Some twenty-five years ago, I left my home town to start living in a much smaller town, Lund, a 600 km trip down south in Sweden. Quite a different move for most, since many other people in this country moves in the other direction, to the home town in matter. I’m still living in Lund, though I suffered from serious home-long from time to time during the first years. I went here to start my studies at the University and ended up with a family, who would have anticipated that? I certainly did not.

It’s not much I miss from the home town when I see the big picture, but I still think of all these walks I used to make, with a camera as my loyal companion. I still do such walks, but find those walks from the past so much more rewarding. Can’t really tell in what sense, it’s more a feeling. I made such a walk this winter, when I was in the home town for a running competition. It all came back. I simply just love walking around in that town, watching all the people, seeing the town coming to life at morning and getting to rest at evening. Daytime isn’t much of a joy, though – too stressful. That’s one of the reasons I’m not wish to go back. All locals are so darn stressed, and they seem to like it too. It’s not me, never was, will never be.

It is Stockholm I’m writing about, this wonderful town, beautifully located in the middle of an archipelago, where one of Sweden’s largest lakes meets the sea. There is water all around the town, and for good reasons, many people call Stockholm the Venice of the North. Simply a wonderful place to walk around, muse and photograph.

This is a small collection of pictures from all thousands of pictures I made during these walks. They were all taken with a Nikon F2, with either a 35mm/ƒ2 or a 105mm/ƒ2.5. I quite often pushed the film to ISO 800 or 1600, resulting in very contrasty images, which I liked. During the early 2000s, I imported the negatives to my computer with an ordinary flatbed scanner and a back-lit negative/positive scanning utility, and while the quality in some cases was really poor I was happy to be able to see and work with them again.

Söder

South Stockholm is where I come from and thrives best. Söder means South and is the very south part of the centre of Stockholm. Numerous were the walks I made there. I believe the pictures from this part of Stockholm are different from the others in particular. Large areas have been totally renovated with lots of new buildings. The railway area, for instance – which by the way was a lake that dried out – is no longer an open space. It’s still there, but now mostly underground. Above it are now many new buildings and roads, completely hiding there was a lake a few meters under your feet. One of the pictures shows how the construction work already had started, the work to cover it up. The area is still called Fatburen, though, and that was also the name of the lake.

The following two pictures depict Götgatan, where especially the first one is interesting. The furniture shop on the corner is no more, instead have this and most other shops been replaced by very chic boutiques, bars and restaurants. This area is so bohemian and trendy it almost hurts. In the pocket, that said, because prices on apartment have gone the same way. The good thing is that the entire Söder has got a face-lift, from gloomy and shaggy to colourful and clean. On the second picture, you can see the huge arena Globen, during construction. Only the last pieces on the top of the globe remain to be mounted.

The next picture is from Hornstull. The bus No 94 was – and maybe still is – the night bus that took us night owls round the town after the last tube had departed, which if I recall right occurred somewhere after 02.00 in the night. The place at the picture was where we had to switch buses, to get everybody out to the southern suburbs.

The following four pictures represent Söder to me. I have no idea of how many copies I made from these four negatives, trying out different papers and contrasts and making experiments. Definitely four favourites in the darkroom. The first one depicts a typical house from the 19th century, when Söder still was the countryside. Now, these small houses are mainly owned by artists and other artsy people. The second picture is from Norr Mälarstrand, where lots of boats had their permanent addresses. Lots of free-minded people lived on those boats, and probably still do.  I must confess that I had a dream to be able to live like this, too.

Lastly, I found an interesting picture of the former Saltsjökvarn, where they used to ground flour. This picture is taken from the view called Fåfängan, which means something like The Vain. There was a fire there a while after I had this picture taken. I heard it on the radio and went to the same place to see the spectacular fire. Imagine those flames, when the powder-like flour took fire. Only parts of the buildings were destroyed, and some twenty years later all was rebuilt to luxurious apartments.

Slussen

Slussen is the place where you leave lake Mälaren and enters the sea. It’s also the way to go when you leave Söder and wants to visit Old Town, the oldest part of Stockholm. The old buildings and the narrow roads are absolutely wonderful and charming, but somehow I have not many pictures from this part of Stockholm. From Slussen, yes, but not from the Old Town. There is lot to say also about this part of Stockholm, but I really never bonded with it somehow. Maybe I considered it too touristy, who knows. Anyway, I have lots of pictures on Slussen and the waters surrounding it, taken from many angles. This part of Stockholm is still rather unchanged, it would look like this if you visited the place today. What you see on the first picture is the actual Slussen, which means the Lock, a place where you by boat goes from one water level to another. This place is also called the Divorce Ditch, indicating on all argues that usually takes place between the husband and his wife during the transport through the Slussen. The arguing would typically be around how to properly manage the water levelling without damaging your own or another boat. During summertime, this is a popular place for spectators waiting for The Argue.

City

Like with the Old Town, I have not been so inspired about most parts of the centre part of Stockholm either, apart from the parts called Klara. This part of Stockholm was to a large extent demolished during the fifties and sixties, to leave room for newer and more modern architecture. Unfortunately, not many people consider this newer architecture particularly beautiful any longer, but I guess we have to wait another 200 years before it’s okay to demolish also these buildings. Some parts of old Klara were however still around until late eighties, when also these were demolished. Kind of sad, in my humble opinion. I went around and made some photographs before the buildings faced their bitter end. I used to bye my jeans and shoes in those stores, by the way. Old Klara was the centre for all these kind of stores.

Next picture depicts Sveavägen, not much viewable during night-time, but anyway, it represents to me the new era in architecture that took over in Stockholm during the sixties.

The following two pictures are taken on Kungsgatan (King’s road), which crosses Sveavägen in the picture above. Kungsgatan is still in its original shape, to a large extent. Interesting from a personal viewpoint is that I usually went here to watch the cinema. Also interesting is that the road was part of the route people who liked old American cars took when cruising around the town. We called them Raggare, and I wonder if these are still circulating the town on Saturday evenings?

Frihamnen

Moving further north in Stockholm, we end up at waters again, this time Frihamnen. This is the international harbour for goods, and was during the eighties kind of rough. Lots of degraded buildings and old, retired train sets added to the picture that this was not the best area to frequent during night time.

The end

I could actually go on and on but as with everything it can be hard to keep to the subject without fading out. The Frihamnen section could actually have been left out but I kind of like the two pictures so much, so I had to come up with something. Otherwise, I mostly fancy Söder, where I feel like home. For you who not knows about Stockholm, this might be said originate from the fact that working people usually lived in the Southern parts while the richer people lived in the Northern. This is not so true anymore, even if the richest people still lives on Östermalm, from which I by the way have not one single picture. It just seems wrong to stroll around in those areas and photographing; I clearly suffer from a social thing.