Sceneries

It matters a bit where I am at the moment, just like all of you out there as well. I see different sceneries from my window. At home there's nothing much, to be absolutely honest. Nothing worth making a lot of rumble about anyway, or what do you say? Have a look at this as an example:

Used one of my big, bulky Mamiya RZ cameras for this one. Had to do a short test of a huge 500mm lens I found lurking around in the attics. It's a beast I want to get rid of, to be honest...

When I'm at work the story is a bit different. Sitting in my office, turning around, there's always something different to see. Oh yes, I know... most of the time there's only the sea, but there's also weather, clouds, sunrises and sunsets of the unbelievable kind. Not that my photos can ever make them any justice B&W and all the lot, but you know. Then there's ships, oil rigs, more weather and what have you all. 

Some rig in UK waters, probably around Shetland somewhere. Oh yes, I know there's a cat hair right there, but I could not find the energy to remove it. Don't have a clue about which camera used, but probably some old Nikon of the very manual kind.

Then there's the scenery from the cottage, or sea house, or whatever you like to call it. I like to stay there and watch the light change. Watching big ships or small boats passing by. Just do nothing but relax and breath that good air by the sea. It's healing me for whatever disease I might have inside me. Some times I even feel immortal when I sit down like this. Like nothing can never disturb me, or get me out of the trance... Then the cat want some food, or the kettle boils over and the feeling's gone in a nick of time. Just look at this. It's nice, don't you think?

A beautiful day out on an 8 seconds walk from the front door. German old M camera with a quite wide german 21mm lens attached. Rangefinder and all... decent film and everything.

And then there's this beautiful island I use to go to. Ona, out west of the coastline from where I live. A bit north, and Way Out West. Out where the last bits of Norway being beaten by the North Sea day and night, all year long. Lifetime after lifetime. I love the scenery out here, and I know why. I need open landscapes to feel well. Open and simple, nothing that's in the way all the time.

And I need to be all alone at times, and I need it to be all quiet and calm. And I need the weather to beat my face, and the wind to howl in my ears. I find it all out here, where just a few and twenty souls lives. 

All three above was nicked off on that small island. Mamiya RZ loaded with different films. The two last ones most likely on "matured" Shanghai GP3

Time passes slowly...

"Time passes slowly, up here in the mountains..."
Probably some true words from one of my absolute favourite writers of all times, Bob Dylan. 
Well, I tell you, and Bob Dylan, that time passes very slowly out here at sea as well. And I kid you not! 
Been here for well over two weeks now, which should mean I got two short weeks left of this trip at work. 

Lerwick, Shetland. I like to walk around this bits of the world. Gives me peace and everything. It's a "textured" town as it happens, and I kind of like that. The man inside the frames looked a bit "textured" as well, to be maybe a notch too honest, but that's what I am at times. It was all good. This was snapped with a japaneese F3 camera onto quite fresh posh english film named HP5 me thinks.

I truly look forward of going home this time. I might even get some work done of the fun kind. Not very fun, but the result is something I look forward to, very much. I need to build up a more or less light tight wall down in the basement, and I'll get from that a designated darkroom. 
As of today I have to share the bathroom with loads of girls, teenagers and you know... all the lot. Meaning that I got to use it at night time if I want to get any good old proper paper printing done. Meaning further that it's not possible to get such things done each and every day. That's why I need that darkroom set up soon. Not that it is an idea that came to me two days ago like. Been there for years and years it has, but now it seems that I finally can get the time to get some work done. I'll keep you updated as I stroll along.

Don't know how you would do it, but this teenager (one of the bunch of many users of my current "darkroom" btw) found it convenient to also use the streets of Oslo for her breakfast not to long ago. Like you would... probably. 

They acted like freekin' bulls, but according to some one who should know, they were young cows. Pretty agressive looks anyway, and the behaviour was kind of likevise. Angry creatures they were. Mamiya RZ67 with some lens, and seen through some film. Probably chinamade Shanghai GP3, of the rather matured kind, living in my drawer as you should know.

Yesterday was crew change day in Kirkwall, Orkney. A long and by all means a truly bad day. Some times it feels like there's only one person that has to do everything. Ever experienced that? Of course it's not the truth, but it certainly feels like the truth there and then. 
Anyway, at work for 24 hrs. running all around doing more or less everything because of too few crew members having the right courses, too few crew members being on shift and you know the story. 
Well, at least we had the computer issue sorted out, the one that made me have to change to a watch system that does not quite suit me any more. Threw myself to bed finally, and woke up at four this morning wondering what was going on. Thought I was going to work again. Good thing was that I managed to sleep some more. 
Then up for a muster alarm at seven in the morning, just a test and for training purposes, mind you. But still had to get on my feet. Then short breakfast, and then hell broke loose, again. 
Major leakage of sea water into a room down here in the ship somewhere... and I tell you I got my feet wetened, soon enough as it was experienced. Not only my feet either, as the water leak was coming around the area in a spraying kind of way. 
And who do you think had to start do something about it?? Among 70 persons on board, yours truly was the lucky guy... again.
So I called the captain, asked him to come down and have a look at the fun. I know this guy well enough, and he can't let things like this pass without getting the chance to get his hands dirty and have a good old chat and all. So he came down and helped me sort the tragedy out. We had lots of fun as well, so that was good then. After all, of course. 
So the pipe works now. No leaks and what have you. All welded, padded and sorted out in a good manner, as we do. 

Ahhh... I'll never forget snapping this. As I have told you before, strolling the streets with a huge boxy Mamiya RZ67 is weird in many ways. You get these looks at times, as this woman of Bath in England completely managed to set up one day a couple of years ago. She did not look too pleased, to be absolutely honest, and dare I say she did not sound to pleased as well. But then again no harm was actualy done, and the world settled for both of us quite shortly after the snap was hidden inside my huge box. 

You think I better stop saying stuff now...? 
OK, I'll do just that then.

Here's Two for You

Just a quick post, as I seem to have temporary lost the capability of putting words through from my mind and onto this screen. 
Had a hard night at work last night trying to fix that yellow big thing to the right in the lower picture of the two. A big offshore crane that is, even though it might look that big in this picture as was stowed into it's stowing position. It obviously does not appear as yellow in this picture, just because it came out like this after the light had passed the emulsion of some B&W film a good while ago. 
This is the way the back deck of the ship I work on looks like when it's not over crowded with this and that and all sorts. 
The crane now works again, thank heavens, after me and the electrician did try most of our good old tricks on it until 4 in the morning, so that should make me sleep quite well for a few hours I would think, until I need to be up on my two feet again soon, doing more work as things are these days. 
None of the old tricks worked though, of course, so we had to invent a couple of new ones. They are now filed and recorded as new tricks, and will probably come in handy some day sooner rather than later if I know the ways of it's bits and pieces right. It's a moody lump of old dutch steel that one, you see. 

Both snaps were taken with some heavy, bulky, boxy and lovely Mamiya RZ67 medium format camera. I got a pile of them, but I can live with that.

The worlds best camera, they tell me...

Bruce Robbins at the Online Darkroom seem to have made up his mind about what's the world greatest camera these days, or any other day as well for that matter. I got the same kind of box myself as well (even though I got the probably a tiny notch worse E model), and just have to throw in my few cents, for whatever it may be worth. The truth is that there are very few flaws or whatever have you inside this box. It works, all the time, and give you great photos out the other end if you are able to do a half decent exposure. There is a light meter in this thing, which I never use. It's probably simple enough to use for a rocket scientist I should believe, but I find it way to cumbersome to deal with as I don't have the whole day to figure out the settings, and hence prefere to snap my shots using the "Regular Sh*te Weather 4" rule which I just invented. 

On the above snap, however, I probably used the "Marvelous Weather 8ish" rule, or something close to that. It was done in Scrabster, quite a while ago when Scotland experienced a few days of sun and things. Happy days I would think.

Three pics done with the box loaded with some old ORWO NP22 film. 

A couple of few weeks ago I suddenly discovered my Boxeiflex on top of my drawer thing full of films and stuff, and took it out for a while. It's crowded on top of those drawers, I tell you, so things seem to keep hiding away behind other things quite often. That's why this beautiful camera has not been in use for a while, I think. If you ask someone else you might get the impression that I got to many cameras, and that this could be a reason as well. I would not listen to much on such nonsense if I were you.
Anyway, as I also found hidden there a few rolls of ORWO NP22 B&W film from those old DDR, BRD or Eastern Germany days, if you like. I simply had to run through a couple of rolls just to have a look at how they perform nowadays. 
As the machine responsible for printing the date of when the company no longer wanted you to use the film, or when they stopped garantee the results from it, obviously had seen better days, I am quite uncertain about when it actually expired. I think, however, they might have stamped 03 93 on it. This is just a guess, and could just as well also be 83 or 03. As if I ever would care, besides curious about how well the film has matured. Not much, to be fair, so I think it will be good to keep the remaining rolls for a longer period inside that drawer. Or, if I should need them for some reason I will of course use them. Whenever.

A boat on the slipway in Kirkwall, Orkney a couple of years ago. Guessed exposure here as well, but could do well with another short minute or so probably. This was done on some different film than the above though.

Sea house, Ona in Sandøy, Norway. Could well turn out to be some film from the eastern parts of the world of some sort. Probably Shanghai GP3.

Anyway, it gives you some proper fine snappies this box with two lenses, where you only use one of them to take the photograph and the other one to look through. Or what do you think? 
After all, I just finally found evidence that it's the best camera in the world, or maybe the second best then. It's a handy old box for sure, and easy to operate as well despite being a medium format camera taking 120 film and all. Square pics 6x6 cm it gives you, but that's great for a change me think. After all the scans can be posted directly on Instagram without the need of any cropping, resizing and all those things you will have to do all the other time. And how great isn't that, if you want to post on Instagram that is. I have not done that in a while as I start to think about it. Bad internet out here at sea, you see. 
Another cool feature inside this camera is the in-built possibility of locking the aperture and shutter time in such a way that they are linked together if needed. Adjust one of the either, and the other will follow automatically. A nice detail, me thinks. An early version of shutter- and aperture priority "automatic". It's not automatic at all, to be fair, but it's still usefull to someone sometimes.

Looking up from the entrance of some hotel lobby years ago. One of the first snaps I ever snapped with the use of this black box.

Andrea over at Boxes and Bellows has just run some Portra film through an old camera producing squares as well. I don't know which camera these goodies came out of, but I guess there's no prices to be won if I think it's old. And maybe even a bit battered.
Check out that blog, as you are prone to find a decent number of fantastic photos over there. And I kid you not! There's words there as well, and they are well worth some time spent.
She don't do color either, of course, even though it looks like she does from time to time. I really like those two half darkish ones (appears to be darkish on one of my screens here at work, but not on the other one...) from her last post though. A lot, that is. Fantastic composition, great sceenery and all the lot.
There's also a great number of lith scans and stuff, on whatever paper you may think of and probably a decent few more.

Exposure... how much fun can one really have?

Electronically controlled digital image making, or rather taking, devices have their own psycho ways when it comes to calculating exposure. 
When I grew up I learned that there was a limited certain set of shutter times, and then a set of aperture values on any lens. Some lenses were simpler than others, but on just about any old SLR lens from back then you will find a span from maybe f/2 upwards to f/16 or thereabout. A few very fancy high-end expensive ones had half stops in between, but most of them was equipped with only the set of full stops. The shutter times was more or less standard for all cameras, only that the expensive ones started to get faster shutters some time during the eighties when we started to see 1/2000 and even 1/4000 of a second and stuff like that. I never had the money, so I left them alone.

Anyway. Ever checked the EXIF data (or whatever it's called...) the readout of the exposure thing from a digital shooter? I tell you; it's no wonder that any boy or girl next door ends up with the eyes rolling around all over the shop when manual exposure is being brought up as a smalltalk subject around the morning coffee some old sunday morning. When they check the data of the pictures taken on their devices, the shutter times and the belonging f/stops just does not make sense. Not to them, not to me. 
This is simply because such a camera in Automatic mode (green stuff on the wheely thing on top of the device, usually) is able to choose between a zillion of combinations of ISO, Aperture and Shutter settings. That's why it's simply impossible to learn much about exposure by checking such sets of data. 

Grab any old SLR film shooter though, and you will learn what you need in a few minutes just by listening to someone who knows a few bits about it, and playing with the real thing on your own. And hey, you can still get the exposures quite right even though you only got a few shuttertimes and aperture settings to choose from. No kiddin'!
Feeling really brave this morning, I could also claim to be able to teach someone a few things about walking around, taking pictures whithout the need of a light meter. I never used to do this in my earlier life, as my (only) camera of choice back then was equipped with such a device. Not a very good one, mind you, but it was there for me to use, and I did. Nowadays I got more cameras without a functioning meter (or without a meter at all) than I got of the others, which usually leads to situations where I just have to decide in a flick of time the settings of my camera to make a decent exposure. Don't start whining about me bragging and all sorts! It's really easy... I swear! Even me, myself, managed to understand how to do it. That should tell you something, just trust me.

All snaps in this post was done with some old german camera with no light meter at all. Just "guessing" exposure, adjust accordingly, and snap. If you think my sister looks a bit weird around her mouth area, you are quite right about that. Eating something as I snapped away she was, which never looks smashing anyway.

Running around with old cameras in the end gave me no other option but start taking chances on exposure, and try to learn how to see light instead of using a hand held light meter for every single shot. It's actually not about taking huge life threatening chances folks. All that can go wrong is that you'll loose a great masterpiece or three. I can ashure you it's worth it, in the end.
The answer lies in the "Sunny 16" rule, even though I would twist that a bit and rename to "Standard Dull 5.6" rule, or something like that, up in our area. Sunny is not an every day experience, to say the least. We usually get totally confused as soon as something shines a bright light down, and cast shadows at the same time. 

Anyway, if you are able to find google, or something, you can find out about this as well. If not, just ask and I'll come up with something one day soon. I'm a nice guy, you see...! :)
Just remember to exposure for the shadows, and you should be totally OK.

That last shot is just a disaster of an exposure, but I throw it in here anyway. Under the circumstances it was the best I could get, probably... but I had the wrong film and everything at this gig. I love a couple of the shots though, and what more do you need? Nothing I would think is the right answer.

Coloring it up a bit on a gray day

Not that I like it to much, I have to inform you, but nevertheless I have been known to load a few of my cameras with colorbased negative film every now and then. It's not happening very often, but I seem to always have a few rolls dwelling in my dedicated film drawer. And from time to time I pick one out and load it into some old camera. 

I'm not too sure of why I keep on having them in "stock" to be honest, but it seems that they never quite dissappear from where I keep this stuff. I hear already people screaming in the background here. It's obviously a fact that many photographers are hysterical about the temperature of their film at all times, but I keep mine kind of warm. Or at room temperature, at least. It's always great to have some kind of excuse to throw out when the negatives comes out in a bad state. As they most certainly do from time to time. It's probably due to bad handling and too high a temperature, I would think! 

I am on facebook, as most people are these days anyway, and inside that area I'm a member of a few photography groups. I think what's common to most of them is the level of seriousness many of the members take it to. One of the latest things i read was a guy who never purchase film unless it was autumn or winter time. And that he had to be 100% sure that the film was from a fresh batch, and that the mail man had not kept his precious couple of rolls inside a too heated up car, and what do I know more. 
As I just told you; I keep my film warm, and the older it gets the more interesting results it will produce, maybe. That's the film, just to keep it clear. Me and myself produce more or less the same results all the time I'm afraid to say.
As a matter of fact I got a roll of film back home, in that drawer in my bedroom, which expired august 1958. Can't wait to curl that one through some old partly fancy camera from that same era. I would guess there's grain to find inside after it's been duly bathed in some old Rodinal or some other fancy juice. 
Color... it's just kind of a cheap trick, I would say. Like a magician that keep people distracted to look in the wrong direction. Personally I see the pictures themselves better in B&W, but that could be just me. 

I know people who tell me all the time that B&W looks like something from the stone age or thereabouts, and use every opportunity to inform me that the world has gone forward. That we see in color these days, that digital has arrived and all that kind of brilliant stuff. Well, it's to brilliant to my taste anyway. That's what it is. Just to shiny, to brilliant, to flawless, and way to blingbling. 

Colors might look bad on film, but electronic images take colors to a totally different level, at least if the operator of the tools is not of the careful kind. It's simple and easy for sure, and everyone seem to be a "photographer" these days, or at least quite a lot claim to be one, but the photos a good lot of them produce looks more like a christmas tree on steroids. Give me one more HDR "glowing" landscape, or one more beautiful young girl with eyes that seem to pop out of the computer screen, and I think I have to go stick my head over the side of the ship... for a short while. Sharpness has become a virtue, and these days the sharpness in pictures seems to be close to beat even the real world thing. Give me more of the things I have to struggle a little bit to find out of. Give me more to feed my brain, not only my eyes. Give me true stories in a way I can believe in them. And give me more of that beautiful film grain. 

Nope! I don't claim to be a photographer at all, but I do know how to make a fairly proper snap though... all the way from winding the film from a bigger box into a smallish box, load it into any old camera and showe some light through it in lots of different intervals and combinations of time and ammount, before the whole lot is rewinded back into the same old smallish box until it's pulled out again and loaded onto a different spool when me being inside a pinchish dark room. 
Further I know how to get negative things pop onto the strip of film, and also how to make a decent print by flashing light through the negative down onto various grades of beautiful and lovely paper, to, eventually after some humble bumble in a little bit lighter room, bring out a picture that some people think is looking fairly good, and some not. I can do all that, but I'm not a proper photographer anyway. In black and white that is... mind you. I don't do color paper. Or not as for yet, anyway. I might try that one day just for fun, or to check if I can.

The bunch running around snapping any of them fancy blingbling shots before they get themselves in front of their computers are not necessarily photographers either. Some of them obviously are, but not all of them. Just sayin'...!
You just can't buy the best camera you can get for money and claim you can take pictures like a pro. Maybe you are an expert in using that particular camera, which sometimes could be worth a medal anyway, but that still does not automatically make you a great photographer. 
Tell me a story with those pictures, and I will listen... carefully. I promise! 
Tell me nothing and I will definitively search somewhere else out there, because there will always be someone having something that really speaks to me. And how good is that? 
It's great, as it duly happens.

Film to slow you down?

Film slows you down, in some way. At least it slows me down a huge lot compared to the couple of years I was doing digital crap. 
Still, there is one kind of a blog I used to have a look at every now and then a little while ago, where things just went totally through the roof at some point. Like a hobby film photographer on speed, or something like that. I mean, what's the point doing this when the only goal you got is to send a certain amount of film through your camera in a year? And yes, as a result I think the results are quite dull, and at times horrible. The photos of this photographer gives me nothing anymore, and I can't find one single story told in the pictures. A shame, I have to say, because there's nothing wrong with the photographers technique or anything. Still there is something, at least for me, important missing inside the photos. Call it "mojo", "soul" or whatever. I'm not following this photographer anymore, so that's what I did about it.

And hey, get this right: I am not in any kind of belief that my own pictures necessarily is better than this photographer I was talking about. I got a lot of crap, you see! These are from some film I found lurking about a few weeks ago. I have gone through it before, mind you, but there was something there I have not stopped to look at, if you understand...
Like these two, of one of the AB's on board my vessel. A truly cool rocking old horse from down south in Norway. 

Stone walls in Scotland. I simply love them! Floating around all over the place, patterning things up neatly and just is there. Probably forever. This was a nice one I found in Scrabster during a short walk one day we were stuck in there for some odd reason. I think I need to revisit this one some day, if I ever get the chance. Walls, the rocky sort you find over here in Scotland, truly tell stories. There's almost a story in each and every stone if you look at it that way. At least there's been a lot of hassle involved.

Don't know why I post this actualy, as I think I even has posted it before on here somewhere. It's one of the first photos I did with one of my small, old and worn cameras. A german thing from the very early 60's. Great lens and everything on this one, but fireing it off at four in the morning at the bus station in "B" mode, only supporting it on a litterbin counting seconds in my head would be to just taking chances, and spoil film. I did anyway, and have to say that the result was quite good. That's reason enough to post it for me. I'm that kind of guy, you know. Taking bold chances like that, all the time. I kid you not! It's a great feeling, at times...

These pictures are all from german stuff, anyway. Three of them from M models, one from an E model of some kind. Some boxy kind, that is. Two lenses and everything, and good it is as well. The shutter is barely audible, for whatever good that might be. I like them, though. They got something to them that some times telling me to not screw things up. Not that I always listen to that crap, but it's there anyway. 
My japaneese stuff never do that. Noisy they are as well. I take the same kind of pictures with them as with the german things, which makes me think that I might be good at ignoring them all, in some kind of way. 

I should really have someone to knock me hard in the head when I write to much on here. It's just this head of mine... or a syndrome or whatever it is. I write to much in general, probably. 

Medium format photography

Good morning, or whatever it is...?! I'm getting my mind flipped of this watch system I'm on at the moment, as you might understand.

I like to take photos. A lot! I also like the feel of a little bit bigger negatives than the more commonly 135 films. One of the reasons might be that my eyes are not what they used to be a few years ago. One grows older, and all that... you probably know what I mean.
Medium format cameras. I got four of them, as I got a few of them more or less handed over because of bad situation for the giver. Sickness, and all kinds of no good stuff. But enough of that here and now. 
I got 6x7 format cameras, and I got one 6x6 format. They are great, I must say, even though the bigger ones probably will kill my back at some point. They are huge and heavy things, as you might know. I'm talking about the Mamiya RZ67 system. The Rolleiflex is quite a bit more handy, and the one to go for when I want to travel a bit lighter, as I do, from time to time anyway.

 Developing medium format film is just the same process as doing 135 size, but I have to say the "thrill factor" is a bit more prudent. For me, at least. The above photo was shot in Orkney a couple of years ago, on a truly shitty day - weathervise that is. The day was great, with a good run around the southern part of the islands in with great Craig, the reporter, as a guide. Going on sightseeing with a reporter is a different story, I tell you that. Crazy thing is that these guys are always at work, somehow. One time I found myself part of a carchase searching for fire trucks and flames and whatever I don't know. How's that for a sightseeing? Now you tell me! Couldn't find any fire though, but they had impressive cars and blue lights and what do I know...

I don't know how many shots I ever did of this window! Must have been many rolls of 120 film in total. I have not printed it yet, due to a the lack of a dedicated dark room, but I sure will later when I'm done producing one. I don't have to chase the best angle, light and what have you, of this window anymore though, as I just realized this summer that it's eventually gone. Forever, that is! They picked the thing down. Can you ever imagine? My plan is to sell the print for a high price to the owner of the previous wall, and window. He can't resist that opportunity, I hope. Otherwise I might give him a copy for free. That's the kind of man I am.

The last one is a snap I shot down in the lower ends of The Strynd in Kirkwall, Orkney. The Mamiya RZ67 is not the typical stealth camera you would choose for any old street photo job, but I have done that as well, and it works. At least sometimes. You will get a few surprised faces stuck on film, that's for sure. 

OK, this is not exactly top notch stuff. I totally realize that. It's the only examples I got right here and now though, so they will need to pass no matter what. Well... I still think the snap of the window will surely find it's place and become a classic though. Or it might just be me that got this something about these old windows? I don't have a clue, so you tell me.

On watch

At work in the middle of the night, when normal people lie in their beds, most likely sleeping. That's my thing these days as we got a blown up computer in the engine dept. on the ship. Just need to step in and double up the manning a few days until we can get the electronic junk sorted, that's all. That's life on board a ship. For now, anyway. 

Watch, and drills... of course. Drills all the time, and they most likely go on when I was supposed to sleep. That's just because the captain and chief officer is sleeping at opposite hours from me. They decide when drills are to be done, and believe it or not, they will be done during daytime. I feel fine though! Fine, but tired... most of the time.

Enough about work, for now. I've been a little bit around a few weeks ago. Summer hollidays and things, as you probably know by now if you have read the words written a few days ago. I kind of travelled back in time, to the days when I was more or less a kid. Out to the island where my grandparents lived, way out west in the North Sea on the norwegian coastline. Nothing much had changed out here, but the ammount of caravan cars and german tourists is just insane these days. Can't get away from it, even out here in this hidden paradise from my youth. Well, we got away eventually when we started to think like the locals and choose the right places where no one ever thread... or hardly ever thread, as we did.

You probably had no idea, but at some point in time in the quite early 1900's they built a church on one of the outposts of this island. Quite a big one as well, when you take a look at the area around. Not a soul living here these days, except a lot of wild geese as we found out by stepping around in the area sliding in their, well... things left behind. No one probably lived here back in the days either, but the very small islands west of this place was inhabited back then. That's why they built this church, I believe. People had to row in from all around, in their small boats and what do I know. Lot's of struggle to go to church those days, and you better go if the weather was even close to good enough. To go to the service back then was probably something else than it is these days, for all I know. It was serious business, all the same.

As I am in the middle of the process of boring you guys to death anyway, I put in a snap from even further west as well. This is not Norway, as you might quickly figure out from the architecture things going on inside the picture. And maybe even from the text on the shops. It's from the big city in Shetland, of course, where I wander from time to time when I get the chance. As I did this day, a couple of months ago, or something like that. I like the smaller islands scattered around Scotland. Just had to say.

And now, more coffee!

Here you see!

I'm already back the next day as counted from yesterday, you see. Should mean that I'm back on track, sort of.
I might even have a great shot or two to show any one who might pass by this nonsense some time in the future...

Like this one, as an example. As seen through some german overrated camera a wee while ago on from the absolute perkiest peak of the vessel I work on. That's a helideck, by the way, and the wheelhouse of the boat. The rest is not seen from this point, due to structural reasons. 

And as you will most certainly remember from my last post, I was just in Oslo! The big town, depending a bit on where you come from as you read this. I kind of like this one, for some reason. I might even post something similar some other day. I don't like that town much though... to many folks around, and the weather is kind of boring for a guy used to more of the thing. More weather, that is.

Another one of the lovely fiddle lady from the other day, and one of her companions there out on the streets. Not the best shot, I have to admit, but certainly better than many others though. A sharp and shiny digishot would not do the same thing to this scene, in my opinion. The two last ones is from that now dead Nikon FE2, forever attached to Fomapan film, I think.

Hey...!

Just wanted to tell you, that I'm not totally gone or anything! I'm still around, just been a bit busy doing holliday stuff and things. You know what I mean. Waisting a bunch of film and such.

Not only waisting film, but also finally managed to put my beloved Nikon FE2 totally out of action. I will not say killed, as for yet, as I am currently struggeling to try a repair, but nevertheless managed to drop it from height down on one of the floor tiles in a shop down there in Oslo. The big city in Norway, that is. 
To that very camera was also attached a huge and heavy Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 lens, but that one survived for some odd reason. Happy days, you know...

As you might see, I have posted here a couple of masterpieces shot with quite long shuttertimes, as I'm feeling like moving in some kind of direction at times. It's not a constant move, or flow, but it might as well be a start of something I'm unaware of at the moment. I think I'll sit back and see where it takes me, if anywhere at all. Both shot in Oslo by the way, and you may buy a great print of the crow if you like something special for your wall. These are just scans from the negatives, mind you, so how it prints nobody yet know. But someday I will... at least... and maybe my wife and anyone who might get the chance to see the print on the wall before my wife realizes the horror and take it down.

See you around!

Not Forgotten!

I know folks! I've been away for quite a while. Well, not far away, as a matter of fact... just around the corner, but still away from the blog somehow.
I was just developing a couple of rolls, and thought I might better drop in just to give a short update to let all of you know that I'm still standing on two feet.

Holliday here in Norway right now, and that's the biggest reason I've been away for the last few weeks. Not that I've been traveling a lot this year, but anyway...
I've shot a few rolls though, and been developing a couple just this evening.
Basically it's all old stuff though, but I will probably get a couple more done tomorrow. If we're lucky I get some scanned by tomorrow, but that depends a lot on the weather and things that has to be done around the house... you know.

Just found this one... Done some time ago using my old Rolleiflex and some film... think it was Tri-X in Rodinal. Shot near Kirkwall in almost pinch black highlight.

My youngest daughter heading towards the head of the pier. Rolleiflex and some film. 

And that's it for today! 

I'll be in touch, I guess :))