They have a couple of really big fabrication halls here, and they were the target for this evenings rather experimental photo tour. When I finally got there I found it not to be as easy as I first thought it would be.
First of all I thought it would be a straight forward job to find a sturdy stand for the camera. Well, it was not. I finally ended up putting the Nikon on top of a huge steel pipe lying flat, but the roundness of the thing made it a bit difficult. With the aid of a few bits and pieces from my pockets and some searching around the area to find stuff I finally think I managed to build something hopefully good enough. Then it was the film, or the very bad choice of such, to be more precise. I thought I had loaded the FM2 with pushed to 1600 HP5. Halfay on my walk over there I suddenly found I have had the thing reloaded with FP4 instead, as that probably sounded like a very good idea at some point in the middle of the fever I had a couple of days ago. To really top it all I also discovered I had left my iPhone with the light measuring app on board the ship before I went away.
And man was it cold!! Freezing wind that really made my fingers big and numb.
Not the best of situations, to put it simple.
Today's the day for old snaps, I think. Since I was quite lazy when at home before I went to work I didn't manage to get any films developed. That means I should have quite a few to throw into some kind of fluid in a few weeks time. I like the lines in this one, but you probably knew that already I guess. From the first film I ran through my Rolleiflex after I bought it while sitting stuck in Bergen for a few days while waiting for weather to get over to Orkney. First they closed the airport in Bergen, which does not happen very often. Then, when they finally had cleared away the snow there it really started to snow over in Orkney, so all flights cancelled. Brilliant! Anyway I got myself a Rolleiflex out of it. Not bad, actually.
Still, I was there with a couple of cameras, and I was rather determined to get something done with them. At least I had remembered to put the cable release into my pocket before I left the ship, so I pressed the end of the thing a few times while counting slowly to 32 or something like that. They are probably way underexposed, because I don't carry reciprocity tables or anything like that in my pockets. I have never tried FP4 in the dark before either, so I don't have a clue how it behaves. I guess we will find out soon enough. Sometimes a wild guess is just as good as anything, but I have also found that if you add a little bit of experience from earlier into it all it might save you from getting nothing.
I also brought the M3 rangefinder. That one contained a roll of Kentmere 400, and I snapped a few frames of that sort as well. Huge aperture, 1 sec. shuttertime. Handheld. I'm looking forward to see them, of course.
I have just started to feel my fingers again now, and it hurts.
If I go out again tomorrow night I'll bring gloves. I promise!
More lines, even though they really go all over the place and in no particular direction. Don't know why I posted this one here and now, but it might have something to do about the season we are in the middle of. Wintertime means something rather special to the norwegians, as you probably have noticed long time ago. This is the Holmenkollen ski jump after the latest rebuild a few years ago. My father actually got a few jumps in this hill, but that was way back in the days when it was a bit smaller. It's a nice construction, and a bit impressive if you take the lift up to the top looking downwards.
When going back on board the ship the scotsman in the security asked me if they were film cameras, refering to the two beauties I carried.
So we had a nice talk about old cameras and vinyl records, and he seemed a bit surprised about the fact that you can still get fresh film. He told me a story about once having a freezer half full of Kodachrome he got from the Royal Air force. They had to throw it away because of the date stamp on them, so he got the whole lot instead. Cool thing was that he didn't even have to pay for the development of them, as they used to be pre-paid back in the days as a few of us still remember. He told me he still got quite a number of packets down there at the bottom, but it could take a while until he can have things like that developed as we have learned over the last few years.
I even found I had snapped a snap of a snap of the original owner of the Kodachrome films the security dude have lingering down inside his freezer, believe it or not. I think this was taken inside a cafè or a pub somewhere in Wales a few years ago. With a nice clock counting away right beside the queen, and everything. Studying things a bit my best guess will be that it origined out of either a Nikon with a 24mm lens, or maybe also one of the leicas with the nice and wide 21mm attached to it. And yes, I know it's way on the underexposed side. Walking around outside guessing exposure is one thing, coming inside in totally different light is quite something else.
Other than that it's just been another day at work. Lots of running up and down the stairs with papers in hand looking important. At least that probably looks far better than the last few days when I've been here, there and everywhere without anyone even noticing that both my hands and my boilersuit really have taken a different colour. Well, I still hope it's worth something to someone.
Love the first shot there, Roy - all lines and light. Fantastic.
SvarSlettAh...the running around thing with paper. Where I last worked, there was one Professor who never left his office without a whole armful of papers. And he walked quickly, always. Clearly he was very, very busy and very, very, important. Although some of us suspected otherwise :)
Loads of thanks, Michael. I like that one myself as well, actually. There was a few other spots worth snapping as well inside this hotel lobby, but the 80mm lens attached on the Rolleiflex was not the right tool to get the job done. The Leica with a wide 21mm would be the perfect tool for it, but it was not at hand at all on this trip. You just can't bring them all, I guess...
SvarSlettAh, I might have looked like the old professor that day. And I guess none on board suspected I either was in a hurry or did important things. They might have been right!