Stockholm, Sweden's chic riverside capital, has to be one of my favorite places to visit as a photographer. Built on 14 islands connected by 57 bridges, each neighborhood possesses its own charm and distinct character.
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| Boulevard Strandvägen in Östermalm, Stockholm Sweden. Copyright © 2011 Marianne A. Campolongo. Buy a print here. |
Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s beautifully preserved old town, is a place out of time. Its charming streets and crooked alleys are filled with shops and cafes housed in pastel-colored buildings that shine in the summer sunshine. Despite several trips to Europe, it’s still hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that people actually live and work in buildings that have been standing for hundreds of years. At the Royal Palace, an impressive baroque fortress on the north of the island, I snapped some photos of the Royal Guard, resplendent in their bright-blue uniforms.
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Bicycle on a cobblestone street in
Gamla Stan. Copyright © 2011 Marianne A. Campolongo. Buy a print here. |
As I enjoyed the sights and sounds of the city, I brought my camera with me everywhere I went—knowing I could sell my pictures on stock websites such as Alamy later and fund future trips.
I love this view taken as we headed into Gamla Stan on a Hop On Hop Off boat on Lake Malaren. The trip was a boon for fine art photography. This photo has been exhibited three times now, most recently in a solo show in Armonk, New York in the summer of 2017, and in group shows in August 2016 at the Upstream Gallery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York and at the Yonkers Public Library Gallery in 2014.
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| Beautiful view of Gamla Stan seen across the blue water of Lake Malaren. Copyright © 2011 Marianne A. Campolongo. Buy a print here. |
Part of my trip to Sweden included a four-day cruise through the Baltic Sea to Estonia and Russia. The trip began and ended cruising through the Stockholm Archipelago, a collection of about 20,000 islands and islets along the Swedish coast—lush and green and dotted with distinctive red, wooden vacation cottages. All along the islands’ coasts, sailboats, kayaks, and canoes were tied up to wooden docks, or sailing amid the breath-taking scenery.
Cruising along the Baltic Sea was a wonderful experience. Despite the white nights, the sun still rises each day in an incredible burst of color. When I first got up on deck to snap photos of the sunrise at 4:30 am on our last day, the sky was so light that I thought I was too late. Then I began to see color along the horizon. Soon the sky was ablaze with this intense orange. The colors changed over the next while. It was a truly dramatic sunrise.
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| A stunning orange sunset in the Stockholm Archipelago. Copyright © 2011 Marianne A. Campolongo. Buy a print here. |
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| Östra Älgögrundet fyr ( lighthouse ) along the Swedish coast in the Stockholm Archipelago. Copyright © 2011 Marianne A. Campolongo. Available to license at Adobe Stock |
There were many lighthouses, my favorite photography subject, both on the islands or seemingly floating on their own in the middle of the Baltic Sea. The lighthouses looked impossibly tiny from the high deck of the cruise ship, until I saw the Vallersvik lighthouse perched near a two-story house and had a better sense of their true scale. One way I sell the photos of these lighthouses is through fine art websites. Seeing the photo below on one of those sites, the daughter of the family who owns the cottage on the island with the Vallersvik lighthouse messaged me and invited me to call in for coffee and to dive off the deck of the lighthouse the next time I was in the area.
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| The green and white striped Vallersvik lighthouse aka Vallersvik fyr, which I hope to visit one day. Copyright © 2011 Marianne A. Campolongo. Buy a print here. |
The Stockholm Archipelago is dotted with lush islands and summer cottages. Returning to Sweden to stay on one of these islands has been on the top of my bucket list, even before I got that message.
I have sold many images from my trip to Sweden, both as stock and fine art, with those from the Stockholm Archipelago being my best sellers. My most profitable photograph so far is a canvas print of moored boats, vacation cottages, and a gazebo reflected in the still waters of the Baltic Sea. This goes for $285** on a UK website that sells canvas prints of photographs.
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| Cottages and pleasure boats Stockholm Archipelago on the Swedish coast. Copyright © 2011 Marianne A. Campolongo. Buy a print here |
Stockholm is the ideal place to visit for someone like me who loves being on the water and snapping photos. Next time, I plan to rent a cottage on one of the islands of the Stockholm Archipelago, and hope to drink a coffee on the deck of that lighthouse.
⇨ A NOTE ON BUYING PRINTS:
Fine Art Prints of my work are available in many sizes and on various media to fit all types of budgets. The print sale mentioned in this article was for a medium-large print on canvas sold by Photo4Me, which sells my work throughout Europe and offers free UK shipping. (The British pound was worth considerably more when I made that sale, so the exchange rate worked in my favor.) The "buy now" link under the last photo takes you to my Photo4Me website - all the other "buy now" links take you to my US supplier, Fine Art America/pixels.com, which ships worldwide. Feel free to contact me through my website if you have any questions. Those emails end up in my priority box.
Author’s Note: I am a frequent contributor to International Living where this article was first published. It is posted here with their permission, in a slightly updated version with additional photos.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: All photographs in this article are Copyright © 2011 Marianne A. Campolongo and may not be downloaded, reproduced or otherwise used without first securing a license. You can find these images available to license via my Alamy portfolio, on Adobe Stock, and on my website www.mariannecampolongophotography.com
Contact me through my website if you have any questions.
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