High Chapparall, Sweden

[2007-11-13]

July 2007 The Swedish Tourist Board produces an annual book. Every year has different themes. Next year´s book will be about parks. High Chaparrall is the oldest theme park in Sweden, started by “Big Bengt” Erlandsson in 1966. “Big Bengt”, who is now 85 years old, has always been fascinated by the Wild West. In the mid-fifties he made a road trip with some friends to the classic historical spots on the North American prairie and some years later he bought a few thousand telephone poles from “Televerket”. They were used to build his first fortress. Today, the park´s annual turnaround is app. 6 million € ! In a three months season, not bad for an old cowboy ! I am proud to have had the honor to talk to him for a few hours and was quite a bit surprised to discover the vast Swedish interest in “the Wild West”.

Digital Workshops in Sylarna, Sweden

[2007-11-12]
March 2007 Together with Tina Grimstedt, digital photo teacher, I ran two 5 days workshops at the mountain station Sylarna. Despite very bad weather with snowstorm for almost two weeks the courses were filled with enthusiastic participants who spent most of the days on the mountain performing their daily tasks. Late afternoons and evenings were spent in front of their computers downloading files and doing post production. If you learn how to work in these conditions you can work in any kind of weather.

Langkawi and Borneo, Malaysia

RES Magazine

On assignment for RES I went to Malaysia with my writing collegue Cenneth Sparby. Our plan was to spend a few days on the island of Langkawi on the west coast, checking out the beaches and the mangrove areas before going to Borneo to hike through the rain forest and climb Mount Kinabalu at 4095 m and then on to Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre and Turtle Islands to visit the rangers who work for the preservation of the endangered Green Turtle. Putting out baby turtles from the hatchery into the sea was almost like watching babies being born. Malaysia was a bit of a surprise to me. Most people are fairly bilingual with English as a second language, so it was easy getting in contact with people everywhere. Traffic was pretty easy too, no crazy driving, and people very friendly like in most Asian countries. Superb food everywhere in all price levels mostly quite inexpensive with Western standards in mind. Most of all, nature was amazing, so astoundingly beautiful, from beaches to rain forest to Mount Kinabalu. I want to go back!