After spending most of the night working on technical issues, I went back to bed at 6 am just for a nap, and slept until almost 10! While I was annoyed at missing my free breakfast at the hotel, I figured I needed the rest.

Happily, my gastric drama has not returned, and apart from a minor amount of lingering jetlag wooziness, I felt just terrific yesterday as I made my initial explorations of Stockholm.

Real Men Push Strollers

And in Stockholm, they seem to do it WAY more than women. I see three or four men alone with children for every woman I see with the little darlings. I wonder why this is?

Dude, Your Time at the Gym Has Been Well Spent

I don’t know how to say that in Swedish, but this is what I wanted to say to several buff Vikings that I saw today. Particularly the one on the Tunnelbana. (No, that’s not Eric’s little brother, it’s what they call the subway here.) He was wearing a long sleeve pullover shirt and you could still see the veins on his bulging arms. You know, through the shirt. Which would have made an impression on me if I wasn’t only and exclusively interested on what’s on the inside of a person. Everyone knows this about me.

Courage?

I don’t usually think of myself as a courageous person. True, I did see “Shoah” at an actual movie theater, by choice, and actually sat through the first four hours of it. But when it comes to real courage, I don’t think so. I’d be the worst soldier ever. I’d cry. I’d desert. On the first day.

However, I would posit that it does take a certain brand of something like courage to go to a foreign country, alone, where you don’t speak the language, and navigate the cities, hop on and off subways without getting lost, and just generally coping in an alien landscape without freaking out. And whatever that oddball kind of courage is, I definitely have it. It’s scary, but it’s a fun kind of scary.

♫ And people ride in a hål in the jord ♫

I’ve been doing it since my twenties, so I guess I’m used to it and have a certain confidence. This is my ninth trip abroad since 1987. I wonder if some people would find it so daunting they wouldn’t go. You know, like me facing the prospect of going to the movies at the Americana in Glendale.

HEY I’m on a boat!

Stockholm is a magnificent city built on hundreds of islands. There are fourteen major ones. It’s really like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s like Venice writ large. You’re never more than a dwarf’s toss from the water here.

I took two delightful boat rides today! The first was to a tiny island where I had a lovely peaceful ramble for an hour.

The second was a circumnavigation of Kungsholmen (King’s Island), the island my hotel is on. Boat tours are peaceful and relaxing. I love them.

Town Hall just LOVES my wide angle lens.

Just How Many Spherical Buildings Are There, Actually?

Next I took a fun jaunt up to the top of the world’s largest spherical building. (Didn’t know there was a contest, did you?) It’s called the Ericsson Globe, and it’s a sports and entertainment venue. Very nice photo op on top full stop.

Lens-o-Rama

I’m already VERY glad I purchased the Sigma wide angle lens for the camera. It’s doubled my shooting potential very clearly, as the shots it can get are so utterly different from the ones I get with the Nikkor zoom. Today was a good day of practicing switching out the lenses. I’m getting better at it on the fly.

Exhausting but wonderful day!

Authentic Troll Door. My ancient Runic Swedish is pretty rudimentary, but I believe the first few words carved into the door are something like, "If the mountain's a-rockin'..." — Authentic Troll Door. My ancient Runic Swedish is pretty rudimentary, but I believe the first few words carved into the door are something like, “If the mountain’s a-rockin’…”

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So. The last time I was fortunate enough to visit Europe, I took lots of lovely pictures all over the place. (See Spring Forward in this blog.)

However, there were many great photos I could NOT get because I did not have a wide-angle lens with me. I kicked myself over and over for making this mistake, and vowed to not make it again. (Always make NEW mistakes when possible, that’s my motto.)

So here’s my super sexy Sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens:

I love it real bad already.

Don’t get me wrong; the Nikkor 55-200 zoom I already have is a perfectly terrific lens, and it’ll be going with me on the trip as well. But it’s good for focusing in on things that are far away, like my youth and my dreams. You need a wide angle lens to get the more epic vistas you stumble onto while wandering around cultures that are more than 200 years old.

This new Sigma has two unique properties. First, it takes pictures that are inherently more dramatic than ones taken with a conventional lens. Let me give you a couple of examples.

Here’s my handsome friend Max on my balcony, shot with the Nikkor zoom:

And here’s what he looks like shot with the Sigma:

Another example: Here’s the elevator in my building, taken with the Nikkor:

And here’s what it looks like with the Sigma wide angle lens:

Now, if you’re not a trained photographer, you may have trouble telling the differences in the two sets of photos. To help you, I’ll put them side by side, with the old Nikkor lens images on the left, and the new Sigma lens images on the right:

Look very closely. Can you see how the images on the right just seem to pop a little more? I know the effect is subtle, but I notice it and it makes me happy.

The other cool thing the lens does is that it allows me to peer into the actual souls of the people I’m photographing. At least that’s what the brochure says. I look forward to experimenting with this feature, and I’ll keep you posted!

Comments welcome!

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