Postcards from Halmstad

I have been in Halmstad twice recently, once for a birthday party, the other time to visit my mother.

Whenever I visit, I like to take long walks with my camera. The environment is quite different from Gothenburg, so I can get pictures there, that are a bit different from what I shoot in Gothenburg.

I haven't started a Halmstad Nudes series though. I have thought about it, but I want to finish the Öland Nudes series first, and as I mentionen in my previous blog post, I will have limited time to make pictures in at least the near future.

So, without further ado, here are a few pictures from Halmstad. I hope they give you at least a little bit of a feel for the city where I grew up.

Talking a walk in the Halmstad harbor is fun, and occasionally rewarding. I rather like this shot of an old crane. The composition is clean, the colors vibrant, and it looks like what it is, a fine summer day.

Many years ago, I was a member of the Halmstad canoe club. There was a rowing club right across on the opposite side of Nissan, the river that runs through the city.

I do not know if this guy is from the rowing club, but he just might be.

There are some old streets in Halmstad. This one, Hantverkargatan, looks like something Paul Cezanne would paint, so I processed the photo in a Cezanne-ish style. Turned out better than I expected.

There is a bridge near the Halmstad City Library, where young lovers like to leave padlocks as a symbol of their eternal love.

There is a Swedish saying that "old love never rusts". Given the somewhat tarnished appearance of most of the padlocks, I found that quite funny.

I do hope the love lasts longer than the padlocks.

One day I went to the Gunilla Park to have lunch, sandwiches, on a bench near the Gunilla Fountain.

Talk about a work of art rife with symbolism...


The statue is from the late 40´s. There is some debate over who created it. Various sources claim it was Axel Emil Lindskog, J.E. Lindeskog, or maybe K.B. Bjering.

I got a few shots more while I was in Halmstad, but I'll leave those for another time.

Be seeing you!

Öland Nudes III: Eve

Öland isn't the Garden of Eden, but it is a beautiful island. The landscape is to a large extent open grassland. Here and there you will find small forests of windblown trees.

Eve started out as a jungle theme picture, but I changed my mind early on. I wanted to connect the picture to one of my ongoing series, so it was either adding spiders and turn it into an Arachnophobia picture, or change the setting to Öland, and make it a part of the Öland Nudes series. I chose the latter.

Sometimes I wonder if you have to be lonely to do any kind of artistic work. I wrote my first book in 2008-2010, during a period when I felt very lonely.

Since then, I have found that I am more productive during periods of loneliness and sadness. When life takes a turn for the better, the urge to create does not disappear, but it is muted. Perhaps because I feel I may have a future, may not just survive, but live and be happy, after all.

I started a new job a week ago, and I feel pretty good about it. I'll be busy working, something I really look forward to.

That leaves less time for photography, and all the weird stuff I do to create my pictures. I probably won't have time to write another book either, at least not for some time.

The one project I want to return to and focus on this year, is Alice: Demon's Gate. We'll see if I can manage a full time job, and work on a graphic novel at the same time.

Gothenburg Nudes XII: Naked Juice Bar

The 12th, and probably final picture in the Gothenburg Nudes series. I started the project because I was a bit tired of seeing pictures that objectify women. I wanted to create a series of nude pictures where nude human bodies are just appreciated for what they are: beautiful.

I have done that to the best of my admittedly meager abilities. It is time to move on to something else, unless, of course, I come up with an interesting idea.