Thoughts on things

Weather is obviously finally starting to coming in. The last couple of months has been absolutely fantastic in most meanings of the word, but the light has been boring as a result. That's not the only reason why I have not been very busy with any of my cameras, but it play some part of it for sure. Luckily I'm old enough to have experienced quite a few periods of absolutely no inspiration before, and I'm starting to get to the end of one right now. At least I think I am. 
I have been thinking a bit about what to do, on how to proceed, from where I'm at for the moment. I want to do projects, or at least come up with some idea to follow a little closer and further than I usually do with things. Be a bit more specific on what I waste my film on... to put it that way. 
I used to have a list of possible areas of interest some time ago. I threw it away. Not that it was a bad idea, maybe, but it just don't work that way. Not for me, anyway. 
I think I need to start with something simple, and see where it might lead me. I hope to get the time to start on something soon, and my wish is to be prepared. At least as prepared as possible. 
Knowing myself quite well I know that anything I start will probably get twisted and turned into something else than first anticipated at some point, but shame on the one that give up. Right?

It has seen better days, this old anchor chain that has found it's last place of rest down by the sea at Ona. It's getting more worn each year now, and one day it will be completely gone. Probably not going to happen during my lifetime, though, but I will keep you updated :))

I have bought a couple of books lately. Stuff with snaps inside, you know. 
I must say I really liked the latest one that I found in my mail box yesterday. I have just barely shuffled quickly through the thing, but the first impression was really great. Swedish photographer Malin Ellisdotter Hellesø has put together a fine collection snaps done more or less only inside her home, using her cat Sheldon and herself as her main subjects. Lots of fine playing with contrasts, light and shadows. The book is called "Sheldon & I", of course.

I don't think I ever posted this? It's a bridge we sailed underneath a while ago. It's the bridge in Måløy, Norway. Huge kind of thing, and with a nice appearance to it. I like the way it bends through the landscape and sort of become a part of it all. 1224 meters long it's number 8 on the list of long road bridges in Norway. It was the second largest at the time it was opened, in 1974. According to Wikipedia we have around 23000 road bridges scattered around old Norway. Not all of them is as big and nice as the one above, though.

And I still buy my monthly photo magazine. They are mostly rubbish these days, the photo magazines, as I'm not at all interested in the latest equipment tests and reviews and that sort of thing. Each time I find myself inside some magazine shop I will sweep through one of tree of them, but I'm just getting more disappointed each time I do so. A couple of great snaps here and there, but the majority of the pages seems to contain review of camera gear or software. And then there's the ever increasing amount of "how to" articles on extremely specific details on what's happening inside one or two very specific software that all have to use to get any joy of the article at all. 
Entire issues seems to be payed work for one of the major brands. I'm not saying it is so, but it certainly looks that way at times. 
And I've had enough of that, long time ago. 
These days there's only one magazine I really like, the "Black + White Photography". Oh yes, you will find a few totally uninspiring pages inside that one as well, but at least they still seem to try have their main focus elsewhere than most others. There are snaps well worth to spend some time with inside each issue, and also some great articles on photographers and how they look at the world. I like that. I like to read about how people use their eyes and brains instead of reading about exactly what type of filter inside some random software were used to do this or that. 

I think I told you I bought some film recently. This bloke had bought 15 rolls of Ilford Pan 400 film, but ended up with 15 rolls of 135 film instead of the ordered 120 film, and no camera to load them inside. Instead of buying a new camera format he sold off the rolls. As the film community seems to be growing these days I must say I was a bit baffled by the fact that he also put in a few rolls extra when he learned from my e-mail that I also snap things on medium format film. Six rolls extra free of charge. That starts to smell of a nice deal, I have to say. Four rolls of something I have never seen before, and two rolls of something I have seen but never tried. 
The four rolls are called Ultrafine Extreme 400, and there was also a couple of rolls of Rollei RPX 400 film. 
The Rollei brand is quite well known, I suppose, but the Ultrafine thing is a bit of a mystery to me. As usual there's a lot of discussion going on about what it really is out there on the interweb. The bloke who sold the stuff thought it might be repacked HP5, but having looked a wee bit on the web it seems like it's something else. Well, I don't care too much, to be honest. I snap away and throw it into some kind of developer towards the end of the week just to see if something comes out. If not, I'll give it another try with different settings, times and fluids. Easy...!

OK then. One more from the same bridge. This is just before it ends up on the Måløy side of the thing. Sorry for the bad light and such, but the day was rather dull as you might see. Dull and foggy... as days usually tends to be over here. There's something about this bridge and the odd shape of that cottage inside this snap that talks to me in some weird way. 

What I'm curious about right now is actually if there's things stuck on film from my latest trip to Bergen, and also how the snaps from the half format plastic toy Diana thing looks. I hope to find out some time during the next few days. I'm at the cottage right now, you see. No room dark enough to open a film canister down here, as I found out quite a while ago. 
I just brought some Mamiya RZ cameras out of a big bag, just to check if there might be some old and forgotten film stuck inside one or more of the backs. Well, it was. So now I have used a small bit of time to waste the rest of the frames, just to be able to check what I was doing the last time I had the big, chunky and bulky ones out in the open air. 
I hope I'm preparing for something. Very unsure about what it might be, but hopefully something good.