Västerås Summer Meet 2026

Monday Meetup at Laggarsjön

I started the day quietly at home, taking it easy before heading off to Laggarsjön, which sits right between Hallstahammar and Surahammar.

Two industrial towns in Västmanland that offer quite a mix of interesting things to photograph – and that’s where Bildgruppen Prisma had gathered for this week’s Monday meetup.

The lake itself didn’t give up much this time, though.

Looking back, I could have prepared better – the Leica with the 50mm wasn’t really the right choice on this occasion.

Dragonflies were swarming everywhere by the water, but with the wrong shoes on, there was no way to get out onto the bog where most of them were hanging around.

Next time it’ll have to be boots, and a Canon with a 70-200 that should do the job.

Tokyo in Black and White

Phil Penman with the Leica M EV1 Phil Penman tests the Leica M EV1 in Tokyo.
New York-based street photographer Phil Penman returns to Tokyo year after year, a city he clearly has a special connection with.

This time it was with a Leica M EV1 in hand – the M-series’ new electronic viewfinder camera – that he hit the streets.

Penman is best known for his black-and-white street photography from New York, where he’s documented city life for over twenty years.

But Tokyo seems to give him something extra.

He’s said himself that the city gave him back his faith and humanity, and that street photography for him is about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.

With the M EV1, he gets access to focus peaking and digital zoom in the viewfinder – features that make it easier to work with fast lenses and shallow depth of field, while still keeping that direct, uncomplicated way of shooting the M-system has always stood for.

Worth a read for anyone curious about street photography, whether you swear by a rangefinder or an electronic viewfinder.

Discover the Leica Akademie’s Worldwide Diversity

The Leica Akademie traces its roots back to 1930, when the original photography training program began in Wetzlar.

Since then, it has grown into a global network with academies in countries including Australia, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Switzerland, the USA, and most recently the Netherlands.

What makes the Leica Akademie special is precisely that breadth – courses in street photography, portraiture, travel photography, documentary storytelling, and architecture are offered in parallel across different locations worldwide, led by experienced Leica photographers and local instructors.

Whether you’re a beginner or already experienced, there’s a course to find, with the idea being that every participant should develop both their technique and their own visual voice.

Alongside the recurring courses, larger travel photography trips are also arranged – so-called Destination workshops – to places like India, Romania, and Colombia, where photographers travel together with well-known instructors and capture everything from festivals to everyday life on location.

A fine example of this diversity is the book Inspiration Leica Akademie, which brings together images from 76 photographers across 16 countries – proof of how different perspectives and cultures come together under the same Leica banner.

Hubbo Studio – This Summer’s Big Build

Alongside all the photography, I’ve been sitting and working quite intensively on plugins for the past few months.

I think I’m up to around 15 of them now, and this latest build has been really fun to work on.

It’s called Hubbo Studio – a much larger plugin where several parts tie together into one whole.

Short version: the entire studio gathered in a single hub, with bookings, invoices, customers, and business cards, all on the studio’s own server.

Anyone curious about all the plugins I’ve built over the years can find them here: https://hubbo.se/egna-wordpress-plugin/

A Moment’s Rest at Ängsö

Another day I took a trip to Ängsö to enjoy nature.

The place is perfect for a bit of #forestbathing, somewhere you’d normally go to gather energy – though “gather energy” might be the wrong phrase this particular time.

I ended up dozing off on the jetty for a little while.

Lucky no one came by while I was lying there asleep – I could’ve been kidnapped for all I knew.😳 😂

Västerås Summer Meet 2026 – front-row seat on the wall overlooking the cobblestones, a classic convertible glides by while a cyclist takes a shortcut.

📷 LEICA M11-P · Summilux-M 1:1.4/50 ASPH. · f/2.4 · 1/1000s · ISO 200 · 50mm · 2026-07-04

See the moment in the Bulletin →

Summer Vibes at Elbakajen – Västerås Summer Meet

A good eight kilometers on foot today.

I walked from Blåsbo to Global Living for a coffee and a chat, then headed down toward Elbakajen, where the smell of exhaust fumes was noticeably stronger than usual.

The reason, of course, is Västerås Summer Meet 2026, running this week.

American classics of every shape and form keep rumbling through town here and there – and it’s genuinely fun just standing around watching the crowd gather round the cars.

Tonight there’ll almost certainly be plenty of people out in town, as the cars cruise around the center.

It usually gets pretty wild later in the evening.

If I had the energy, I’d probably head out early tomorrow morning too – you can usually find a few hot-rodders who slept out in nature as well.🙈