Last week i had the pleasure to meet a wonderful couple that are going to get married in May. The wedding festivities are going to last for several days and will take place in two different cities, there will be a lot of guests, a lot of colors and a lot of music and dance; an indian wedding!!!
On the way to the place where the reception will be, we stopped for a while at the Steninge slott to take some pictures. It was only for a some 10-15 minutes, and the sun had almost set but it was enough to plan a little about the couple’s photo session during the ceremony day.
Nisha and Abbas, we are so much looking forward your wedding day!

Every year we have the pleasure to meet a lot of wedding couples and we are honored to photograph them during their wedding day!
Well, during that day hundreds, even thousands of pictures are taken, and it is always interesting to compare afterwards our own favourite ones with the couple’s favourites.

It’s always one particular picture though that i, myself, connect to the particular couple. It is this very picture that will pop up in my mind every time we happen mention them with Mia long time later, or we get a telephone call from them, or their name is mentioned from another bride whom we have been recommended to by them.

Why does this happen? Well, maybe because of the way or the difficulty for the photo to be taken, maybe because of something said exactly the moment it was taken, or maybe because the picture mirrors perfectly who the couple really were (as far as we got to know them at least, in the hours we had met them).

One such couple was Xiaolu and Michael, that came all the way from Switzerland and chose the Haga Slott for their wedding festivities. During the previous day i had seen the personnel decorating part of the upper floor for the next day’s reception and it looked stunning. You see, there should be touches from both the bride’s and the bridegroom’s cultures. Next morning, during photographing the bride’s preparations i asked her if she had planned the decoration herself, but she answered she didn’t have a clue how it would look like. She was going to see it just before the reception, with all the other guests also coming in, as a surprise. And yes, she was so anxious and maybe a little nervous!

When it was time for the reception that evening, i was standing some 5-6 meters away from the entrance, on the top of the stairs where the guests would come from. The personnel were also there in a line, welcoming everybody. First came the couple, passed in front of me while being photographed and continued towards the closed door. I kept photographing the guests coming up the stairs and just for a couple of seconds turned towards the wedding couple to photograph them from behind when they would enter the room. I managed three shots before i turned again towards the guests.
I had a feeling for these pictures. Some time later that evening i was able to look back at those photos on the back display of the camera and, there it was!
The first two of them were the back of the couple while opening the door but at the third i had the bride’s face who suddenly had turned back towards her parents, with pure happiness and surprise on her face (and a little scream) and also the face of the bridegroom, with all the love and the satisfaction of seeing his wife so happy!

The photos that follow give a glimpse of the reception decoration.

Speed dating is not only for singles who care so much for their careers that they don’t have enough time for finding a partner.
It works as well when more than a hundred business-men and -women have only some minutes to meet all the other attendants at a congress and make their contacts, introduce themselves, present their business and leave their business cards.

This is exactly what happened at the Alcea house in Åkersberga, during the Näringslivsdagen 2011. It was organised by the municipality of Österåker and lots of local representatives of the economical and trading world were also invited. Of course that was not the only thing that happened there; the mayor  Michaela Fletcher Sjöman adressed the guests, many of the attendants presented their company and the way to their success, diplomas were awarded and lunch for all the congress-participants was offered.

The “Essence Vitae” is a project that our fellow photographer Juliana Wiklund started almost a year ago. Through this project a group of a little more than fifty photographers from all over the country are meeting families with small children to photograph them, families where at least one member has some fatal disease. The aim of the picture is to preserve the memories of the whole family together, especially when really young children are involved

There are no words to describe the feelings, the love and the happiness in these families, although the last one sounds more as an oxymoron! Just visit the site of the project, have a look at the photo galleries and read the stories, as told by the families themselves, and you will understand…

It’s a honor for us to be part of this project!

” … Stort tack för bilden! Den är en obeskrivlig dröm och jag är så glad att det här blev verklighet. Det var verkligen ett fem minuters fönster i mitt liv där denna dröm kunde bli en bild och du har verkligen lyckats med den! Jag vet inte hur jag ska kunna tacka dig. Bilden är nu utprintad och inramad som ett minne för livet. TACK så mycket för att du gjorde detta möjligt!

God fortsättning och igen stort och evigt tack för att du kunde göra det här möjligt!

med vänliga hälsningar
Martin ”

ps; the copyright © of the photo belongs to the Nobel Foundation.

It has been more than a month since the last time we added a new post in our blog. It has looked rather empty and quite here but, boy, it has happened a lot!

To start with, we had the grate pleasure and the honor to be the official photographers for the Nobel Foundation, for the 4th year on the row, and photograph the festivities around the Nobel prizes award ceremony and the Banquet 2011!
“Our” Nobel-week started on Friday the 2nd of December, with a meeting at the Foundation, to go through the following week’s schedule in detail and to get all the necessary papers, invitations and contact information for free access to the places where things were going to happen.
The following week meant covering photographically the arrival of one of the Laureates and his family at the Arlanda airport’s VIP service, their arrival at the Grand Hotel, the welcome meeting of all the Laureates at the Nobel Museum, the receptions of the Laureates at the Karolinska Institute and at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel lectures in chemistry, physics and ekonomic sciences in Aula Magna, the reception at the Nordiska museum, the preparations, ceremony and banquet at the Concert House and the City Hall.
The Nobel week finished on Monday the 12th, with the group photo of all the Leaureates (including the 3 ladies who share the Nobel Peace Prize and had just arrived from Oslo) at the house of the Nobel Foundation.

As if all the above was not enough we photographed in the Norrtälje prison for the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, we took part and photographed the Business Day in Österåker which was organised by the community, scuba-dived at Täby, desugned and delivered the wedding albums of our couples of this year and lots more.

For all the above, separate posts and slideshows are coming at the blog the following days.

Special mention with a coming post has to be made for a photo-project that we are members with real honor and humbleness;
the Essence Vitae !

Last week, the biggest wedding magazine in Sweden featured the 4-day indian wedding of Fatima and Salim in 4 pages.

It’s always joy to see own pictures published in magazines but it’s also a pity that not even more photos found their place in the magazine’s pages since the wedding – and the wedding couple of course – were simply … spectacular!

(for those who would like to see some more of those photos you can visit the following links to previous posts here, here, here, here and here)

SUs högtid i Stadshuset.

Since the first photo was taken, some 150 years ago, there have been a lot of discussions about if the photo is “lying” or not.
Well of course it can lie, as well as it can show the raw truth.

But it can also say only … half the truth without lying!

The above photo was taken the 30th of September in the City Hall of Stockholm, during the yearly ceremony of the Stockholm University awarding the new doctoral awards.
The ceremony takes place yearly in front of some 1.000 guests, the leading of the University as well as the leaders of other Universities of the Scandinavian countries, other high academics and politicians, guests of honour from other countries and, of course, the new doctors with their closest relatives. The ceremony is pompus and everybody is dressed in tails and evening dresses.

Well, the idea of everybody there watching the film “the Lion King” was more than intriguing to me; “just show the photo without any comments!” )

But of course this was actually not the case!
The photo from the film was shown on the big screen for just a few seconds, during the speech of Dr Hillevi Ganetz about the use of the role of genders in the film industry.

The idea of everybody watching the Lion King was too tantalising not to “say half the truth”!

By the way, for all of you who attended the ceremony that evening, as well for anybody else interested in, the photos of the ceremony can be found here.