This morning David and I went on a little adventure. We were searching for a filming location and had quite a few criterias to pay mind to. I won't tell you all of them but it had to be a railroad track far away from cars, roads and houses.
We started off at a place close to where I used to work some years ago because I thought I remembered the perfect spot for the scene we have in mind.

I came straight from a night at work and hadn't really thought about bringing my camera so all of these photos are taken with my iphone.

We walked along the tracks and found a crossing.

Testing, testing.

Nope, not good enough.
We stood there pondering for a while and then we went back to the car to drive a bit further along the tracks.

This house was on the next, not perfect, stop. Love the grey and sad feel of this place. Who would want to play hoops there? Not me, anyway. But I don't like sports at all so maybe I'm not the right person to ask.

Then we had an idea! Jonsered! It's a small town just outside of Gothenburg and it's so so beautiful there. I think it's one of my favourite places in autumn. You will understand why soon.

Perfect autumn bridge.

Aaaah, the colours!

Man on the roof.

AND LOOK AT THIS!

This place has all the stuff I love to photograph in one spot. The autumn leaves, the bridge, the old industrial waterfall thingies with rust on.

Jonsered used to be a thriving town with lots of factories. Now it's very quiet but they still have use of their many waterfalls producing power.

We found the tracks right next to the beautiful lake but they were above ground! Oh no!

Turned around to walk back.

And then we almost walked past it!

It's perfect! Look how David's pointing. That's happy pointing!

Such a great feeling to have found the location we were looking for. We almost gave up there for a moment.
I was really happy to have gotten a nice autumn walk as well and my phone battery was blinking like crazy so it was high time to go back home.
A Lotta without any type of camera is not a happy Lotta.
Wise words, my friends.

I'll end this post with a photo of a shy mountain holding in it's stomach for the stretched out arms of a curious, cuddly tree.

On our last day at the backpacker place David and I went for an evening walk with our cameras. We had a plan to get some photos of us under the amazing mountains. A memory, sort of.

I set out to position the camera in a tree and find the perfect view for us to be captured in...

First attempt... not so good. Unless half a David was what we were going for, then it would have been perfect.

Now it's starting to look like something!

Just hanging, us and the mountains.

Lotta Heart David.

A kiss was appropriate.

Grab grab...

The sun was setting behind us.

Look at the sun setting in a little bowl on top of the mountain...

I collected some sun flares.

And we started to head back to our little house through the vegetation.

We were suddenly face to face with a white horse.
I think I gasped out loud here, the view was just perfect. I held my breath and took as many photos I could before the horse turned around and walked away. We followed.

And was greeted by a whole bunch of horses standing there in the gorgeous evening light.
What a perfect memory it turned out to be, this last little walk under the blue mountains.

On one of our first days in South Africa we went to Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre. It's a truly amazing place where injured, wild animals gets taken care of and let out in nature again if they are fit for it. Some of the animals won't ever make it in the wild again and they spend the rest of their lives at Moholoholo as ambassadors for their race. School children, tourists and other interested people get to learn all about how human beings have made animal life harder by putting up things like barb wire or sharp fences that the animals get stuck in.
We had a fantastic guide, Oscar, that showed us around, telling us every animals unique story. The eagle with only one wing, the baby rhino stuck in mud...
Oscar was such a great person with an amazing sense of humour making me laugh really hard for two hours! Here's some of the photos from our day there. Enjoy!

Say hello to Mr Pig.
This warthog is free to leave Moholoholo but he doesn't want to. They have left him further and further away but he always comes back again. So now he lives in the parking lot greeting all the people and getting some love in return.

The vultures where really cool! We got to walk into their cage and hang out with them for a while.

Oscar pointing.

The bride to be got to feed one of them.

And the brother of the bride as well.

Large wingspan...

We looked at the lions through the fence.
This male went to sit right next to us and purred loudly. I don't think I've ever heard such a great sound before. Calming, almost hypnotic, and really low pitch. It's hard to understand how a sound as beautiful as that can come from such a dangerous animal.

The leopard didn't purr but was beautiful to look at.

Here's the whole gang. The mountain view in the background following us wherever we went during this trip.

Eye contact with a hyena...

This is the baby rhino saved after several days stuck in the mud. Oscar told us that a tourist passing by saved the rhino from being eaten because human beings have a hard time realising that that's how nature works. Animals are eaten by other animals that need them to survive. That's nature. But because of our "bunny hugging human emotions" we can't take that. That tourist actually took the food from some other baby animal, but that's not a thought that crosses our mind in a situation like that. We just want to save the cute little animal. Interesting, isn't it.

It really is a cute animal though. I even got to pat him on his back!

This beautiful view captured me for a while. Until...

...the bride to be jumped into the picture!

Eye contact with a honey badger.

Oscar telling us all about the honey badgers.

This is a really ferocious animal. They are super clever and really mean just for fun. Still... kind of cute...

And just before the exit I found a flower that had me under it's spell for quite some time.

I really loved this whole experience. Exciting, meaningful and fun -all in one. If you ever happen to be close to Moholoholo, you should definately go visit!

Hello! So, I've been away from the blogosphere for quite some time. I had a good reason for it actually.
I was in South Africa!
A very dear friend of mine was getting married and I went there both as a friend and as a photographer (Old readers of this blog may know her by the name Sydafrika, as I usually call her).
It's been the most amazing few days and my camera is jam packed with photos. South Africa is unbelievably beautiful so you can imagine my camera rarely left my face.

Okay, brace yourself.
Here comes the first of many South Africa posts. This one focusing on the nature surrounding the Backpacker place where we lived.

The day before the wedding David and I went to have a look at the wedding location. It had been raining the entire week. Before we arrived to South Africa there hadn't been any rain at all for 9 months. We came with the Swedish weather apparently... The nature was very happy and every tree and plant around came to life.
We heard that the weather was going to brighten upo on the day of the wedding and we really hoped the rumours were true...

South Africa turned out to be a lot cooler than we expected but it didn't really matter. Their spring is a bit like our autumn and I love autumn! It was very hot a few days though so we got to experience the entire weather spectra with sun, heat, wind, storm, drizzle and heavy rain.
One thing I really loved was the colours of nature. So many earth tones; blue, lilac and brown. The colours of the mountains ever changing, sometimes covered by foggy clouds and sometimes the air was all clear and it felt like you could see every bump and rock.
It is so hard to explain to you but I hope the pictures can show you some of the beauty we've seen.

Now I'm off to the first work shift after we came home from the trip. It feels kind of surreal to be back in Gothenburg. One thing is for sure: I have missed my bed and my shower!