Peter Olsson , May 28, 1999; 11:00 A.M.
Being Swedish myself I'll jump on the opportunity to be the first person who comments on this excellent photo-essay of Stockholm and Gotland.
What Phillip says about tripods above is true, you may for example bring tripods into any church you would like. I haven't found any tripod restrictions so-far. If you are a nature photographer you should also know that in Sweden we have public access to all land which is not cultivated, built etc. The details of this right can be found in brochures at most international airports in Sweden. This means that you can camp anywhere you like, even on private property, as long as you don't destroy anything and stay out of view of houses. Certain areas may be restricted for some times of the year, especially small islands with rare bird-populations. But that is an exception. The nature is therefore very open to nature- photographers and (with the exception of military installments!) you can photograph anything you like, no park ranger will charge you for it (we don't even have park-rangers).
Sweden is very old, geologically speaking, so mountains are not as impressive as they can be in other parts of the world. The ice-ages has rounded them off. Spectacular views are therefore harder to find here than in our neighbour country Norway (the Fjords, magnificent!). But, there are many places that are extremely beatiful here, in their own "modest" way. Nature photography is the most popular photo-genre in Sweden and the absolute majority of the professional nature photographers work in colour. It would be pretty hard to find a book on Swedish nature in B&W. One of my favorite books right now is "and the sea never rests" with photographs by Hans Strand and text by Rolf Edberg(if you're interested in book-titles by Swedish nature photographers, you can e-mail me and I'll e-mail you suggestions). So, all in all it's a great country for nature photography if you know where to go. For a start point, get a book about the Swedish National Parks.