Snapper for lunch: Photographers and hard labour

Sunday 21 February 2010

Photographers and hard labour

My dad trying to shift the relentless snow, sometime around midnight, in the middle of a 3-day snow storm. © Magnus Andersson

Wahey! I made it back to London in one piece but I have to say that I am really missing the snow. Upon landing at Stansted it was miserable, pissing down with rain.

Back to Sweden: with snow comes a lot of snow-shifting and this is done manually, i.e., we all have to chip in to shift the snow. If we don't, we simply won't get anywhere. This means hard labour, and during my stay we did the shifting at least four times a day just to keep our drive clear, because the snow just didn't stop.

That's my dad up there (top) and to be honest, he did most of the shifting, and I did most of the 'documentary' photography. Photographers are of no use when hard labour is required.

But snow also comes with a free license to create mischief. Ebba and Alice, my two little nieces, ran me ragged with snowball fights. Pure pleasure, no matter what my aching body tells me now.

Now that I'm back in London I had a look through the files and realised that I had a couple of shots that will stand up to comparison. The angles are not quite the same but it doesn't matter.

The first one is from Christmas '09 and the second one is from this weekend - a mere 2 months apart. I like the snowy one, even though it involves shifting of the white stuff.

Now I'm just hoping that I wont catch the stomach bug that one of my nieces had last night. At least its not the winter vomiting bug because I'm not feeling anything at the moment (famous last words).