Umeå, Skellefteå, Stockholm: Photographs via Instagram VI

Aided and abetted by good fortune, over the last month and a bit I’ve enjoyed what were essentially holidays in Sweden and New York. My partner and I spent a couple of weeks in Sweden at the end of June and the beginning of July: we visited family in and around Skellefteå over midsummer, which I posted about briefly mid-trip; wandered the extent of Umeå, our old home, where we lived together for approaching four years; and spent also a couple of days in Stockholm. Towards the end of July, we spent a week in New York City. It was the first time either of us had visited, and we loved our time there. We stayed in Park Slope, Brooklyn, renting an apartment via Airbnb, which worked excellently; and though we spent more days than not in Manhattan, we did a great deal of walking, blistered all of our feet, and managed to see a little of four of the city’s five boroughs.

This wealth of travelling has seen a dearth of posts here, at culturedallroundman.com. I managed only one through the course of last month – an addition to my series of pieces on Vincent van Gogh – and despite its length, its scope, and its exceptional quality, I remain mildly repentant. Still, the two trips have given me a lot to think about, to show, and to write about, and a range of posts will appear here over the next few weeks containing photographs, depictions of interactions and of food, and considering the exhibitions of several of the museums I explored.

This post is a photographic summation, via Instagram, of the visit to Sweden. The first photograph views Landsförsamling church in Skellefteå from a distance; the second the lake in Järvträsk, Norrbotten. Then there comes Umeå’s Art Campus, and the Bildmuseet, part of an exhibition therein by Jacob Hashimoto, and the Ume river. We sit separately in front of our computers and together we see: Umeå Central Station; the University’s Lindellhallen; IKSU sports centre; and the area of Nydala around the Kinabron and Nydalasjön, including a photograph of me, from behind, daringly bounding from one rock face to another.

There is a view of Renmarkstorget in evocative black-and-white, a perspective on the Rådhus, and a photo looking over the Ume river, across the city’s several bridges. Onto Stockholm, appearing in turn are: the House of Knights; Storkyrkan and Storkyrkobrinken on Gamla stan; several cityscapes around Skeppsbron and Strömbron, including one of the Swedish Parliament; a photograph inside the Nationalmuseum at Konstakademien; and finally one from Strandvägen towards the island of Skeppsholmen. There are twenty-four photographs in all.

Midsummer in Skellefteå, Sweden

Midsommarafton and Midsommardagen together comprise one of the central holidays in the Swedish calendar. With its beginnings in ancient pagan fertility rites, Midsummer in Sweden remains tied to longstanding practices: traditionally occurring across 23 and 24 June, but now held on the Friday and Saturday which fall between 19 June and 26 June, the main festivities during Midsommarafton see dancing around a maypole, as families gather and sing songs, children jump in close imitation of frogs, and people wear crowns made of wild flowers.

I was in Skellefteå over the past weekend, and took these photographs of the city, its celebrations, Landsförsamling church, and Lejonströmsbron bridge.

Amsterdam: Photographs via Instagram V

The following fifteen photographs were taken in Amsterdam between April and early May. A number of them feature the water and those streets around the top of the Amstel, including Staalstraat, and a view from Groenburgwal towards Zuiderkerk – the church where Rembrandt buried three of his children; and which was painted by Monet on a visit to Amsterdam in 1874.

There is a shot of Le Moulin de Gooyer, an old mill to the east of the centre; there are sunsets in the Vondelpark and along Prinsengracht; a bronze by gold dome and cupola on the Leidseplein, seen from Marnixstraat; the original façade of the Stedelijk Museum; the Museumplein; and a Dutch flag and orange folk on Queen’s Day, more photographs of which may be viewed here.

York, Gateshead, Newcastle: Instagram IV

I spent the second week of April in York, visiting during the week Gateshead and Newcastle. The following sixteen photographs show Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North; the area around the Sage and the BALTIC, featuring both institutes, street art, and the Millenium and Tyne bridges; St James’ Park, where an abject Newcastle performance still threatened, for a time in the second half, to send the side through to the semi-finals of the Europa League; and then York’s River Ouse, Minster, City Walls, Clifford’s Tower, and Treasurer’s House garden.

Amsterdam: Photographs via Instagram III

The acutely observant follower of this site, or that individual who has, once or twice, idly happened upon it, may have noticed an emerging series in which I post here a selection of photographs taken and initially uploaded via Instagram. The first edition of this series, which took in York and Amsterdam, may be found here; the second edition, with a focus on the Museumplein and Keizersgracht in the snow, is here. And now right here, extending below, are fourteen more photographs. These cover a period from the end of February throughout much of March.

The photographs start around Jachthavenweg and the Nieuwe Meer; show the Rijksmuseum; an area just south-east of the centre, beyond the Sarphatipark and along the Amstel; the Begjinhof, one of Amsterdam’s inner courtyards and home to the English Reformed Church; and come to a close on the Leidsekruisstraat and Prinsengracht with bicycles and boats, canals and cars.

Amsterdam Photo Series II: Schinkel and Nieuwe Meer

Amsterdam is most often defined pictorially by the canal houses which line the canals in the centre of the city. I have sought to encapsulate Amsterdam in something of the same way, with the ink drawing which heads my updated blog and guide to Amsterdam. Yet there is a great variety of housing across the extent the city, with modernist architecture abounding on the islands and docklands, to the north; with the Oud Zuid, Jordaan and De Pijp areas each possessing their own architectural styles and features, distinct from the canal belt; and within the centre and without, there are both isolated and collected houseboats.

I took a series of pictures recently, starting around the Schinkel river, with its concentration of houseboats particularly along Jachthavenweg; moving then towards the Nieuwe Meer, a lake at the top of the Amsterdamse Bos – a large landscape park which extends into Amstelveen – where people can row and boat, and eat at a restaurant, Het Bosch, overlooking the water.

There are fourteen pictures below; fourteen others over at amsterdamarm; and the full set of fifty-two may be viewed via my Flickr account.

Amsterdam: Photographs via Instagram II

A month and a couple of days ago, I posted this piece collating some of the photographs of Amsterdam and York which I had taken up to that point, and uploaded to my account with Instagram. This is a second selection of photographs, again twelve in total, this time devoted solely to photography partaken within Amsterdam. The photographs were taken from late January towards the latter part of February.

It extends from Het Scheepvaartmuseum – the Dutch National Maritime Museum – to to Museumplein, including the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk; then depicts the state of the city over a particularly snowy weekend, round the streets of Reguliersgracht and Keizersgracht, FOAM museum, the Amstelveld, and NeL, the restaurant I wrote about and which figures in one of the photographs, behind a distinctively Jewish sort of tree. The final image is of a vaguely coliseum-like building off Van Baerlestraat, which in fact provides housing rather than a home for gladiatorial combat.