My name is Håkan Dahlström, and I am a photographer, IT technician and technology enthusiast based in Malmö, Sweden. As an IT technician at Lund University, I work daily with IT infrastructure, system administration and user support. Technology has always fascinated me – from building with LEGO as a child to experimenting today with servers, Docker containerization and DNS infrastructure in my homelab.
I am a dedicated Apple enthusiast who loves the elegance and ease of use of the ecosystem. Everything fits together perfectly, and the products make it easy to focus on what matters. In recent years, however, I have developed a growing interest in privacy and data security. I believe individuals should have control over their own data, so I try to choose tools that respect my privacy. Self-hosted solutions, strong encryption and decentralized platforms are priorities for me.
My homelab is a constantly changing sandbox for experimentation and learning. I run my own BIND9 setup for primary/secondary DNS, Docker and Podman/Quadlet for containerization, Traefik as a reverse proxy with Let's Encrypt for HTTPS, and Netdata, Beszel and Uptime Kuma for monitoring. Everything is distributed across several local servers (Ubuntu, Fedora CoreOS), Synology NAS units for storage and backup, and Oracle Cloud. In 2026 I moved most of it back home from the cloud – public services are now exposed through Cloudflare Tunnel with Zero Trust in front, instead of through open ports and rented servers. It is an ongoing project where I learn something new every day.
Photography is my greatest passion and creative outlet. I love documenting the world through my camera – everything from intimate portraits to beautiful landscapes. Most often I shoot with my iPhone or an interchangeable-lens camera. There is something special about capturing light and moments, about showing the world from my perspective. My photographs are shared on Flickr, which I consider the very best platform for organizing, preserving and sharing photography. I have tried almost everything over the years, but nothing beats Flickr's combination of community and functionality.
For me, travel is a way to discover the world and understand people. I love traveling and seeing new places, meeting new people and challenging my assumptions about how the world works. The Malmö area and the surrounding province of Skåne is my home, but I love heading far away and coming back with new perspectives and inspiring photographs.
Food is wonderful, and I love both cooking and eating. There is something meditative and creative about planning a meal, shopping for ingredients and creating something delicious. I also enjoy eating out and exploring new restaurants – it is a way of exploring culture and creativity. I mostly drink water but also appreciate a good glass of wine or champagne when the occasion arises.
Photography
Here are some of my most popular photographs from Flickr:
YouTube
I share videos about photography, technology and travel on my YouTube channel:
Interests
Photography
Documenting the world through my camera. Portraits, landscapes and street photography. Flickr and dahlstroms.com.
Travel
Love exploring new places and meeting new people. Often combining travel with photography.
Technology & Homelab
Self-hosting, BIND9, Docker/Podman, Traefik and Cloudflare Zero Trust. Experimentation and automation are my playground.
Food & Restaurants
Enjoy cooking and eating out. Happy to write reviews of interesting places.
Blog & Publications
My blog started in 2009 and was relaunched in 2021. It began as a pure photo blog but has grown to cover a broad range of topics – photography, travel, food, technology and much more.
My pictures are published on Flickr, which I consider the best platform for organizing and preserving photography. The blog's categories cover Photo, Travel, Food, Technology, Words and more.
Websites
Some of my public websites and services:
Blog
Photography, travel, food and technology – since 2009.
dahlstroms.com ↗
Web Development & Self-Hosting
Projects and experiments in web development and self-hosting.
hakdah.eu ↗
ADS-B Flight Tracker
Live air traffic from my own receiver.
flights.hakdah.com ↗
Malmö Train Departures
Real-time board of trains from Hyllie.
hyllie.hakdah.com ↗
Weather
Weather data from my Netatmo station.
weather.hakdah.com ↗
Projects
Under hakdah.com and hakdah.eu I run several web development and self-hosting projects that combine my interest in technology with practical solutions:
ADS-B Flight Tracker
Real-time flight tracker with a cyberpunk aesthetic. Tracks real air traffic via a Raspberry Pi and SDR.
Malmö Train Departures
Real-time board of train departures from Hyllie. Integrated with the ResRobot API from Trafiklab.
PhotoPrism Photo Library
Self-hosted photo library with just over 43,000 images, focused on EXIF metadata. Nightly multi-stage backup to two NAS units.
Paperless-ngx
Document and receipt management with AI-assisted suggestions, OCR in Swedish and English.
BIND9 DNS Infrastructure
Own primary/secondary DNS setup with Route53 integration for all domains.
Homelab Monitoring
Netdata and Beszel for resource monitoring, Uptime Kuma for availability, Dozzle for logs and push notifications via ntfy. Homarr serves as the central start page.
Cloudflare Zero Trust
Public services are reached through Cloudflare Tunnel without open ports, with Access login in front of anything that should not be fully open.
Privacy-Friendly Analytics
Self-hosted Umami for visitor statistics – cookie-free and without visitor data leaving my own infrastructure.
The homelab infrastructure consists of several local servers (Ubuntu Server and Fedora CoreOS with declarative Butane/Ignition configuration), Synology NAS units for storage and backup, Docker and Podman containerization managed through Portainer, my own BIND9 DNS setup, Traefik reverse proxy with Let's Encrypt, Oracle Cloud for public cloud services, and Cloudflare Tunnel and Zero Trust for external access. The network runs on Ubiquiti UDR7 with VLANs and Tailscale for secure connectivity between the nodes.