Portrait of a Swedish Carolean officer

Portrait of a Swedish Carolean officer · 01:06 PM

Picture taken of Anders Hansson posing in an authentic outfit as an officer of the Swedish Carolean army on the grounds of the Jamtli open-air museum in Östersund, Sweden. These Carolean soldiers had to retreat after they received notice that their king had been killed during the winter of 1718-1719. They had to walk across the mountains from Trondheim back to Sweden and around 3000 men froze to death when they got stuck in a terrible and long-lasting snowstorm. This march is known in Sweden as the Carolean death-march.

Anders is besides a professional archeologist also writer of the book about the Swedish Caroleans called "Armfeldts Karoliner" and he is a very well respected specialist about this topic, in Sweden, Norway and internationally. Every year he participates as lecturer in an education session for military officers from different countries to confront them with the real horrors of war. In his book he does not only inform about the historical moments and facts but more so put the focus on the people living in the area on both sides of the border. How does this affect them and their societies both before, during and long after the war period? He wants to teach us a very important lesson from a real situation that occurred more than 300 years ago.

The picture of Anders was taken indoors with no extra lighting, straight out of the camera which I held in my hands. The camera is the Pentax K-1 mk II, which I have bought only a few months ago. I have been photographing with Nikon cameras since I was 18 years old. I added Micro 4/3 cameras to my collection (Panasonic for filming and Olympus for pictures with small camera format). But thanks to my friend Lage Sjöblom, a very loyal and very experienced Pentax photographer, I learned about the Pentax K-1 and made the switch. As landscapes are my favourite subject, the K-1 is a fantastic camera for that purpose. But as you can see, portraits work fine too.

Peter Ladan, march 2021, Ragunda, Sweden

Mike L · 04-08-2021, 04:59 PM