Greetings friends. We have been in search of snow for awhile now. Due to the lack of snow we have created a flickr group to share our snow photos. These photos don't have to be from Sweden, in fact just send us any snow photos at all. They can be scenic, outside of your homes,sking,playing,snowman making etc. We just want to see the white stuff.
In Sweden we buy around 3,000,000 Christmas trees every year. A tree costs around 200 Swedish crowns which gives 60,000,000 crowns or about $ 8,000,000 USD. The price of a Christmas tree changes depending where in Sweden it is bought. In smaller cities it could cost around 100 SEK and in the center of Stockholm it could cost up to 600 SEK. 92% of all families with smaller children have a Christmas tree. Compared to families without children, at just 42%
Most families bring home the tree around St. Lucia while others wait until the day before Christmas to buy it, and bring it home to decorate . There it will stand inside until January 13th , Tjugondag Knut. This is the traditional day for taking down all Christmas decorations, undress the tree, dance around it and give all dancers a small bag of candy.
Now the trees will warm people up when burning the in the fire place or in the big central incinerator.
Here in Stockholm, the town arranges a place where people can leave their trees. From here they will be transported and burned down. People leave them as they are or pack them in big plastic bags. For all of those falling pine needles , many people opt for the plastic bag. We opt for the vacuum cleaner.
So on this day of Tjugondag Knut remember to eat all of your left over cookies and enjoy this last moment of Christmas. Goodbye Christmas until next year!
When the Edays executives met with the local press in Savannah, GA on January 7, the topic was doing business between the U.S. and Sweden. Now in its 11th year, the fifth version of the Entrepreneurial Days to come to the United States will take place April 20-22 in Savannah. "Think of it as a launching pad to make solid business connections," said Brynn Grant, executive director of The Creative Coast Alliance, a sponsor of the event. The goal of the three-day event is to bring together U.S. and Swedish companies to promote trade and partnerships. By using a wide network and contact-generating tools and methods, the Swedish American chambers ensure that products, services and information are presented in the right way to the right people. Grant said the technique is "a lot more productive than the typical conference where you sit by yourself in seminars and hope you meet up with at least one person that your company can work with. This way you have more opportunities to develop actual business contacts that you can use," Grant said.
Our own Per Svangren is in search of snow in Stockholm.
When I was a child there were always white winter. The snow cam e in December and stayed until April. The lakes were frozen and when we had winter breaks from school we always would go sking or skating. Nowadays , this is only possible on man-made ice rinks and ski slopes.
Is this true or is it just my imagination?
If you study statistical figures, you can see that the average temperature in Stockholm is getting higher and higher. During the last 250 years it has raised over 6 degrees. So it is not just my imagination.
This year we got our first snow in November and it stayed only a few days. After that our next snow was last week and this time it is still on the ground. The reason for this being the -10 degrees celsius outside. Today we are seeing above zero temperatures and the last of our friend , the snow. So we will say goodbye for now and wait to see if we will get anymore this winter.
I must mention that there is plenty of the white stuff in Northern Sweden. At least my countrymen and women living in the north are able to enjoy the spendid joys of Winter.
In celebration of our love of snow we have created a group on our flickr account. Please upload your photos to share with us how you spend your time in the snow or you wonderful landscape shots of snow. Anything snow goes. Just click on the flickr icon to find us.
There is something truly magical when you pick up a camera for the first time and see what you saw. It is even more mesmerizing when one takes a journey into a darkroom to watch the photos magically appear in the solution. Even today in this age of digital photography, I immediately look to see how the photo turned out. Often times I am completely surprised at what turns up on the screen.
I had the pleasure of viewing a film which captures these moments . Jan Troell's film, Everlasting Moments makes a difficult situation easier with the aid of a camera.
Based on the real-life story of Troell's wife's grandmother, the film takes us through the life of Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen, in a remarkable performance), a belabored mother of a large brood in the early days of the 20th century who finds renewed passion and intellectual independence through a Contessa camera she wins in a lottery. The camera sits for many years unused until one day, Maria takes it into the shop of the local photographer, Sebastien Pederson (Jesper Christensen), to sell it to help pay the rent.
The kindly Pederson shows Maria how to use the camera, and once she starts using it, she begins to see the world through a whole new lens. Finding herself unable to resist continuing to learn and improve her eye as a photographer, Maria becomes obsessed with capturing the little moments of life around her through the miraculous ability to capture living moments in still images.
Although life with perpetually abusive, drunken and philandering husband Sigge (Mikael Persbrandt) is a constant challenge, Maria finds through her photography a measure of independence and dignity that frees her mentally from the grimness of her situation. Soon she finds herself something of a village celebrity, being called upon to capture with her camera everything from Christmas photos of entire families to the Victorian death portrait of a child.
The film, like much of Troell's work, is epic in scope, focusing on working class people against the backdrop of the socialist revolution, worker strikes, poverty and the Great War; at the same time, this film is very intimate and personal, telling the story of this one woman against the broader canvas. Beautifully shot in a muted tone that evokes both the time period and its working-class setting, the film captures both the beauties and tragedies in the lives of Maria and her children, while the finely structured narrative connects the audience with the courageous, deeply empathetic Maria.
The film is very difficult to watch at times; Troell immerses us in Maria's life, in particular her relationship with her violent husband, and it's a bit of an emotional challenge to watch this otherwise intelligent, vibrant woman continue to stay with a man who beats her in violent jealous rages while pursuing other women himself, and even threatening to kill her in front of their children. Fortunately, though, Maria's spunk and spirit are always at the forefront of the tale, and Troell's expert storytelling and some outstanding performances combine to keep the film from feeling overly bleak.
It is up for a 2009 Golden Globe Award for Foreign Language Film. The film premiered during Bergmansveckan on the island of Gotland, in June 2008.
Jan Troell
photo taken by Mihkelsoe
Jan Troell (born July 23, 1931 in Limhamn outside Malmö, Sweden) is an Academy Award-nomiated Swedish film director. Usually, Troell writes his own scripts and serves as his own director of photography. His realistic films with a lyrical photography in which nature is prominent have placed him in the first rank of modern Swedish film directors along with Ingmar Bergman and Bo Widerberg, the former considered best of the three.
Troell's major work in the 1970s became The Emigrants (Utvandrarna, 1971) and its sequel The New Land (Nybyggarna, 1972), two epic films about some peasants emigrating from the barren Swedish countryside to America in the 19th century. Once again, Troell films were based upon the novels of a Swedish working-class author, in this case Vilhelm Moberg's famous Emigrants suite. As in many of Troell's films, Max von Sydow plays one of the major roles. The Emigrants was nominated for several Academy Awards
Troell has also made documentaries, for instance Land of Dreams (Sagolandet, 1988), dealing with modern society's alienation from nature and A Frozen Dream (En frusen dröm, 1997) in which he once again brings up Andrée's polar expedition.
Even in his seventies, Troell remains productive. His recent films include As White as in Snow (Så vit som en snö, 2001), based on the life of Swedish aviatrix Elsa Andersson, a documentary called Presence (Närvarande, 2003), and his latest film Everlasting Moments (Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick, 2008).
To the left: Director Margarethe von Trotta on a tour around Fårö. Photo: Jannike Åhlund To the right: Agneta Ulsäter-Troell, Jan Troell, and their daugther Yohanna Troell stayed for the whole week, taking part of the programme and seeing Fårö. Photo: Jannike Åhlund
To the left: Writer Mikael Timm introduces the radio play Vox Humana, at Gamlehamn’s rauks. Photo: Lova Hagerfors To the right: Opening night at Lauters. Photo: Lova Hagerfors
To the left: Outside Roy Cinema, audience waiting to see Jan Troell’s Maria Larsson’s Everlasting Moment. Photo: Noomi Riedel To the right: A stop at the bus tour to Bergman locations. The visitors are watching a scene from Persona, at a monitor in the car trunk, shot exactly where they are standing. Photo: Noomi Riedel
To the left: Four of Bergman Week’s guests, Stig Björkman, Birgitta Steene, Egil Törnqvist, and Mikael Timm. Photo: Jannike Åhlund To the right: The Björsson family, visitors who won the Ingmar Bergman Quiz. Photo: Jannike Åhlund
To the left: Jan Troell. Photo: Noomi Riedel To the right: Jörn Donner in Fårö Church, making his opening speech for Bergman Week. Photo: Noomi Riedel
To the left: Exhibition at Kustateljén, around Bergman’s The Ghost Sonata, with, among other things, costume sketches by Anna Bergman, and the dress actress Gunnel Lindblom wore at Dramaten. Photo: Lova Hagerfors To the right: Allan Ekelund, born in the same year as Bergman, and the production manager of 18 of Bergman’s films. Photo: Jannike Åhlund
Sadly this weekend we said a fond farewell to our friend Rebecca who returned back to Sweden. The last three months were so much fun and we have so many wonderful memories. Goodbye was hard for all of us to say and we had some precipitation and leaking eyes. Never mind smiles were found again when Rebecca got off the plane in Stockholm to greet her family, friends, and her dog Diesel.
Stockholm is looking for snow in a big way. It is in the forecast for today, tomorrow, and Monday but there hasn't really been a great snow in Stockholm this year. To help all of my Stockholmer friends out, I've decided to create an array of snowflakes. So everybody here's some snow .
You can do this too....on your very own. Have a look at this tutorial on instructables and have some fun playing in the snow.
Here is a little added bonus on the snow theme or at least on the frozen water theme. Here is a short look at the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto. By taking a photographic look at water crystals, he was able to determine the mysterious effects that music and words have on water. See for yourself.
It isn't often that we have the oppotunity to take a walk early in the morning. On this special occasion we were treated to the rising sun and the frost left on the trees. These two things can absolutly make your day and the feeling lasts for a very long time. We also found a Christmas rose in the forest. Well it was frosted, but waiting for the sun to warm it up. Please share this moment with us here in Gotland enjoying all the winter pictures. We wish you a very Happy New Year filled with moments of wonder!