Introducing - Nordic Lens
Due to the nature of what Nordic Thoughts have turned into, which is a fantastic community for photo challenges, I thought it’d be fitting to fully embrace that nature.
Nordic Thoughts is changing, quite a bit, but still remaining the same in many ways!
As the nature of Nordic Thoughts turned into something completely unintended, which is a fantastic community for photo challenges, I thought it was about time to embrace that nature.
This means that there are some changes coming, so let’s go over them one-by-one and explain them in a bit more detail.
New Name & Logo - Nordic Lens
Yup, Nordic Thoughts is changing its name, from now on it’ll be called Nordic Lens instead. Starting today actually, so if you need to update or change any link backs in a post, recommendation blurb or anything else, you’ve got plenty of time to do so. I’ll use the “Change your subdomain without breaking links” button, but letting you know just in case it doesn’t work.
This is the first, and most significant change to the page and done in an effort to embrace the nature of what it has turned into. I personally feel that Nordic Lens is a more fitting name as the focus has been on photo challenges rather than anything else, and I’m loving it.
Keeping the “Nordic” vibe intact, I'm retaining it in the name as it is now a recognizable staple of this page. “Thoughts” is out because this page evolved beyond just my musings—something I'm truly thankful for. Introducing “Lens” because, like in photography, lenses are vital; all cameras have them, even our eyes. So it just felt fitting to change the name and embrace what it has turned into.
Hope you like the new name and logo as much as I do!
See the new logo below, should be updated on the page today along with the URL.
Enter this URL in the bar to see the new Welcome screen in action -
nordiclens.substack.com/?showWelcome=true
I’m very open to suggestions on improvements of the logo. Logo design has never been my forte even if I’m a graphic/web designer at heart. Odd, I know!
New Bi-Weekly Posts - Behind the Lens
What’s this you might ask?
It’s another small thing I’d love to do to give more exposure to the awesome photographers we have here on Substack. Which there are plenty of and hundreds of them are in this wonderful community we’re building.
Behind the Lens, is an upcoming series where we’ll turn the spotlight from the photos to the incredible photographers behind them. It’s meant to be a tribute to the rich tapestry of talent that defines our wonderful community, while serving as an opportunity to connect on a more personal level with the individuals who’s helped bring Nordic Lens to life. A celebration if you will.
These posts will be 100% focused on one person and their photos, all to showcase some of their personal favorites with a short explanation about each photo (I’m thinking 3-5 photos per post + 3-5 sentences about each photo) along with a small introduction to who you are.
This means that I want to get in touch with you to see if you’re interested in being featured like this, if not that’s perfectly fine, but if I contact you I would love to feature you!
To spoil it a bit, some of the wonderful photographers I’d love to get in touch with for this as soon as possible, so I can create a backlog of Behind the Lens features are:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , (sorry Natasha, forgot to tag you–but would love to have you if you’re in?) and to begin with.I have many more in mind that I will contact moving forward.
If any of you are interested in taking part in this, please let me know in the comments and I’ll email you as soon as possible with instructions on how to be a part of this and what I will need from you and when I’ll need it by (note that you need to be subscribed to me for me to find your email, which I believe all of you are, but if not I hope you subscribe so I can email you - please do not post your email in the comments, we want to avoid spam from evil tiny robots).
These will be posted every other Sunday, the same week as the challenge is concluded and will be scheduled ahead of time. Meaning that your exposé might not be published for quite a few weeks, but you will get a full feature and credited with links to your Substack, website and social media pages including any stores or products you sell that you want to highlight.
Updated About Page & Welcome email
To reflect the nature of these changes the about page has been changed as well, naturally, but the reason I’m pointing this out is that I may or may not have tagged you in it (If you’d like to be removed, let me know and I’ll remove you asap!).
I love to be informal, which I am in my posts, but the about page is meant to sound professional, right? If not, I put on my big boy pants unnecessarily.
The about page should be updated as of you reading this, but if not, check back in a few minutes!
This is because I, again, want to highlight the awesome community we have built here on Substack, and you’ve all been a part of making this page grow and helped make this into a community we can all be proud of.
I know I am proud of what we’ve built here and I want to highlight that!
Special thanks to
for constantly being such a wonderful human and being so supportive of me and my work here since basically day one of these challenges.Other special thanks goes to every single one of you that’s taken part in one of these challenges, it’s a pleasure seeing all your beautiful work and photos!
We’re all a collection of people from all over the world, from different cultures, different values, different religions and different creeds, but here we’re all the same.
I’m proud to say that this community is: Uplifting, Happy, Helpful, Talented, Supportive and Respectful.
You’re all amazing!
Check out the new About page here.
Challenge Posts
Don’t worry, these won’t change, neither will the winning posts, much anyway.
However, I wanted to point out a few changes should there be an increase in submissions moving forward.
To avoid making each winning post a mile long, even if I love doing it, I’m taking a comment in mind from
about this, so you know who to blame (just kidding, you better be nice because Kat’s lovely). See it below.
So from now on, each challenge winner post will feature a winner and at most five runner-ups and 27 features. Unfortunately this means that I won’t be able to show all your beautiful photos and submissions if there’s any more than that, but to keep the posts as clean and readable as possible, it is an unfortunate truth.
I am open to ideas if you can think of a solution, so please leave them in the comments! I would love to figure something out with your help! It’s about all of you after all!
However, all submissions will get a link back to their notes, no matter if there’s 500 submissions and I have to manually link every single one. But unfortunately I can’t feature all of your amazing photos either in gallery form or anything else than a link to your note.
There’s nothing I’d rather do than to feature every single one of you, but to have more than 3 galleries will unfortunately clog up the post quite a bit. Not to mention making it heavy to load for those with slower internet speeds, even if the photos is compressed.
I will try to remedy this somehow, I just need to figure out how first.
Especially since
only allow 9 photos in a gallery. If a gallery could feature 20 photos, it’d be easier to feature up to 60 of you but I fully understand that’s probably not possible currently. It might overload the servers with that many photos if a lot of people used it and it more than likely wouldn’t work too well in emails.However, if a change similar to this is implemented this part will change, unless you have any other ideas on how to remedy this.
How to Support PatrikL & Nordic Lens?
This is for people who feel they want to support me for building this community and there’s absolutely no need to do so.
But rather than activating paid posts here on Substack I decided to open a Ko-Fi instead, this is so people who’d like to support me can do so for any amount that they choose should they want to. Also because I do not want to limit anything for anyone.
No need for a massive tip or monthly cost, unless you want to of course, you can support me for as low as $1 or whatever amount you feel you want to contribute.
Why not just activate paid posts? I simply don’t want to deal with the headache that is Stripe.
Again, there is absolutely no need to do so and I would never expect it. This is only for those who feel they can and want to support my work.
I Want to Hear From You!
I want to hear from you, be it yelling, kicking and screaming or cheering and toasting, give it to me in the comments. I really want to know what you feel and think of these changes and what you think could be better.
I’m very much open for suggestions and I’d happily embrace any suggestion that could improve this community even more.
Next Challenge: January 3
That’s right, we’re kicking off 2024 with a brand new challenge almost instantly! So mark your calendars, tell your family, yell at strangers, write it in the sky, run nude down the street with a banner hanging from you know where, or simply save the date, your call.
I want to start the Behind the Lens series as soon as possible, so hopefully I can have the first one sent out before Christmas already! Issue after that will be published on January 14, no matter what, so stay tuned for that if nothing else!
I LOVE the new name! Honestly Patrik as i don’t know you in person, I kept wondering what your thoughts on nordic were and now it totally erased all the questions, it truly fits well with your page and i bow down to your flexibility and adaptability to allow for change. Still would be curious to hear what your initial ideas for this space were and hosted original name Nordic thoughts was born (to get a feel for you as a person behind the lens 🤗) - also what I like about the world lens is that to me it represents perspective, point of view. Which doesn’t limit yourself to only photography in case you choose to evolve in other directions as well.
I’m feeling honoured to be asked *blush. I’m totally in, again you succeeded in giving me dopamine rush of creativity and motivation!
Love the new name and changes! I absolutely love the new addition to put a focus on photographers themselves and in addition to the photos! And am honored and humbled to be named among these incredible photographers. Of course I will take part!