A Black and White Kind of Day in Eriksberg

Looking across to the famous Masthuggskyrkan (Masthugget Church) in Gothenburg from Eriksberg.

If you have ever visited Sweden, you will know that the sun doesn’t shine a lot - especially in the colder months. The sun shines for an average of only 4.6 hours daily throughout the year. For the four weeks I was there last year at the end of October and most of November, I think I saw only two days of complete sunshine, and that may have been a record because the daily average for November is one hour!

However, contrasty cloudy days brought with them wonderful photo opportunities - especially with the idea of converting the images to black and white. When I photographed these landmarks in Eriksberg, it was with black and white images dancing in my head.

That day, my Ukrainian daughter-in-law’s mother (who acted as an excellent tour guide using public transportation while I was in Sweden) and I took the Älvsnabben harbor ferry across the Göta Älv River to Eriksberg, setting out from Lilla Bommen. If you plan on visiting Gothenburg, I can highly recommend a day trip to Eriksberg.

Awaiting the ferry in Göteborg.

Arriving in Eriksberg.

It was once a thriving ship building and fishing community, but all that remains of that era now is the large frame of a crane which can be seen in the background to the right of the ship. It looks like a huge frame. You may be lucky to see a few fishing boats moored there too.

Looking towards the Eriksberg crane.

A couple of fishing boats moored in Eriksberg.

The river walk area is lined with cute cafes and gift shops, and is lined with some impressive works of art in unique styles. I am adding my favorites here, but it will give you an idea of what to expect.

Shards of pottery are embedded in the sidewalk, making it interesting to look down as well as look ahead for works of art!

Pieces of broken pottery embedded in the sidewalk.

For lunch we chose to eat at “Cafe Italia” and did not regret it. The food was excellent and the atmosphere was totally Italian!

Yours truly posing at the entrance to cafe Italia.

An interesting way of advertising!

From Eriksberg there is an interesting view of Karlatornet, the tallest building in Sweden and all of Scandinavia. At 246 meters, it is only half the height of One Trade Center, but looks impressive nonetheless!

And finally, moored in Eriksberg after traveling the globe is the Götheborg of Sweden, which is an exact replica ( on the exterior) of the Swedish East India trading ship, Götheborg which sank off Gothenburg in 1745. The ship carries all modern facilities like toilets, watertight bulkheads, propellers powered by diesel, satellite navigation etc. In fact the ship passes international safety standards and has toured many ports in Europe and the Far East. Guided tours are available now through spring and summer. Unfortunately, it was not open for tours when I visited!

The Götheborg of Sweden moored at Eriksberg.

I hope you have enjoyed this little tour of Eriksberg. By the way, all ferry fares are included in a public transportation pass if you buy one from Västtrafik. The pass is good on trams, buses,trains and ferries. There is also a free ferry which runs from Stenpiren and Lindholmspiren on all weekdays between 7am and 6pm if you choose not to buy a pass. My month’s pass cost 835 SEK - roughly $77 for a month of unlimited travel. It was a great way to explore the city and the surrounding areas, and even the far flung islands of the archipelagos! The “ticket” was on an app on my phone, but the only time I was ever asked to show it was on a ferry to Donsö in the southern archipelago.

Ferry arriving in Eriksberg with the much larger StenaLine car ferry in the background.
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And for those interested, here are some technical details for the images.

I am often asked if I shoot black and white in the camera, but that is a misnomer. If you set your camera to black and white, all that happens is that the camera processes the data for you - much like it does when you shoot jpeg images. I often have people telling me proudly that they don’t use Adobe Photoshop and when I ask why, the answer I usually get is that they want to produce the exact image the camera sees. However, that is not what happens unless you shoot in RAW mode. With a jpeg image, the camera decides how much contrast, saturation etc. should be in the image; it’s like in-camera Photoshop operated by the camera. It’s only with a RAW image that you save every single pixel the camera captured. Then you the photographer get to make the creative choices instead of the camera!

That being said, and although my DSLR images are always saved in RAW format, I don’t often shoot RAW images with my iPhone 13 Pro. I have tried it a few times, but I am pretty happy for the most part with the jpeg images produced and I usually only tweak the settings a little to my own preferences. My stock agencies appear to be quite happy with the images, so it’s fine by me.