artfool.se

artfool.se nr 3/2013

The photoproject Busstop 2009/10

It is 6.10 the 26th of July 2009 and it is workday in Dals Långed in the Swedish region Dalsland. Rose-Marie Nordqvist is going to her work in Bengtsfors; she was always the first to arrive at our busstop. And she was there every morning except one! Normally even I was early, especially during this project: taking photos every workday morning I hade to travel, and to take these photos from the same place on the other side of the street. I started in July 2009 when mornings were bright, and continued for a whole schoolyear - I was a lecturer in Borås at the time. The 2nd of August we were as many as four waiting. Not a record, but nearly. The mornings were getting hazier.

August 15: Unexpected morning trouble! The busstop is out of use because something is done to the road surface. I have to run about 800 meters with all my luggage to the next busstop. It is lucky I am always early.

Three who travels regularly, Rose-Marie, Annethe Andersson and Birgitta Sundell, are waiting in the September darkness, but it is not cold yet. Annette wears summer clothes while Birgitta har begun carry a torch so that car drivers will notice her in the street. All through the winter she makes fun by aiming her torch light straight into my camera.

No one is awake in the blocks of flats behind our shield 6.10 in the beginning of October 2009, but the outdoor lamps on the IOGT-lodge are seen as yellow dots to the left. The house is not a lodge any longer, but is rebuilt as a home for refugee children seeking asylum alone. But now those children have been moved to a bigger village.

October 24th: Without flash the camera captures only lights from the flats behind. With flash and Birgitta's torch one can at least distinguish the shield and those waiting.

On 11th of November my shaking hands put fireworks into the photo: festive but not true. And Dals Långed is not burning in the photo to the right: it is all the electric christmas candelabras that Swedes light from the end of November until far into January that gives the photo from 27th of November 2009 such dramatic background.

This winter we had nearly one meter of snow in Dals Långed. Those shoveling care only for car drivers, so the 19th of December Rose-Marie has been forced to stamp her way into the shield. It is easier to use the shield in January. The 17th someone has lost a chair in the snow-drift to the right.

13th of February: it is sandy on the street but slippery on all pavements. It is snowing on March 14.

May 18th: My bags are on the bench as usual. May 25th: At last a picture with sunshine!