Contructions in the sea, you know

Rumors in the air, just like any other last week at work. There's always rumors going around as to when crew change day is gonna be. This time it's a bit important, as easter is a big holiday over in Norway and you will not be able to do any flying due to very few routes operating, and the fact that more or less every ticket would have been occupied months ago. Well... if I just get over to the other side of the North Sea I will manage by hireing a car, or something. I will get home, no matter how difficult the charterer of this boat want to make it.

I give you medium format snaps today folks. Saved from inside the dark areas of one of the Mamiya RZ cameras all three of  them. Snaps of structures or constructions in the sea, as stated in the heading for today. You might expect a few more oil riggs I would suspect, but none to be posted today. This used to be a pier where a few fishing boats used to go alongside when there were no fishing to be done. Seems like it's a few years since it's heydays to be fully honest. 

We are at the Magnus field in the North Sea right now. Laid up on DP very close to the rig to check risers and stuff with one or two of the ROV's on board. Survey mission this trip, which makes a difference to the usual routine at least. Give us a chance to see different parts of the sea, if that makes any sense to anyone at all...
Word is that we will finish off this part of the job around lunch tomorrow, and then make our way to west of Shetland, to our usual playground, just to put ROV's in the water and check the pipe going all the way in to Sullom Voe in Shetland. When that's done I should be due for home, so let's just cross fingers folks.

Ahh... forgot to tell you! The pier is located out here, on Godøya... just outside my home town of Ålesund, Norway. A nice place where I often go if I need some wind in my hair or to see some good old sea spray. Not that this exact spot is the best place for it, but at the other side of the island you would have some better luck. Out there at Alnes, just where the North Sea comes in with some of it's power. Oh yes, Mamiya RZ67 this one as well. Don't know what happened though. Looks like a longish exposure, and then some double stuff on top. Or maybe just some movement as the exposure was going on. It's a bit strange. And it's probably done on some cheap Shanghai GP3 film.

I have a plan to get some films sloshed around in some chemicals quite soon upon arrival @home, then hopefully get my spartan darkroom set up to make a few prints. You all know I had a plan to build a permanent one last year, but we got some future plans that just don't fit too well together with that. Or, the permanent darkroom does not fit too well into the future plans, would be the more right way to put it.
See, we have been talking about moving, which in turn would make a new built darkroom totally a waste. But hey, it's just plans. As for yet, anyway.
I can still live with a darkroom I need to put up and take down after use, but I really feel that it would be great to have a purpose built one, to be honest.
I might put one up in a totally different place, as it happens. I got some space for such, even though I might need to install it away from home. What about a darkroom out here, on the small Ona island? That would be the only one out there, for sure! I got some old plans around for that as well, so I might find them old drawings and just give it a go. We'll see. First of all I should get the bathroom darkroom up and running one more time before summer kills the opportunity. It's a nightmare to block the light out totally, making it more or less not fit for purpose during daytime. And soon enough we will have daylight more or less 24/7, making it a wee bit difficult to work in there until late september, or something like that. But then we got a few months where daylight is more or less absent anyway, making it useful all the time. That's life up north...

Same jetty, different perspective. Same camera, same lens. The good Sekor 50mm it certainly was by the looks of things. I kind of like this composition, even though I might be able to make it a tad better by moving and inch or so to the left? Maybe, or maybe not. The light could have been way more interresting though, but it will be easy for me to get back some day when the weather is worse, and the skies are more grand. 

We have this gym on board the ship. I used to be a quite frequent visitor... some time ago. At least I used to be a frequent visitor for a while. Not for a very long while, but longish... to my standards.
Anyway, just had to tell you that I'm going there again. This evening! 19.30 I'll be on the bike, more or less no matter what happens elsewhere on board. Nothing can stop me, I think. Got to be the bike, as that's the only way of exercise my knees can take these days.
They used to be very strong back in the days, my knees. Good for days of skiing, long and tough ski jumps, running, heavy lifting... you name it, my knees could take it. Then I started to work, as a welder as it happens, building ships and stuff. 12 - 14 years of that thing, and my knees were killed. At least the earlier known version of them. 
Nowadays I need to be a bit careful to what I throw at them, which means the bike is a lot better than running on the threadmill. I can still run a bit along the gravelled roads back home, but not on the harder stuff. Well... right now I would probably not be able to run a hundred meters anyway, but that's not my knees fault. Bad shape, you know. Breath, heartbeat... you know all about the hassle. So I need to get something done, again... and I will be starting today. Right here and now, this evening. It will do me good, I know. At least if I manage to survive the first couple of weeks. Then it's all going to be fun. I know all that, because I have tried it before. But this time I will really try my best to follow up for a longer period. I promise!
See? I actually wrote it...! So now I just have to really, really try.

And here I am... A quarter past nine, and I am still alive after exactly 55 minutes on the bike. Not that I was trying to overdo anything at all, mind you! See, you have to start kind of careful as you definately don't want to end up with a heart attack in the middle of the bloody North Sea! Instead I tried to stay kind of steady on the pulse for around an hour, in which I think I succeeded in doing. And yes, it feels good as it happens. 
Oh, and I have added a few snaps for you to watch as my pulse needed some time to get down to a more normal level. 
And I'm off to the shower!
Take care friends, whoever you are out there somewhere...

Crew change day...

...and half way into the working period. And I never seem to get tired of nagging about how busy these days are. But OK, I will leave it all inside myself this time.

Sailed in to Peterhead around one o'clock today, and have been sitting here alongside all day. No chance to even get a half decent snap of the small town from the bridge or anything. Work, and nothing but work, all day. It actually seems I need to fish out one of them cameras and go for a walk around the vessel one of the next days, snap up some collegues or something like that. Just to waste some film, you know.
Sometimes you just have to do that, for some reason. I don't know why, but at some point you can't just hold back anymore, and need to finish that old film off. Either way.

It's from that quite silent place, again. In Scotland, as you should know. Sorry, but I'm running out of snaps to show up here, it seems. I should soon dive into that hard drive again, probably. I have not even trimmed that right hand side of it. See how sloppy I am with the scannings.

I just had a discussion going on with my son over on the fb chat. He's all digital this and that, and are now searching for a good but not too expensive digi shooter. I don't know where he's ending up, but I have read that much between the lines that I know he has set his mind on quite a few of my old lenses. Should mean he's got his aim at some Nikon then, I guess. Well, he will have to learn a few old tricks if he want to run away with to many of them fine lenses, for sure. But he will find out. I'm not too worried about that :)

It's been a while since I have posted this, I think. Done using one of the big japaneese ones, Mamiya RZ67. Big boxes they are, with huge and heavy glass in front. They are drawing nice pictures though, at times, if the person behind it all are able to adjust those wheels into some useful combinations. I suddenly see that this one could use a tiny trim as well. On the upper right hand, as it happens. Must be some disease I have caught somewhere.

It's getting late, again. I better try to find that bed in here somewhere. Should not be too difficult, as there's hardly enough room to even stretch ones old legs inside this cramped place. 
See ya!

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.

What's wrong here, anyway?

Something just have to be... because as soon as I put this, whatever I will write and post today, online, there will very soon be six or seven people looking at it (at least according to the statistics) and then there will never be any more. Never, ever! 
AND, not only that! The only visitors will be from either Norway or the big USofA. Nowhere else in the world whatsoever, at least that's what the same statistics map tells me. That's a bit strange, isn't it? 
Well, I probably just need to relax a bit about it, and just think that when the world finally finds this, they will probably jump in joy and I will have millions watching... for sure...!

I brought myself and my wife over to Orkney just after christmas last year. Or, I was already there, as my ship docked in there for crewchange, and my wife came over to have a good look at the islands. We like it lots out on these remote isles of britain. We have now done Shetland and Orkney, and the outer Hebrides will have to be next in line I guess. I like the open landscapes, and I really like the people over here. I work with a lot of them on my ship, and the ones living on-shore is not to bad either.
The above picture will be showing a tiny bit of the "entrance" to the beach of Dingieshowe, as posted some time earlier in the blog. A beautiful spot.

Not to forget, we got open landscapes on the coast of Norway as well! Don't misunderstand here! It's a bit the same same, but different. We were more or less totally asleep when cliffs was delivered, Doesn't matter to much, as they got loads of them further west in the ocean. We also lack something else. I don't know exactly what it is, but there's something about the people... so it's at a different level, which I'm probably not that good at. Or I will most definately fail if I try to explain it. Nevertheless, this shot was taken not to very long ago. You should see Alnes on Godøya here, and the lighthouse, even though I picked the wrong lens to give a good shot of only the lighthouse itself. That was not my point with the shot either, so no complaints please. See elsewhere to find a better one. 

Neither do we build our houses the way they do over here... sometimes that's OK, sometimes not. Have a look at The Reel in Kirkwall, a nice cafe and a place to sit down and relax and listen to live music, as there's a lot of that going on in there. 

I got to run! Got things to do before i swish over the sea and home tomorrow just before lunchtime. 

I forgot to put in the title... so had to edit this one in...!

So, all of a sudden the message came across to my office that we are going ashore tomorrow, and home wednesday instead of thursday or friday. That's good news! That's allways good news. Strange how much that one day, or those 24 hours, actualy have to say.

Me and the captain got our asses out of our chairs and went out on the front deck to do some work a few hours ago. There's a few rollers out there for the AB's to put their fluffy ropes over when the ship's being tied up alongside. Or, they used to be rollers... now they were completely stuck and at no use. 
The guys that were supposed to do this hard job originally did not want to be much part of it, since they had the impression that it was impossible to get it done. You will probably end up absolutely totally flabbergasted when you learn that it actually was no big problem at all. You just need to find and use the right tool! That's not for just anyone to figure out, obviously.

I just keep on where I left yesterday, posting grand compositions... I have no idea which camera I used here, but since it's small format film it probably was a Nikon or maybe some Leica stuff. I like this a little, but not that very much. I post it anyway, as it seems I am running a bit low on photos at the moment. I should probably fish for my external harddrive in my bag somewhere.

You might wonder, by now, why my pictures in this blog is so totally off from the text you can come?! Well, I tell you, I purely choose the shots from what I got right here and now. At the moment, that is. I hope to be able to catch up a bit later, and maybe even get to things in a bit different way. Now I'm just getting used to the feeling the blogging gives me, and trying to absorb that to the best of my own welfare. End of...!

You might also wonder why I'm still sitting around here, doing what I do right now? To be honest I just started wondering about the same thing myself. I got loads of stuff to do before I can get off this ship wednesday morning, so I might better get to it. 

I'm going here again, soon. I will surely pass this place when I get on the ferry taking us out towards the small but lovely island called Ona, out there on the coast of Norway. Well, the island is well off the coast, if you take a good proper look at a nice map. This was done using some camera, on something that looks like Ilford Delta 100 film, duly washed in ID-11 or maybe D-76 developer.

I know something about this shot! It's the view from our cottage down by the sea, looking towards the mountains on the other side of the fjord. It was done on the incredibly bulky Mamiya RZ67 with a 250mm lens attached. Shanghai film, ruined before, after, and during the developing which was done in either Rodinal or D-76. I suspect Rodinal...

Lo and behold...!

The separator we have used the best part of the last few days mending, still seem to work. I put my hands together and ask that it will remain that way at least until next bunch of engineers comes on board, probably thursday. 
Today's been most paperwork and things. Nothing interresting, but loads of boredom.

From time to time I drive out to this island almost only to take this picture. Some times the weather is good, most of the time it's kind of bad. This seems to be a Mamiya RZ67 shot, and would then be a few years old. I like this place... Don't know about the film, but could be some Shanghai GP3 wet up in Rodinal and agitated more or less carefully for a long or shorter period of time.

I bought myself a new telephone just before I left for work three weeks ago, but it's still sitting back home because I could not find it when I had to run away. Now I just remembered that I also have changed the operator company, which means that I will be excluded from any line other than the emergency lines when I get ashore, because I left before my sim card arrived. 
I can't wait to find out about all the hassle that will be created by someone I know when I get to the big city in Norway in a few days, and have to find my family without having a working phone in my pocket. 
It does not take much energy to get ourselves into trouble these days, huh? Luckily I am old enough to remember the good old days, way before cellphone world. We actually managed, somehow, to live our lives back then, so I guess I will be alright this time as well.

Shure, it's a pinhole shot (from that same old coffee box) from the small island Ona, again. I like this, even though it probably looks like waste to most of you. By some mistake it went off (yes, in the developer...) to become a wee bit darker than intended, but that's the secret or way of art folks! You can't always get what you want... 

Suddenly I heard that we seem to have plans for at least one of the weekends when I get back home. A long weekend in kayak, living in a tent. That sounds like a helluvalotoffun!! I need to decide which camera I need to let take the sinking test. My guess is that one of the manual Nikons will be the one that makes it through, and thus will come with me on the trip. I should probably bring something digital as well, as I know that lots of my family and people will demand good shots posted more or less live, but I think I better leave it be! I don't have to many digital ones anyway... but I got a bunch of other stuff. 

Stay tuned to find out if a Nikon FM2 can take a good filling of sea water and still survive!

OK! It's truly a bad perspective of this totally amazing window! Next time I get the chance I will shoot straight at it, leaving no fussy lines and all, if anyone understand what I mean?! Straight on, to make it all square and fair. Well, not square actually... more rectangular and fair. Anyway, it's one of my favourite window. I got another one as well, and I bet you won't believe me, but they are just 50 meters or so, apart. How cool is that?? 

Ahhh...!

So! You can actually also put in a title at the top line nowadays?! A good thing that I found out then, already in my fifth post. 
Today's been quite a good day at work, as we (or I, myself actually) found out what seemed to be the plague inside our bilge water separator in the engine room! It's not the usual type, mind you! It's a high-tech wonder from either Finland or Sweeden, and it looks more like a moonlander than anything else. Almost as advanced as one as well, so no wonder we have been struggeling a bit lately with that bloody machine.

Ever seen the island called Foula? Probably not, unless you got a big ship and/or live in an area around Orkney or Shetland. Well, this is her silhouette, and I love it! I like grain as well, at least sometimes, when I find them in my photos. 

Last night I was going to move one of my cameras, a Nikon FE2, and managed to kind of throw it from the bedroom, through the bathroom door (not a great distance due to this being a ships cabin), and onto the floor tiles in there somewhere. The noise was truly bad, and the camera looks even more battered in todays daylight than it did in yesterdays daylight. It still works fine though, but I got to wonder how many lives a 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor lens really have?! If anyone knows the answer, please don't hesitate to give me a hint. This is it's second very hard fall, in addition to a number of ligher ones. 

Looks like I need to buy a few new (cheepo) straps for a couple of the cameras sooner rather than later. Not that any of the cameras are any expensive high-end stuff, but I use the bastards every now and then, and would like them to live for a few more years.

Ona, a tiny small wee island where I got a few rooms and a roof over my head. There's a nice lighthouse there as well. You see a lot of the island on this shot, done with a pinhole camera not to long ago. You see, it's complete with fingerprints and all. 

OK...!

OK, so I got it... I think! Looking back at my first two posts, I realize that you can't expect folks want to read a full novel every time I want to post something.

It's been to long since last post, and I hope to pull myself together and do a little more of this. Maybe even get a follower or two of this thing.

I'm at work right now, so no time or chance to do any extended photo tours out here on the big blue west of Shetland. 

I got a couple of shots on some hard drive though, so will post one or two of them.

The Alnes lighthouse, Norway.

I love this place! Alnes, on the Godøya island just outside my hometown. This was snapped using one of my dreadful heavy Mamiya RZ cameras, a japaneese wonder from some time in the 80's or 90's I guess. Some grass there in the front of that 250mm lens, but I let that pass. A lovely lighthouse it is!

Kirkwall bay, Orkney.

Done on a windy, wet and half dark wintery day as we were staying alongside the Hatston Pier in Kirkwall. I think I might shot this with some Nikon FM2 or something, but not to sure about that here and now. Could also be a crop from a medium format camera, and if so most likely the same Mamiya as above. I know for a fact that I somehow blew up the whole thing during developing of the film, but that's just how I tend to do things. I call it variables...

Alnes again, lighthouse in the distance. 

Alnes again, and this time I know for sure that it was snapped through a big, bulky 37mm wide angle lens attached to that heavy Mamiya RZ67. The negatives will come out as 6x7 cm big, which is probably why Mamiya had to mention it on the front. It got a big front, so they had space to play with when they constructed the thing!

Well... that's it for today. Now I'm off to get some sleep, if possible due to a little bit rough seas this evening. I call it a day, and will def. try to find something more interresting for tomorrow! 

Changes...

The world seems to change even more quickly. I don't know this, but maybe things seems to change even quicker as we grow older? Besides, I always seem to forget how everything was back then, in the childhood days when I grew up. A few things have etched itself into the memory, and will probably never disappear, but then again a lot of things has slipped my mind and will never come back. The more daily stuff, that does not seem important at the time, has it's own way to just evaporate from my memory, quickly. A coltsfoot in a road trench, a red nylon Liverpool shorts pulled way up underneath my arms, a gravel road full of bumps and holes, the childish heaven to ride your bike on fresh asphalt, the envy felt as you watched your buddy being able to ride his bike on the back wheel for as long as he wanted... Then it's all the old houses and buildings that is no longer there, roads that has been moved, the forever changing landscapes as new buildings pops up. All those bigger things that you think you remember, but still will struggle to explain if you were asked to do so.

Of all things, why did I ever listen to my old dads words about saving all that good Kodak Tri-X for the real good shots? I did not listen to him all that much on anything else, so why didn't I just use it to shoot all those great streetshots back then, when I grew up?

Today I realize that it's just a shame, and nothing else.

The streets I grew up on are the same today as back in the days. They were a lot longer back then, but they are still the same.

The Thomas-field was great for a game of football.  Today it's a tiny piece of bumpy backtrack, squeezed in between two heavy traffic roads. Naturally, that was exactly what it was back then as well. The traffic was not the same, but the grass was just as bad back in the days as it is today. Everything worked back then. No one plays football, or use this field for anything these days. It's just lying there... between these two roads for no obvious reason. Back then it was there for us to use, as we played football in zigg zagg to avoid the worst bumps.

I doubt that any Thomas owns this tiny piece of land anymore. It's probably taken into some plans for future public use of some kind. The old man called Thomas has probably passed away 30 years ago or so, as he was an old man even back then. His house was yellow, and it's still there. I don't have any idea if it's still yellow, even though I drive past every now and then. I guess I don't have the time to even check a simple thing like that.

We are all more busy these days, even though we always had an important football match to play at that time.

Two Suzuki 550's speeding down the gravel... way to fast on that 30mph road. Our main road.

A blue one in the lead, soon to be overtaken by the red one. Loads of dust, roaring engines, speed, action. Huge beasts those bikes! The speedometers went all the way to 200 kmh, or even beyond. The eyes in a boys skull almost popped out.

Everything was bigger and faster back then. Well... not my fathers old Opel Kadet. I think the speedometer on that one maybe went to 130 kmh, but he never managed to go over 90, no matter how busy he was. The cars, at least my fathers cars, were always slow as hell. A few of my friends fathers had VW Beetles. They were never able to overtake any slow or fast car either.

For christmas in 1974 I got a camera from my parents. A real camera. All the shots on this blog entry is taken from a few of the first films ever to run through that camera.

In addition to being a helicopter pilot, my father was also a kind of magician. He could take film from any camera, and develop it in a tank in the kitchen. When it was developed, he could also make fine prints from the same films under red light in the same kitchen at night time. I was invited to watch every now and then, and I remember pure magic taking place right there and then.

A bit later, when our new house was finished and we moved in, a dedicated darkroom was made. I kind of grew up in that darkroom, when I was not playing football on the Thomas field, or skiing, or doing anything else outdoors.

The camera was a Minolta Hi-matic G. An automatic viewfinder camera. I realy hauled quite a few meters of film through that camera back in those years, but time and (ab)use always went along nice with it. I still got it, and I still use it quite frequently. I have shot a lot of great photos on it during it's lifetime of 40 years this far. I can't help wonder how my iPhone will look and work in around 38 years from now...

I got a few old cameras. For instance an old Rolleiflex from 1957. That's ten years before I was born. That one also is as good as new, and simply is a fantastic camera. You can hardly hear the shutter as it ticks. Ticking like a Rolex... and I can't help thinking about a fine swiss watch every time I use that camera. Great mechanics, and a lovely and sharp lens. Sweet like candy.

I love my Leicas as well, and the fact that you can hardly hear the shutter. No noisy flapping mirrors are good when it comes to noise, when noise is not a good thing. Mirror cameras can sound like letting an elephant loose in a china shop at times, which is not a good idea in certain obvious situations. By the way, it seems to be a rule that mirrors on the other photographers cameras are a bit more noisy than my Nikons... It's a feeling I get when I am in a situation that I have to use it in a quiet place. Really strange I guess...

Owning a good camera back in the 70's did put you into a few situations where you could really let every strict order from any parent bounce off like it was never mentioned. You were the recorder, the reporter, and you had to do your duty. It could be that a few of the situations was constructed by someone, but that seems to have vanished from my mind as well. There was a lot of action to be reported and recorded, and everything was great until the films was developed. Developing film was not for kids to do, so my father did that job. Not every negative made it to become a print... Luckily he was never to tough on the censorship, and at least all the negatives survived to this day. I got a few prints to make soon... digging out my old Tri-X films from the mid. 70's.

Scanning of film... yes, I have to go through this. As soon as I find myself working with pictures on a computer, I seem to try find a million good reasons to get away from it. As soon as I move from something physical into the world of 0's and 1's. Endlessly binary rows... Well, I get sweaty and a headache suddenly creeps into my body in some mysterious way. I don't like it. In fact I hate it, but know it has to be done these days. A real silverprint is so much more than the scanned file from a negative, but still I do the scanning and the posting of the files from time to time. I do it here as well, and on Facebook... and on Flickr and all over the place.

It's reality though, that the majority of pictures is viewed on a screen these days.

I would love to have a big white wall where I could go nuts with loads of good silverprints instead, but that will probably not happen. I can still dream though.

I never edit my scans to any big extent. I might crop away the ragged borders some times, and I might adjust a little bit on the light if I feel like it, but I hardly ever remove dust and stuff like that. Only in special cases.

I will do some spotting on the final prints of these shots when I take them to the darkroom to make prints of a few of them. I even think a couple of them might end up on a wall somewhere in a small music studio owned by a man I know well...

Another bullshit blogger?!

OK, so I just have to try write my blog in the english language. I thought about it a few times over a while ago before I started my norwegian language blog, and thought I wanted to write in my own language. That was a big hit! Not even one reader for many months. OK, I have not been advertising the blog around, so that might be one of the explanations. Well, one reason for anyone to use time to write a blog would be to have one or two followers or readers, so I'll try again with a small adjustment in language. 

Being a teenage father I have heard a few stories about blog writers the last couple of years, and how they according to my teenage daughters, earn a lot of money by writing empty words about makeup and commercial stuff. Then, after some time, they start to write about how selfish the norwegian government behaves when it starts hunting for tax money from the same bloggers... Yes, just like they hunt for tax money from everyone else who earns money. Luckily I'm old enough now to know all about that shit, and also am I old enough to not give a damn about all the tax I pay. I just hope my money comes in handy at some point, for someone.

I am also both old enough, and hopefully wise enough, to realize that I never will earn anything on any text I write or any photography I take. I might sell one or two every now and then, but it will forever be a project on the negative side when it comes to money. So I fear nothing! And I couldn't care less either.I can, however, always hope that a few of the words and some of my photos might find their place somewhere they belong. 

The Big Blue... the ocean! In it's simple form a dull and boring landscape, but no matter how you look at it still in a constant state of change. One moment like a mirror, the next it's a mix of salt spray and roaring inferno. My office is set up the wrong way. I got my back towards the sea, facing a boring wall and a computer screen that has seen better days. Every time I turn around, I see something different. The light might have changed, a ship on the horizon, an oil rig, or maybe even whales or other cool stuff. The moment I wrote this article, my office was at a location some 120 nautical miles west of Shetland in the North Atlantic Ocean. Other times my office is elsewhere.White waves. Is the weather turning worse? Or maybe better? Weather equals wave-height out here. That's the only thing that really matters. Low waves means work can be done, high waves means no work and just waiting. Wave-height matters big time.

The photography, either a quick snapshot or a more thought through photo, as a way to tell a story and to express a feeling or a meaning is just fantastic. A great picture makes time stand still, for me. As for my own pictures... well, time seems to go remarkably quick when I look at most of them. I both love and hate my photos. Sometimes I really like one, but after a couple of weeks I end up hating the same shot. A few times the opposite happens, and these are the ones that seems to be the best one over time. Strange. A few works, most of them sucks! I will most likely post both pictures I love and hate. I will probably not tell which is which, but I will really like to hear comments on them, either they are good or bad. 

Strange thing a photo! As soon as the shutter has been operated, with a bit of luck a tiny bit of history has been captured. Hence, when I some day see the result, the finished photo, I am watching history. Never future, always history! What's the deal in this human wish, or even demand, to want to watch history all the time? A bit strange if you just look at it in that way, but that's just the way it is. I know, because I got pictures from way back in the 70's. Pictures work in a way that they seem to get better if you stick them away in a whole lot of years, and then dig them out. I should do that more often. Take my pictures, develop the films, and just hide them away for say 30 years before I do anything with them. That way maybe more of my pictures would look better to me?

The photography is one of the real big inventions the last few hundred years. Big and important. Cool thing is that inside any camera the same thing happens today that happened in the early days of photography. OK, the world has gone digital and the equipment has been refined a whole lot... but we still only got a lens with an aperture, and a shutter in some form that let the light through to hit something sensible to light. Today it's most often a digital sensor, a few years ago it was film. We capture light and shadow in a big or small box. Just as we did in the earlier days. We save it inside the box for a short or longer period of time, before we transform the information into... a piece of history. And life is worth living. Why are we still doing this? Why is this of any interest today, when everything that is considered important always seem to contain the words "live streaming", "broadband" and God knows what. Why does photography, an ancient technique, still have such an impact on our lives? At least for quite a few of us? We have never shot still photos at a larger scale than we do now. I read something about this a few days ago, and it was mentioned that we have shot more still photos the last five years than we did in all the years before that, combined, since the technique was invented. That's quite a few photos! Sad thing is that only a very, very few of those shots will be for anyone to see in a few years time. It's estimated that only one of thousand shots survive the first year of living. Strange thing for someone grown up in a time when you never even thought about loosing a negative?!

Bloody hell...! What about all these kids around that will grow up without having seen a printed photo of their granddad? Well... that's probably a story for a post on it's own!

Everyone seems to consider themselves as photographers these days. There is all this great equipment around, and there is a lot of knowledge on how to make a dull photo look great on a screen, but that does not automatically make someone a great photographer? Or does it? I think many more of us would benefit a lot if we took the effort to pull our finger out of our ass and found some ground to stick it into, instead. Everyone with an expensive camera seems to have their own photo page on Facebook these days. A few of them are great, some are good, but most of them simply looks crap to me. No, I am not a photographer and will never be, but I still post photos on my Facebook profile from time to time. Some are good, and some are just shit. I can easily live with that. I am just a hobby photographer, but I still probably post to much. I should find some ground to stick my finger into, when I get ashore, some day.

Right now, in the afternoon, the sea and the sky almost blend into one tone. The sky is totally without contrast, and is around one aperture value lighter than the ocean. You will find out if you should start playing around with a light meter to find the truth. I don't care, because I know the facts, and I usually see the light in exposure values... around one aperture value, EV, or one zone in late Ansel Adams zone system. Just where you should find the horizon, the sky is creeping down into the ocean making the two elements melt together in some kind of weird way. 

I am no photographer! The majority of us is not a photographer, no matter how much we want to be one. A few of us might call ourselves bloggers. I guess there is no such thing as a blogger education, is it? Just as little as most of us can call ourselves rocket scientists, we are not photographers. To many of us is going to use a lifetime trying to become one, but still not be able to reach any of the great old guys even to their knees. We take pictures! A lot of pictures to be honest. Probably to many. You don't have to be a Micke Berg, Ansel Adams, Ingrid Budge, Dorothea Lange or Henri Carier-Bresson to take pictures. Not even to take great pictures, and thank God for that! It happens that I get struck by luck, and find myself having taken a great photo. Later, when I look at it, I always seem to wonder what I did, and I ask myself how on earth did this happen. Often the answer has something to do with some kind of feeling, something I can't put my finger on, which of course just make everything even more confusing. The explanation is never anything physical like aperture or shutter time. Those are maths, and something I definitely can put my finger on, and something I know a few things about. No, most often it's all about feeling. I think I need to start feel more...Micke Berg probably feels all the time. At least it seems like he does, because of his pictures. 

Breton lived to be almost 100. I might still have half a lifetime to learn...