Look Up!

I noticed this Super Dimona motor glider while having coffee on the veranda a couple of days ago. I ran for the camera and managed to get a few quick shots. The aircraft registration on this plane is a good one, as SE-UPH also means Look up! This plane is normally used to get a glider airborne. The plane belongs to Stockholms Segelflygklubb and I emailed them a link to my flickr photo, and figured they would like it. They said they did.

Skywatch Friday.

The Passionate Photographer

I noticed a guy with a camera near the Björklund horse farm in Västerhaninge a while back as I came down the gravel road on my bike, so I stopped and asked what he was shooting. Just testing out the new camera was his answer. This is Stefano. He is from Italy. He moved to Sweden from Rome six years ago. When I gave him my card he had one look at it and said, aha so you are Steffe, I have seen your photos. Stefano is very passionate about photography. He shoots with three cameras. One Nikon, one Pentax and now also with the new Olympus E30.

That Old Tree

I realised recently that I hadn't shown you the old tree for a while. So I yesterday I headed that way. And met these two guys. Bengt and Arne were busy putting together this model aircraft so I decided to stick around for a while to see what might happen. This was a brand new plane they told me. It costed around 2000 SEK. There was another plane in one of their cars and a bunch of tools. We used to fly model air-crafts when we were kids they told me. But nothing like this. After ten minutes of preparations it was time to play. I walked away a bit and was ready with the zoom lens to capture the first flight. Unfortunately the propeller wasn't correctly secured so the flight was very short! The guys had to walk back to the car to try and fix the problem so I never saw the thing fly.

Paulina

Whenever I shoot a portrait of someone I have never met before, I always try to get a story. This one will be a bit different. I spotted Paulina at a bus stop in Handen on the same day as I met Kristina Matilda. I asked her if I could take a photo and she happily agreed. But then we noticed the bus coming and gave up on the shoot, only to realise that it wasn't her bus! By then I was already moving away, but turned around and we started over. Normally I will get the facts first, but on this occasion I gave Paulina my card and started shooting. Unfortunately for me Paulina's bus did arrive ten seconds later. So I only got her name, but who knows maybe I will see her again some day.

Cool Chopper

I visited the Easy Rider Festival in Handen on Saturday. Held at the same place as the car meet the weekend before. The place was crowded with bikers and cool bikes. Like this green chopper from Carolina MC from Stockholm. It's a Triumph from 1968.They have a great motto in this biker club. Laugh, enjoy a beer and be happy. The chopper belongs to Ratte. My friend Jim took an unusual vertical panorama photo of this bike.

Crazy Headwear Day

The rule says that I must take a photo of these types of things (deeley boppers). So that's what I did when I spotted Kristoffer (from Stockholm), and Benjamin (from Gotland), in Handen last week. This is apparently how you look when you are a first year student at The Royal Institute of Technology . Three years from now these guys will graduate from the Haninge campus as high school engineers.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Despite some camera trouble I did get quite a few good photos at the cruiser meet as you might have seen during the last few days. I could go on and show you a photo every now and then, but I decided that it was better to finish with one typical photo and a slideshow with around 80 photos. This guy here sure loves the smell of burning rubber. He was out on the street for about one hour "helping out" anyone that wanted to play. The police came by once or twice, but there was never any trouble.

And the winner is...

There's always a contest at the cruiser meet at Vegabaren for best hairstyle. You normally need a lot of brylcreem to win that title. If you are very clever (and I know that some of you are), you might figure out who out of these three dudes participated in that contest.

Skull and Crossbones Tattoo

There were many dressed-up women at the cruiser meet, some of them hoping to win the title Best Dressed Raggarbrud, a contest that Annika (seen on this blog the other day), had won two years running. This is probably one of the more photogenic babes. Her name is Anna, and it's hard not to notice that skull tattoo on her leg, I certainly didn't. Anna lives in Handen and I have met her before. In case you are wondering, Anna drives a beautiful white Cadillac. There was a professional photographer at the meet. Per-Olof Sännås. He is currently working on a book about raggare, and he took a very cool photo of Anna where she is lying in the grass with a classic car in the background and this tattoo was the main focus. No name on Anna's friend, but I have a very cool photo of her at flickr.

Ford Galaxie 500

One word can describe this car. Wow. Probably my favorite from the cruiser meet. This is a 1964 Ford Galaxie 500. And what a color it has. The owner was busy all day telling people all about this car. I had a closer look at the steering wheel and decided to take a photo of the chrome skull steering wheel spinner knob.

The Girl in the Black Polka Dot Dress

Last summer I took a photo of this girl at the cruiser meet that I titled The girl in the red dress. This year she wore a black polka dot dress. After I had taken this photo I gave her a real surprise when I handed her one of my MOO mini-cards that featured her in that red dress! She and a friend walked away looking very happy and surprised.

To the Batmobile!

I spent around five hours at the annual cruiser meet at Vegabaren in Handen on Saturday. People from all over Sweden had gathered for a few hours of fun. This event has been around for sixteen years and attracts people that love American cars from the 1950s and 1960s. Fans of Elvis, and rockabilly music. And people that enjoy dressing up, and of course many photographers. I took a few hundred photos and will try to show some of the best here over the next week. I will start with the a surprise because I hadn't expected to meet Batman here. The man with the long blonde hair is Leif Garwin. He is a sculptor,car builder, designer, painter, musician and singer! It costed him 8 000 000 SEK to build the Batmobile.

Petra

The cultural collective Levande Zon arranges theatre productions and musical events at Gula Villan (The Yellow House), in Haninge. This year they got a cultural scholarship from the municipality. It was presented during the Haninge Day celebrations last Saturday. This is one of the two women from the collective that were at hand to receive the award. Meet Petra. She is an art student at Ågesta folk high school. She is from Haninge, but will now move in to a collective apartment in Tyresö. I had hoped to photograph Petra and her friend Sanna during Haninge Day, but missed them when two of my friends arrived, so when I spotted Petra outside the cultural centre on a few days later I decided to ask her for a portrait.

A Girl With a Whip

I spotted a blonde girl with a whip in Jordbro a while back. That's always interesting :-) This is Jennifer. She was on her way to the riding school in Tungelsta, and as her bus was a few minutes away we had time for a chat and a photo. Jennifer is currently without a job as she graduated from Secondary School earlier in the summer, and as horse back riding is her big hobby she has plenty of time to pursuit that interest. Surprisingly she hadn't visited the old tree on her horse back riding around Tungelsta.

The President

This is Johan. He is a history buff. His preferred dressing style is the fashion of the 1940s, and it was his outfit (and bag), that caught my eye when I noticed him in Handen. He was in a hurry and had a train to catch, but was kind enough to give me a few minutes of his time. Johan's big history interest dates back a bit more than seventy years. He is the President of Albrecht's Handgonnes. A living history society that focuses on King Albrecht of Mecklenburg's Swedish reign (1364-1389). It's a non-religious and non-political group that enjoys re-enactments of the life in a group of royal handgunners during the last 50 years of the fourteenth century. If you would like to know more about this check out their informative web site. Johan, who is planning a move to a new apartment in Uppsala (where his girlfriend studies at the University), is a trained Medieval archaeologist, but at the moment he works as a personal assistant.