Hey there!


With a good friend of mine I went to Kalmar-Sweden to pick up his sister who had been studying there for half a year and had too much stuff to take with a plane...girls...[:P]We made a 3 day trip, first we went to Copenhagen-Denmark, the second day we went to Kalmar-Sweden and the 3rd day was the way back. I finally had some time to look into my photos and here's a little story, with some of them [] (All photos are shot with a 5D2 and 24-105 f4L)


Alright...friday june 4th we drove away towards Copenhagen. First we had to take the boat from Germany to Denmark:





f5.6 ISO-100 1/200th


Around 15ooh we arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark. After a quick sign-in at our hostel we took our gear and walked towards the towncentre. On our way we saw typical Danish buildings:


f20 ISO-50 1/20th


My buddie really wanted to see the little mermaid statue, which is famous around the world. A lot of tourists there. While walking there we went trough this park called Kastellet which was actually an old military fortress. From satellite view it looks like a star. There was a very typical mill in there:





f8 ISO-100 3-exposures HDR


So then we arrived at the statue of the little mermaid...at least that's what we though...actually it was moved to Shanghai for the world world expo haha[:P]


So we decided to walk to the town-centre and on our way there we walked trough a park. Amazing, everywhere were groups of people hanging out barbecuing and drinking beer in the park. Very funny sight, those Danes are very relaxt! There was also another Slot called: Rosenburg Slot:





f5.6 ISO-200 1/640th 1-shot converted to a 3-exposure HDR


It was funny to see how clean it all was. People barbecuing and drinking, but when they left they cleaned after themselves. Dutch people could learn from it!


So we arrived at the centre of the capital and as real tourists [:P]we enjoyed the local indians playing their music:





f5.6 ISO-200 1/200th


All in front of this amazing building(I believe it was the city townhall):





f5.6 ISO-200 1/800th


People were sitting everywhere, there were some skaters doing some tricks, but mostly people were just enjoying the start of the weekend by drinking beer together, really they all bring their own beer. Probably because it's very expensive due to high taxes on alcohol in cafe's and bars. So as we kept on walking sun began to set:





f5.6 ISO-100 1/500





f10 ISO-200 3-exposure HDR


So we decided we were going to keep shooting for a moment for the sunset, go eat something and return for some nightphotography:





f5.6 ISO-200 30sec exposure (around 2245h)





f5.6 ISO-200 3-exposure HDR (shot at 2250h)


We kept on doing this until 0030h then we went back to our hostel and went to sleep. The funny thing is that I've never felt so comfortable among drinking people at night...those Danes are really relaxed! I know for sure I won't be feeling like that anywhere in Amsterdam at night [A]


The next day we went off to Kalmar, Sweden. My friends sister had been studying there. We needed to travel across a bridge from Denmark to Sweden:





f5.6 ISO-200 1/5000th putting my arm and camera outside a driving car []


Oh I also want to share some typical scenery shots from Denmark and Sweden:





f5.6 ISO-200 1/2000 again while driving.





f5.6 ISO-200 1/1600th same story...these fields seemed endless, really really cool!


Unfortunately we haven't had time to really enjoy scenery because we needed to drive a lot [] One day I'll go back and focus on more nature shots, those landscapes are awesome!


Ok that afternoon we arrived in Kalmar, Sweden. It's originally a harbour-city which fills up with student during the year untill the summer when students make place for tourists [:P]


When we picked up my friends sister we went downtown Kalmar to do a photoshoot with her as a memory. Hihi 1 girl and 2 photographers makes quite a scene. I can't post photos of it though. First off we went to the Castle of Kalmar:





f4 ISO-100 3-exposure HDR


And some other sights:





f5 ISO-100 3-exposure HDR


A good example of the contrast: old classical castle vs new harbor on the right:





f5 ISO-100 3-exposure HDR


It became a little windy and we were done shooting the girl, so we went back to our temporary dormrooms to pick up some clothes and on the way there we walked into a very typical Swedish alley:





f10 ISO-100 3-exposure HDR


A typical Swedish house:





f10 ISO-100 1/100th


All houses have these pretty colors and it looks so much better than the brick buildings back in the Netherlands [:P] That night we went out to a bar so I didn't take my camera.


The next day we went back, last view from the boat on Denmark:





f5.6 ISO-100 1/800th


And one happy (and still energetic at that moment)guy:





f7.1 ISO-100 1/500


I was really happy when we were back home, it was an exhausting, but great weekend!


I definitely want to go back there sometime and take more time to enjoy nature. This was more of a city-trip, but I still enjoyed it very much. I can recommend anyone around here to go there if you have the chance, nature is great and still available in great proportions. Culture is also very well reserved. Scandinavia is a place where everyone should have been once in their lives []


Oh and about the myth...it's true!! Scandinavian girls are really and I mean really attractive []


I apologize for the length of my post if it was too much [] Thanks for reading/watching!


Jan