Following my quest of visiting places around Stockholm, last Sunday I reached an island called Kärsön. It’s quite close to the city center, about 30 minutes maximum by public transportation to Brostugan bus station.
Kärsön is near Drottningholm, one of the famous touristic sites near Stockholm, hosting the royal residence palace. What made this island interesting for my Sunday trip is that it gets narrow toward north-west, forming a rocky peak which I thought could be a good vantage point for the sunset. And I was right.
The only problem is that it’s not very obvious how to get to this point, since the road ends in a guy’s backyard. I discovered later, after going around a field flooded by the melting snow, that there is a small separate path nearby that property that leads toward the north of the island.
The spot is perfect, a little bit elevated, offering a great view toward the water and the islands nearby. It works very well for a picnic place during summer, if you’re willing to walk for about half an hour in advance. It’s very much worth the effort, since the reward could be an impressive sunset.
Sunday was a regular gloomy day, but a bit special since the layer of clouds wasn’t very thick and got a few interesting shapes. This set up the scene for a spectacular sunset later, featuring colored Mammatus clouds. But I failed to photograph it properly, being in a constant hurry to get back before dark. Here is an image I took before the sunset:
The trip ended with me running around like a beheaded chicken, trying to find a way around the fence of the property mentioned above, until I found the small path.
Lessons learnt
Think, then shoot. I wasted an occasion with amazing light, because I tried to photograph the beautiful clouds gathered in a relatively small area with a ultra wide lens, making them small and insignificant.
During sunset, look behind. While keeping myself busy with the sunset, the trees behind me, bathed in strong red light in the beginning, progressively lost their intensity.
Take a headlight. If I had one with me, I would not be in a hurry all the time, fearing that I will not see my way back through the forest.
