Prisma at Hälleskogsbrännan

The morning started with car trouble

I started Monday the same way I have lately – by checking the car again.

The climate system keeps refusing to switch off, and sometimes the car won’t even start.

This time I suspected the battery cable wasn’t screwed on tightly enough.

Just to be safe, I drove around a bit to try to trigger the fault, but once I’d tightened the cable properly the problem was gone.

Leica Camera News

Mari Amman is an American-Italian contemporary artist who works across disciplines with photography, installation, video, poetry, painting, sculpture, textiles and design.

She describes her own practice as research-based, drawing on concepts such as Geological Empathy and Sublime Rheology to explore the relationship between people, nature, technology and built environments.

Young, Inspiring and International: LOBA Emerging Talent

German photographer Serghei Duve also won the 2025 Newcomer Award with his photo series “Bright Memory”.

The project explores his family’s ties to Transnistria.

Discover Serghei Duve’s work →

Prisma at Hälleskogsbrännan — Charred and bare – a fire-damaged tree still stands as a memorial to the 2014 Hälleskogsbrännan fire.

📷 Canon EOS R6 · Summilux-M 1:1.4/50 ASPH. · f/6.3 · 1/1600s · ISO 320 · 102mm · 2026-07-06

Wrong road, right place

Monday means, as always, a meetup with the Prisma photo group, and this time the trip took us up to Hälleskogsbrännan nature reserve, specifically Grävlingsberget – the central visitor site in the reserve.

If I’d only checked the map before setting off, the drive there would have been a lot shorter.

I was convinced it was up near Ängelsberg, and so I duly steered my way through Sätra brunn.

Wrong, as it turns out – the right road was via Ramnäs instead.

A fox shows the way in

On arrival I was greeted by a cut-out fox standing guard at the entrance, with a speech bubble inviting me to “come along for something fun”.

A nice little welcome before the real surprise hit: just how much had actually been built here.

Boardwalks, a viewing tower and walking trails wind their way around the whole site – far more developed than I’d expected.

Life after the fire

What struck me most was how much everything had grown back.

Birch saplings made up close to 90 percent of the new growth, and even though it might look a bit messy, it serves a purpose – with the birch providing cover, moose have a harder time reaching the pines, giving them a chance to grow tall in peace.

In the middle of all the fresh greenery, the odd charred, fire-damaged trunk still rises straight up toward the sky, a reminder of what once happened here.

Among the grass along Hellestigen I also found an orchid, Jungfru Marie nycklar (early marsh orchid), which I managed to capture on camera.

📷 iPhone 15 · Summilux-M 1:1.4/50 ASPH. · f/1.6 · 1/918s · ISO 50 · 5.96mm · 2026-07-06

Up in the tower

There weren’t that many of us from the club this time – during summer it’s always harder to gather as many people as we normally do for the outdoor meetups.

Still, we managed a few short walks, including up to the viewing tower, where the sky that day was every bit as dramatic as the view: heavy clouds rolling in over the undulating burn area.

From up there you can clearly see how the Hellestigen boardwalk winds through the sea of deciduous trees, with dead pine trunks scattered all the way to the horizon.

Sausages and a break

After the tower we took a break in the shelter down by the trail, grilling sausages over an open fire – a well-earned rest before we continued on the shorter loop around Hellestigen, the same stretch where the orchid photos were taken.

Cairns and the way home

On one of the bedrock outcrops, earlier visitors had built up a whole collection of stone cairns, small and large, standing watch over the site among the moss and new undergrowth.

A nice little finish to the loop before it was time to head home.

The drive home turned out to be, unsurprisingly, a lot shorter than the drive there.

What I’ve learned from all this remains to be seen – with my memory, the same mistake will probably be repeated a good few more times yet. 😂

See the moment in the Bulletin →

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