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...

Just a few thoughts a few yards off Ninian Central Platform, North Sea

So, here we are again. Just a few yards off one of the giants of the North Sea, the Ninian Central Platform. Not that looks as huge as it used to be these days, because there's a few even bigger ones around now.
At the time it was constructed though, in 1978 in Loch Kishorn, Scotland, it was the biggest moveable thing ever produced by man. Around 600.000 tonne of steel and concrete was tied together before the final product was towed out to the Ninian field quite a bit north on the UK sector. Up there just east of the northernmost tip of Shetland, according to this map. As soon as it was positioned and grounded at it's resting place it obviously lost it's record... as it was no longer moveable to anyone, unless you pick it to pieces of course. Looks like they have to at least start think about just that...
But OK, to be fair I have seen a lot of stuff mounted out here that looks a bit worse than this one. Just saying. We were at a rig a couple of days ago, or maybe it was yesterday. It really looked like something you would never like to spend too much time on board, to be honest.
You might even get lucky enough to see snaps some day, but being developed by me you know the film could end up in any way. As in we might see nothing at all, on a bad day. I will try, though. My very best, as it happens.

"Us and them" The Subsea Viking and the "Clair" platform out at sea, somewhere.

I was just out snapping a couple of snaps into the pinch black night, as well. With the 50mm Summicron I mentioned a few days ago. Attached it to the M6 and all, since the M3 thing ran out of film a bit earlier today after joining me for a short trip outside where I pointed the thing towards the fog as the Ninian platform slowly became more visible. They might be just a waste of film again, but you never know. Do you?
Well, snapped it up in the pinch black night I did, but maybe it was worth the hassle. You see, it has a quite impressive gas flame going, the Ninian platform. They need to burn off the stuff in a controlled manner, you see, just to keep things on the safe side.

The "Clair" platform again. They seem to kind of hanging in free air, up there. I guess we're better off with our feet planted onto a solid ship deck! :)

Last rumors indicating we are going westwards quite soon, to a more familiar place for us, which would be west of Shetland where the ship has stayed more or less stuck for the last 14 years or so. If there were prizes put up for people working in bad areas in the world my guess is that the guys working in the oil industry over there would take it home, easily. It's a bad, bad place. All the low pressures on the northern hemisphere seems to either be invented in that area, or if they by some odd chance came from further west they certainly hit the place pretty spot on, each and every time. It's one of them places that really takes it's toll, both on infrastructure, equipment and the people working out there. A rough place in the North Atlantic Ocean it is, at them oilfields we're trying to maintain as well as we possibly can.

Some rig. I don't have a clue which one. Something placed on the UK sector, at least.

This lens I got right here

Sure, I got quite a few metal cylinders where glass is mounted inside in different patterns and ways, but there's this rather special one. Production number 188 of a possible maximum of thousand ever made. At least according to the issued list of assigned serial numbers for this particular version of this legendary thing made of metal and glass. The mentioned list is from a certain company in Germany, so I would think it's quite accurate. No one knows how many actually made though, but the company itself probably.
And when this particular company issues special versions of things they used to make 50 years ago, only sky seems to be the limit pricewize. At least after some time has passed since delivery. You sometimes actually may get the impression you hold the holy grail itself in your hands.

One of many snaps done with the mentioned lens. In fact all of them in todays post are done using this thing. I seem to be learning to use the pics to give meaning to the words, eventually. 

I was aware that I own a rather special version of the Summicron thing, but truth is that I have not been thinking to much about it, and hence used it more or less in just the same way I would use any other lens. I am a lens user, you see, not a collector. My wife might look at this statement with a set of, let me say different eyes, but I am the one speaking now. 
I still like to have useable equipment to play with though, but when it comes to this particular item anyone a bit more into these things than myself would probably cry loudly if they knew that I actually used it attached to a camera. Walking the streets you know, pointing it in all kinds of directions and let it just hang there at my side dangling recklessly from that a bit less than half solid leather strap.

Joakim Nilsson from the band Graveyard singing his heart out in a small studio very nicely situated down by the sea on a small island just outside my home town of Ålesund, Norway. Ocean Sound Recordings... the name fits well enough, me thinks. Follow the link and have a peek! All things went wrong here, as I both pushed the film way over it's limits, and also made a big mistake when developing the film. There's still something about them, at least for me...

The manufacturer of this glass has a regime of etching their order numbers into stuff, and this tiny small cylinder has 11615 in nicely designed numbers written on the other side down there on one of them metal rings around the lens mount. If you got plenty of time you should go do a couple of fancy things on google and such, and you would find nothing much to be honest. But then on the sales-bay there usually seem to pop up a chance or two every now and then to get this thing inside the doors of your house, should you fancy so. Or maybe you will find out that you may use your hard earned money in a better way! 
Heck! I never thought the price had rised to this ridicolous level these days, so I am actually for maybe the first time in my history of owning cameras, really thinking about selling the thing away to someone that can take a bit more care of it than I will ever be able to do.
Well, it's not like I don't take care of my glass or anything, but I hate to walk around having to constantly remind myself not to break the thing. I feel kind of like being a concrete worker wearing diamond rings on my fingers all day, or something like that, having no clue what the feeling of wearing diamond rings on my fingers would be like. I know lots more about working with concrete, as it happens. But you know, destroying something slowly but certainly bit by bit each day.
There's a norwegian saying; throwing pearls for pigs... I don't know the english version, but I guess you can figure it out. What I'm saying is that I'm probably not the right person to own this thing. I am not worthy... to tell you the truth.

Then again, looking at the issue from a completely different point of view; why did the germans ever build this lens? This number 188 in that small series of maybe as much as a thousand. It's a great lens and it's well put together, believe me! Suits me fine it does as well when I point the thing into the somewhat right direction. Made to some of the best german specs ever, I have learned from todays reading about the matters.
They made it to make decent snaps, I would like to think. Not to sit inside some nerds hidden away vault somewhere we never would see the results of it being used.

Nah... I think I just leave it be just where it sits at the moment, more or less glued to my rangefinder from back in 1960. It seems to fit quite well on that camera, to tell you the truth. But OK, if someone would someday pay me the right ammount of pesetas for it I might just get myself another version of the same thing and use it in just the same way I have used this one. Still I would have money left to buy some film, B&W darkroom paper, maybe a used car or something else useful. At least a new camera strap...!
After all; a lens is a lens is a way to get light stick onto your film more or less the way you like it to stick. That's kind of the definition. Off that definition you could take what you need and use it the way you like, or you could argue a lifetime around what's more important of this and that... you know sharpness, bokeh... all kinds of fancy words going around inside a community of nerds like myself.
In my world they seem to be somehow over rated subjects anyway, and more or less worthless unless your style demand a certain look that by coincidence match the looks of this particular lens, no matter what type or make it is.

So, what's this you might ask yourselves?! Well, I only know it's a bridge over the old road that used to divide the area between two big shopping centers where I used to live. Then someone decided the shopping centers should merge into one... so they built this bridge over the road. It works as intended, I have heared from quite safe sources. I have used it myself as well, but I will not be the one to blame for wearing it out at some point...

Just to make this all clear. I bought this lens as a part of a few pieces containing the rangefinder camera, the lens, and a few other bits and bobs. One of them bits and bobs I lost a few months ago. An extra viewfinder as it happens, as these cameras used to be constructed with something you could either look upon as an in-built flaw or error, or you could look at it as just the right way to build it. It came without any possibility to put a 35mm lens on the thing and at the same time have a clue what you would get on the film. So you need one of these (only it had to be made in the 35mm version which is a bit hard to find these days). It's a bit over the top actually, as you might very well use your 35mm anyway and have a good enough clue if you got some experience with the 35mm vision in some way. 
Enough of that. I lost the viewfinder inside a taxi, and it was never seen again. At least not by me. 
So I thought I would get a new one. But nah... nope! This small bit cost almost as much as I paid for the whole balooba itself, and there is no way I can possibly order something like this and make anyone believe I need the thing. Not even at a fraction of the price it would cost me. So I leave it be.
Anyway, my point is that I seem to have done a good deal on the whole package at some point, at least if you keep an eye towards the bay and knowing that my lens is not that bad after all. It looks more or less as new, and I got all them boxes, leather bags, papers and everything that came with the lens from the old factory. It's a point obviously, if you ever want to sell stuff like this and bring in a good price at the same time. The collectors seem to care more about the fancy paperwork than how the thing itself works. 
I usually throw these things away, but in this case I did not. Looks like it might have been a wise decission for once. At least my kids might find out they want to get rid of a few things at some point in the future, and find out their old father actually owned something that might bring in a few pennies after all. They would never have thought that!

Oh... looks like I wrote another full story. But you know me by now, don't you? I obviously never read the book on how to make things short...!

I'm back out here, in the big blue somewhere

Oh yes, at sea that is. At work and all, to see what that might bring towards me the next four weeks. It's always a bit of a struggle the first few hours, or maybe the first day or so, but then things starts to become a routine again, and the days more or less floats along as they should. 

Oh no, I hear you shout out! Not the Shetland series again? 
Hah... I reply. It's a proper series, you know, and will last for more or less one long strip of 135 format film. And yes, I'm going to post most of them right here. So only thing you can do is just brace yourselves, or of course either leave or turn around to look elsewhere as the posts are being brought on. 

I had nothing much to say today, actually. I know I thought of something yesterday, but that has vanished somewhere else for the moment, of course. Memory is a totally overrated thing, since you obviously are bringing the matter to the table...
Maybe I should just shut up more, and in that way post less? Or maybe I should just go ahead as I usually do? 

Just back from work, again. Had to sit in for one of the engineers as he joined an on-board course. All we have to go through, huh? And who else to call at these hours, but the chief himself? No one, I suppose... which is why I seem to be the chosen one when it comes to save the day. Anyway, I like it though, so no particular hard feelings of any kind. Still, I'm here anyway with nothing much to do right now.
Giving just that a short second thought I got a couple of fresh magazines. Black+White Photography, and the latest issue of Black and White. So I got things to do the next couple of evenings as well, as you might expect. 
See you soon folks! Hopefully with something better to come up with than this nonsense...

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!

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...

Just a few thoughts... at sea.

My uncle, or may I say my weird uncle, lives way up in the mountains back home in Norway. Not that he's any weird to me, but to a few other he probably is. Because he's bothering around with large format cameras and stuff. You know, proper big boxes with large format huge leafs of film stucked away inside of them somewhere. 
I used to learn to take photos from this man, or at least that's what I think I did, back in the days when I only had my small Minolta Hi-matic G to shoot with. He used to give me a roll of film every now and then, and then I learned how to develop it. You know I still got that little nice fella of a camera, and I still use it nowadays, over 40 years later. 
Well, this weird uncle has been a photographer all his life, more or less. He used to be a reporter, and thereby got quite a few meters of film to answer for if he ever have to. 
He's a great photographer anyway, and some day I really wish I'm able to say I know at least a fraction of all the stuff this man knows about photography! 
That's it of the tale of my weird uncle, for now... 
Ah... forgot my point... he, my uncle, lives in an area full of musk ox and stuff. Huge animals living wild in the norwegian mountains, and I am thinking about getting up there, visiting my uncle and have a proper look at the beasts. He knows where to find them at all times, and got a bunch of great shots of them as well. I was there a few years ago as well... lo and behold, on the very day when all the musk oxes had gathered somewhere totaly elsewhere in the norwegian mountains. Didn't see a single one of them. Pure luck, according to my weird uncle.

How's that for a composition? Who said I only do boring stuff with all kinds of errors one can think of making? I have thought about putting this up on a wall somewhere, but no one seems to understand the value of it. Will need to get that darkroom done, and display it in there, in all it's glory! And yes, it's film! Done on either a Leica M3 or M6, with a good Summicron 35 attached.

There's this blog I'm following. It's called "Boxes and Bellows" and is really great! If you feel like a lunatic one day, or just simply lost, just go over and read a few posts and your life should be back to "normal" quite instantly. The pictures are great, shot on film and all, and the text is just brilliant. At least the parts I understand.

I actually had to start reading from the beginning after having looked through a bunch of the shots first, and have now reached the year of 2013. There Andrea suddenly asks the very essential question: How Many Cameras is Enough...? This has in fact bothered myself for a few years as well, and I truly hoped to find the answer as I read the post. Ofcourse she didn't know either, because there probably is no answer to that very question. Obviously she's thinking about it though, so maybe I'll find out as I read on further up through the years? I very much hope so!

And while we're talking about compositions...!! This is same same, but different... I think. Definately an old Nikon this time. Either FM2 or maybe even FE2, but I doubt it. Some film, and some Nikkor lens... and it's shot out on the western cliffs of Orkney Mainland, around Yesnaby.

I just heared that I am going to Oslo before getting myself home this time. Oslo is allways OK, as long as it's not for a longer period of time. This is only for a couple of days, so I will survive. I immediately checked my stock of film in my lousy camera bag with loads of hiding places, and could only find very few. A couple of HP5's and a roll of Fomapan 100. I checked the possibility of getting film down there, and luckily some hotshot still has some film in his shop. I need to unseeingly sneek in and get some during my stay down there, I guess. 

Just had to post this. Taken with a real delight of a camera, a Voigtländer Vito B, handed down from my father. See that lovely flare coming in from the left? That's partly because of the window over there, and partly the fact that the lovely little 50mm lens on this camera is totally uncoated. This is my daughter by the way :))

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...