous leaves changing colors on the trees. It was a very nice Swedish autumn day.

On the way back to Stockholm , the boat arrived right by City Hall , Stadshuset. Which is a beautiful building at the center of Stockholm, and is where the Nobel Prize banquet is held every year.

Stadshuset, Stockholm City Hall

Stadshuset vid solned gång, Stockholm City Hall at sunset
Stadshus tornet, Stockholm City Hall tower

As someone who grew up in Sweden , it is always lovely to go home and visit. It was very special this time to have the chance to document some beautiful photographs from our trip and use my knowledge of growing up there to know what to showcase and make Sweden look its best to those planning a future trip to Scandinavia.

As a matter of fact the reason for trip  was to plan and organize and put together an up coming tour through Scandinavia. This is tour will go through the LSU Academic Program Abroad office, where you can travel with them to learn more about Scandinavia without having to be an enrolled LSU student. This is a tour that will be open to the public.  There will be an LSU professor going along on the trip as a tour guide. The professor will be teaching about all the beautiful and great things to see and do in Scandinavia. If you are interested in going on this tour of Scandinavia and traveling with the LSU APA office. Please contact them by following this link.
http://international.lsu.edu/APA/

Thank you LSU APA for making this  great trip possible!

Gamla Stan and Riksdagen at night time

This is Riksdagen, Sweden’s parliament. It is located right next to Gamla Stan.

If you are interested in any of my photographs for any travel or other needs , please contact me at the contact form here at the top of my website or by calling (225) 284-6354

Please check back here on my blog in a few weeks, to see photographs from our visit to Norway and Denmark as well!

If you want to see the blog post featuring the part of us visiting Iceland, please click this link:
http://annakarinsphotography.com/annakarinsblog/2014/01/31/iceland-a-dream-trip-come-true-international-travel-photographer-blog-carousel/

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