Lizel Strömberg

Kulturkalaset 2016: What to come!
 
"Göteborgs Kulturkalas" is one of Scandinavians biggest culturefestival. It's held for six days during the summer in August. The streets and squares turns into event places filled with culture. At the festival you can experience different things such as art, street performances, theatre, film, literature and music by both national and international artists. You can also attened workshops and learn how to do crafts. There are also things for kids to do like playing, make toys, paint and see kids shows. 
 
Personally, this event is one of my highlights every year to attened because of the various events and to experience new things with friends and family. 
This year was different from previous years. I attended the festival together with Carol to capture the festivity. We were there during all six days it took place and had planned out different things to see. We wanted as much out of the event and make sure we got to see everything we wanted. 
 
I have loads of pictures and stories to tell about everything we got to experience during our time at the festival. Because of the great number of pictures, I will split everything up in different blog posts. I wanted to do a summary of everything that happened and make sure to tell the people that are waiting on specific photographs that I've not forgotten them! So, if you are one of those people that talked to me during the festival and are waiting on pictures of you or the company you worked for, please bare with me! You are free to follow me on Instagram if you want to make sure to get notified when the photos are publsihed:
 
 
One of the first things we photographed was the cosplay competition that Confusion held at "Götaplatsen". I have to admit, I think that show was probably one of the shows I disliked the most to photograph because of the harsh light from the sun. The performances was not my cup of tea but I did managed to get some decent pictures of the contestans off stage that I'm happy with!
Carol and I did not only photographed what happened on stage but also the people around it. In the crowd, we spotted this cute couple and their adorable dog. We asked them politely if it was fine with them if we took some photos. They told us that the dog's name was Gandalf which I thought was cute!
As I wrote before, there were events and a section for kids to play. We wanted to walk passed it and capture the playfullness. Personally, I'm more of a concert and event photographer but I'm starting to really like to do street photography and just capture simple things in life.
The most popular thing about "Götebors Kulturkalas" is all the free various concerts that takes place during daytime but also nightime. There are music for all tastes such as pop, rock, hiphop, opera and "dansband".
 
As no surprise, we had to of course attened some of the concerts. We had to prioritize and think about the ones we would appreciate the most but also how things would be concering our photography. Through out the week we saw various artists and a lot of new ones that we haven't seen before, such as Elliphant, Silvana Imam and Linda Pira. Besides them we saw some more familiar faces like Kristin Amparo, Frans and Sabina Ddumba
 
Another popular highlight during the festival is the "International Street Market" were you can experience and taste all different kinds of food from countries around the world. I love seeing the culture difference and meeting new people. This time, we made more efforts into our photography and really took our time to make sure we got the shots we wanted. 
 
The people working there were very friendly and happy to pose for a photo. Some of them were curious to see the pictures and even asked me to write down my blog adress to see my coverage which was a fun surprise. 
- More pictures from the international street market will be published soon!
Last day of "Göteborgs Kulturkalas" there is this big carneval parade "Hammarkullenkarneval" of Latino dancers showing part of their culture through dance and traditional costumes. I love seeing how the people are still connected with their roots and wants to show others a part of their culture.
"Göteborgs Kulturkalas" always ends with "RIXFM Festival" which is a big free music festival that takes place during the summer in different cities in Sweden. It's very popular and contains artists from Sweden but also international artists gets invited to perform, for example, Margaret from Poland was there to perform her hit "Cool Me Down". 
I had so much fun attending the festival this year, I got so many more experiences and an increase in my self esteem. For me, photographing is some kind of therapy and I'm thankful for everything I get to experience thanks to my photography.
 
Lately, Carol has come along with me to various events which is so much fun! We get along very well and have the same work ethic, so even if we are there to photograph together we can go different ways to get our own angles. It's fun having someone with you while photographing but even better when the person understand it's more than just to click on a button to get the pictures you want and give you the time that you need to capture the moments. 
 
I will be starting to publish blog posts from the festival within a week and I hope you will stick around to see our work we did. There will be pictures from the events mentioned above and so much more!
 
Stay tuned for more updates, until next time: Take care!