Some norwegian history

Every time I'm around this area I'm in right now I usually find myself in thoughts.
I have been here many times, but this is the first time I will stay this close to this historical place for time long enough to have a good look at it. 
It's called "Avaldsnes" which is likely to be the very spot on where the first king of Norway (all of it, that is, as we had quite a few "kings" before this man as well) had his seat. You might have read about the guy at some point, good old Harald Haarfagre, who was the first man to gather all of Norway under one single king and kingdom. 
So his seat was right here at Avaldsnes, making this very spot a quite historic place in the history of my country. As I turn around in my chair at my office right now I see just what you see in the snap I have posted from the place. 

Oh yes, another pixelated one I'm afraid. You might start to think I'm converted or something, but fear not my friends. It's just the necessity of posting a snap of the old kings place taken from just outside my cabin door this afternoon. It was over here, just around this church, it all happened some time ago. I will certainly bring a couple of decent and real cameras over there some other day. I got film in a few of them as well, as it happens. You will have to wait some time for them snaps to appear, though. 

The guy was a cruel Viking, to be honest, and a lot of other Vikings had also been around before this man turned up. Born well into the era of the vikings (around year 850), and died well before the time it was all over he did (ca 931-932), so at least he would see the golden years of the time he was living in. 
There's some discussions about when this era started, but to say that the people from north started to get things going in the early part of the 700's would be quite right. The beginning of the real horror is a bit easier to frame, as we know it as the day a few of them decided it would be wise to attack the monastry on Lindisfarne. To most people this will be counted as the day the real era of the vikings started. This happened in 793, and was a terror attack as good (or rather bad, as it happens) as any other terror attack we know of. 
It will also be fair to say that before the vikings came along there was a number of attacks, also on christian munks and  their monastries. The king of Northumbria, king Aethelfirth, was a very cruel man and did a lot of killing of munks and christians back in the time. Masacres and the like, as we know. There was a lot of fighting around during these years, as the christians and the pagans were not exactly friendly to each other in any way. 

Anyway, the viking era did not last for long after all. They were slowly but patiently trained to become christians through the years, and around 1100 their time as fighters and pagans were done and dusted. Most people would say that it all ended with the battle at Stamford Bridge in 1066, but we know for sure that a few of them would still not give up their pagan lifestyle until they just had to.

What did the vikings have then, that made others so afraid of them?
Well, they obviously had their fast war ships which was like nothing else floating on water back in the days. Slim and fast, made to move quickly over a long distance. Neither did they have any fear at all either they were on board a ship on water or in some fight where blood was running in rivers around them. Being pagans they believed that if they only died with their sword in hand they would be going straight to Valhalla to be able to drink and feast all day and night until eternity. 
They were chased away, finally, and their era dissappeared as quick as it saw the day of light. Still they are remembered and talked about to this day, and will probably still be in the years to come. 

Anyway, it's a nice place Avaldsnes. Nice enough to be the seat of a viking king. I think it was more about the strategic placement of the spot than the niceness of it, though. It would be all about control, I would think, and the opportunity to stop ships to make them pay their tax to the king... 

On the other side of The Sea

We took off from Peterhead yesterday around midnight. In the thickest possible cotton-like fog I think I have ever seen. Even by Peterhead standards it was rather extreme, which should say a lot.
Lovely weather all day today though, and we passed the borderline between the UK and the norwegian sector around lunchtime. We still got a few hours to go, but will ease off on the use of power quite soon to adjust for going in to the harbour around Haugesund tomorrow morning around 07.00 in the morning.
I will then have a million things to look after, but I think I got some kind of control. At least as for yet. Things will change in that respect, I know.

At the northern tip of Harøya, Norway. Need to pass this place to get to my paradise, Ona. It's located way out at sea behind these boat houses. Snapped using a Mamiya RZ medium format camera with what I think was the 250mm lens attached. I think this was on Fomapan 100 film.

Anyway, as we are going to adjust the clock one hour forward some time during the night and at the same time start way too early tomorrow morning I should really throw myself to bed soon. 
I was working way too many hours yesterday. Finished around 01 am, so that's a few hours when starting the day around 07 in the morning. Well, it's not like that every day, luckily! 

A print for the wall, and what to opt for?

I have been thinking about it for a while. I am not a big fan of very big or huge prints, but then there's this wall that seem to cry out for one. I have been back and forth, thinking and re-thinking, but not reached a final answer on what to do yet. 
There are two ways. You either buy a roll of darkroom paper and do it all by yourself under the red light, or you can scan a negative or a smaller print nicely and send it away online to get a digitally printed thing back in the mail. 
The digital option is the cheapest way to do things if you're going to have only one print made. Maybe it's the safest way to do it as well, as you don't have to struggle with huge papers inside a cramped and limited space. You just send away a digital file, and get the result back in the mail a week or two later. 
Then, because you are some kind of snapper and darkroom printer yourself, you will start examine the thing down to the smallest pixle, I think. At least I would do, probably. 
I would do the same thing if I printed the thing myself as well, and I would also most likely use a lot of paper and still not be 100% satisfied with the result. That's the backdraw of doing it yourself, actually. You would use tremendous ammounts of paper and get nothing on the wall. Again that's just a qualified guess.
So you would examine the digital print closely, and hopefully find no flaws that was not intended. Worst thing that could happen would be that it looked nothing like the file you sent away from your computer, which might actually be the case as you got no control at all. Imagine sending a perfect B&W snap away for some huge print, and when you open the received packet all your delicate highlights were quite clearly pink-ish... or blue, or whatever?! How would that fit onto that nice white wall you have been saving for a project like this? Or on someone elses wall. Someone else than yourself, who actually payed money to buy a print of your negative and then got something totally different to what they thought they would get?

I should probably stop thinking and start to act instead. 
There's this medic on board my ship who wants this snap I snapped some time last winter. It was a test frame just to check if that cannon-barrel-like 500 mm lens I got for my Mamiya RZ still worked. Snapped on some cheap-ish film, but looks quite nice in some way. A minimalistic B&W kind of graphic appearance that might fit nicely on her wall for all I know. 
I have been thinking about printing this frame myself as well, but have not been able to get there yet. Fact is I want the print a bit smaller than the medicine lady wants her to be, so I might go for the darkroom option for my own print. She will have to live with the digitally printed stuff, I think. 
I will make sure they make the thing onto some good and beautiful paper though, as I don't want her to get something done on some kind of "poster" paper or anything. I have seen enough of that. They are cheap, but the looks are even cheaper. Nope, we want this to look good as we want any snap to look good no matter which wall it's going to face.
Checking the online printer companies it seems it will cost a fair ammount of pounds shilling and pence as well. 
It's probably worth it though, as it's a masterpiece all the way as you can clearly see. 

So, it seems like this is the one she will be going for then. In this format, or something close to it. I think I will suggest a bit more height to it all, but then it's not my wall... This is 6x2 panorama format. Maybe 6x3 would add a bit more to the whole thing by getting a bit more dark blacks in the bottom, and some more paper white at the top? Well, I think I have to think about this for a few days... 

A walk done and some portraits posted

A few snaps of people today. Kind of portraits, I guess.

A couple of teenage girls just after a qute hairy adventure in Valldal, not too far from our home. It's called "Juving", and is not for the faint hearted, to tell the truth. I know, because I felt I had to go with them... Quite fun though. At least when you think back on it. Temperature in that river is around 3 degrees, as it's pure melted water from ice and snow just upstream. This snap is from the final touch of the route you go. There's a stopper on that thing you hold yourself connected to, but you better let go of it before you hit the stopper!! You obviously don't want to let go to early either, because the drop to the water is quite long, as you might imagine.

It's been a long day. Very long, as I was up early and have been walking around policing the client as they are stripping down the aft deck and throwing more or less all their equipment from 13 years of operation over to the new ship. A million bits and pieces are going off, which means we have been really working the last couple of days to get everything sorted out in the best way for all parties. 

This is the son, who you might recognise from distance by now. This was snapped not too long ago with one of them fine Mamiya RZ cameras on good Fomapan 200 film and all. He's sitting on the ruins of the barn at the old farm where my wifes mother grew up. It's quite far away from most things up here. Back in the days it was very far away from most things. 

I am just back from a short walk around Peterhead town center. I mainly walked inside the harbour area, mind you, as it's a mighty long way to walk from where the ship is moored to get into the town itself. Nothing much to see though, but then I did not really go for a full check of what's in there. The usual stuff I guess, at least by the looks of things. 

Oh, well. It's the blogger himself as it happens. Can't remember exactly who snapped this one, but it might be my younger step daughter, the one closest on the first one up there on top of this page. It was definately done on a Mamiya RZ which at least close out the possibility of having done a selfie! It's probably done on some Fomapan film, or maybe even on Shanghai GP3 for what I know right here and now. Nuff said about this!

I brought the german black rangefinder, the Rolleiflex, and the Fujifilm pixelsnapper on todays walk. I might give you a few taken from a memorycard tomorrow, but I'm not too sure yet. I'm not feeling the temptation of making this blog into something else, so we will see. There will be film stuff some day too, but as you know that's going to take a while to sort out yet. 

Peterhead, some kind of harbour

I mean, who the heck would have got the bright idea back in the days of around 1593 to even fully think out the thought that hey! here's some sort of bay-like schwoong in the terrain, so come'un lets build a nice harbour out of this place where the North Sea is battering this old country in it's wildest ways. And so they did...! 
Then, some time in the late-ish 1800's someone would think that the wild North Sea maybe was playing a bit too wild in the streets of the town at times, and therefore thought that a nice little breakwater would fit the place quite nicely.

I just found this very nice snap of a very nice cat. Nice fur and everything. It's living over there, where my daughter and my grandson is living. I picked up my Diana F+ and snapped him/her with ease. Well, I just thought this might be a good space for it... so now back to Peterhead!

So they went around for good ideas of how to get the job done. All the carrying of stones and such, as you rightfully were thinking. The answer probably revealed itself more or less, as the Peterhead Convict Prison, Scotlands toughest prison if you like to listen to reputations from the street, was already at the location. 
So, they went to talk to the prisoners and made some kind of deal. I got no idea what the dealing was all about, or if there actually was any dealing done at all, but fact is they made them build the southern breakwater of Peterhead bay. A mastodont made out of stone. 2700 feet (around 900 meters) long, and quite massivly wide I would say. 
Then, as the southern piece were finished they naturally needed to get hold of a northern piece as well. I mean who would name something the southern-something and not having any northern counterpart? 
Starting in the early 1900's and finished some time in the 50's the northern wall was there, most likely for eternity by the look of things. Another 1500 feet of heavy stone. That's where we're moored right now, by the way. At the northern breakwater, some 26 meters or so from the North Sea. Actually the captain himself refers to it as being moored into the North Sea. 
It's a horrible harbour due to huge and lots of swell on bad days I have to say, but it's better than no harbour at all. Nothing much, but a tiny wee bit better still.
I also have to say that the inner harbour looks great, as it happens. There would be some rather obvious issues getting in there with any ship above a very limited size though. 

Just had to show you a small part of one of our two identical engine rooms. This is kind of what I'm looking at everyday at work. There's a diesel engine there to the right. It's german, just like the camera from where this snap origined. A noisy german it is, the one inside the picture. And we got four identical ones, making a terrible razzamatazz when they all play together cranked up at 11. And there's a captain in there as well, among all the other stuff. I don't know why he was there, but chance is he was down just to get away from all the stress upstairs...

I went around a small part of town for a quick look this afternoon, just to check if it looks safe enough to bring a nice old camera or two out on the streets some time tomorrow. I think I'm going to go for it. After all, what can possibly go wrong...?
It looked quite alright, at least by the look of things, so I will be absolutely fine. If there's anything at all to snap we have to wait to see, but at least there seemed to be a nice slipway in the inner harbour. That might give us a couple of masterpieces to look at later, for all I know. 

Looks like we will be sitting here at least over the weekend, so I will need a few things to occupy myself when not working. I had a plan to get up into the top of the mast tomorrow with one of the rangefinders. Since I got the electronic pixelator here somewhere I might bring that one as well. It's quite a view up there, you should imagine. 

See? From up there on top of that mast I get a nice view of most of the Orkney Mainland, if that was where we were sitting at the moment. As you know it's not, anymore, which means I will need to find other things to put inside a frame. I hope to do just that, some time tomorrow. 

Light in the end of the tunnel?

It's a lot of back and forth these days, and people in this industry wondering about the possibility they might not have a job anymore when they return for home. 
I read today that the price of oil has rised a little bit, and every newspaper at least over in Norway felt the urge to call a few "experts" to find out if the crisis is coming to an end soon.
Well, I think it's fair to say that the replies they got had quite a span to them from careful optimistic to not optimistic at all. Just as you would expect if you ask a bunch of people who should know what they're talking about. 

Well... as you see it's a kind of a tunnel of trees. A few million snaps has already been taken of stuff similar to this, so I probably should stop doing them. Sometimes I just can't hold myself back, you see. I have no particular idea about which camera or lens or anything, but it looks kind of wide. Might be a 24mm, which means it's most likely one of the Nikon's. FM2, FE2, F3... whatever. 

This ship had it's final day at work on the west of Shetland workskope today. A 13 years, as I told you all about a few days ago, job is finished, and a new ship is taking over from here. It's a bit sad, and a bit as any other day. We got enough to do with the ship during the days and weeks to come, so I can't say my focus has been on the past during the day. 
Besides, one should look ahead to try find the light in the end of that tunnel instead of thinking to much around the past. That's my thoughts about it right here and now, anyway. Then I know there will be days when I miss certain aspects of the job, such as being tied up in Orkney around yuletide. We have had a lot of fun up there, as you might imagine. 

Same concept but different. This is in Lerwick, Shetland. The path you see is a quite steep hill in the middle of town. No driving up here, as you might already have figured out. Up there close to the end you got the same thing. Tunnel of trees, you see. I like this one a bit better than the norwegian version, I have to say. This is definately Nikon. F3P for "press version". When you go for a longer walk with that camera you will remember it for a few years...

I shall forever remember the christmas eve of 2013. We were moored in Kirkwall as usual during winter gales and such, and all the norwegians had the ship to ourselves as the weather had been bad for quite a while. The scottish lads had just gone home for the celebration and stuff. I will hasten to mention that christmas eve is the big day of celebration for us norwegians, and the atmosphere at the time were joyful and merry. 
The entire marine crew were sitting in the messroom after dinner relaxing, talking and having a good time we were. Suddenly the captain got a call on his radio from the security guy on the pier. The police wanted to have a word with the chief engineer on board. I remember the old captain we had back then started to yell at me and wanted to know all about what I had been up to lately, which was nothing at all even though I really tried to figure out if I might had managed to do something bad no matter what. Couldn't figure any out.
Well, I told him we should better go talk to the cops just to find out what I might would get accused for. 
When we came out in the hallway they were already inside the ship, two very polite police officers from Kirkwall Police station. The captain still red in his face from his outrage towards me tried to find words to greet them, but I had to do the talking as the old man had a not very fluent english when it came to the spoken word.
Well, to make an end of the story they wanted to know if I had lost a camera. You see someone had found something the officers repeatedly refered to as a "quite expensive camera" somewhere in town, and dropped it at the police station for them to figure things out. As the police officers obviously had read the news lately, The Orcadian newspaper as it happens, they had seen printed there a picture taken a few days earlier from on board our ship. The photographer of the snap was duly mentioned by both title and name, and the officers figured I must have owned a "quite expensive camera" to have managed to take that rather unsharp grainy snap of some very, very bad weather hitting us like a hammer a few nights earlier. 
So, I had to dissapoint them in some kind of way. I knew for sure I had my digital Nikon safely stored inside my cabin, and neither was I in short of any other camera equipment. They tried again, and would rather see me walking up all them stairs to fetch the thing for them to be absolutely sure they could tick me off their obviously too short list of people in the Orkney likely to own a "quite expensive camera" which even would take pictures during a severe gale. I told them I had taken a few photos just a couple of hours ago, and that they could be absolutely sure I would not show up on the station the next morning missing a camera anyway.
They then gave me a nice smile, shook both me and the captains hands and told us how sorry they were to interupt our celebration and all. But we also had to agree that the matters were very important to solve, sooner rather than later. 
On they went, into the black windy night to search further for doors to knock. 

I must say that the police up there take their job quite seriously to actually do things the way they do. Or maybe they were just curious to see what was going on inside the ship on christmas eve. I never will find out, probably.
The captain fell asleep quite early that night...

Another day in paradise

So, what have we seen today besides a pigeon lingering about inside the changing room downstairs, eating biscuits or whatever that tall guy was presenting...?

Nothing much, I'm afraid. We had a fire drill which was an easy job for me as we decided to do a trick this time. Me and the chief officer went for a twist on the whole thing just to see how the other part of the team would cope if both of us were taken away from the usual setup of the fire teams. So, I acted stupid enough to open the door to the engine room where the "fire" was, and I inhaled some bad smoke which I apparently should not have done. 

I needed some help after that, so the chief officer followed me up to the hospital where a decent team were standing by to help me. To make a quite long story a bit shorter I'm happy to say that the other lads found sollutions to the situation and made the very best out of things as the scene went along. 

Other than that? Well, telephone conference with the beach and a few mails and the usual stuff. Nothing exiting, you should know by now.

Don't know if I have posted this little one before? It's from the small lake sitting some 30 yards from our house. It's frozen in this picture, as it usually is from early November up until late April. More or less. Snapped one very early morning 5 years ago or something like that, using the Mamiya 6x7 format. It's a nice frame size, and maybe a tad easier to compose inside than the square ones. That's a personal thing anyway. Some like the 6x6, others prefere the 6x7 format. The square one will give you two more shots from one 120 roll though. And no, I don't know why I posted this one right now. I just stumbled upon it inside that hard drive, so I might be afraid I'm going to loose it or something.

I just heard we're going in some time tomorrow. To Peterhead, as it happens, to start demob some lumps of steel. That's going to take a few days I suppose, as there's a lot of equipment going off. I hope to make the best out of the situation getting on dry land to take a few snaps if the stars happen to be in the right position. We will know in a few days I suppose. Then, when we're done with the demob we will go over to Norway to do some other work. Attach a new helideck, to be precise. And a lot of other stuff as we will be tied up alongside anyway. 
How do you think the norwegians will cope if, let's say, a foreign pigeon from down south in England somewhere should decide to abandon the vessel while we're there? I dare not to think too much about it, as they are pretty crazy about stuff like that these days. Who would know what the bird may have picked up on it's way north towards Kirkwall in the first place? This could easily end in a bad way for our small friend downstairs. Personally I hope it will get some of it's old senses back by some kind of miracle, and take off while we're in Peterhead. But having known the creature for a few days now I can't say I see it happen...

Not a pigeon to see inside this frame, but you might spot a donky if you got your specs cleaned lately. Old snap from one of the first rolls done with one of the Mamiya RZ cameras. Medium format 6x7 again. Don't know which lens, but maybe it's the 110mm normal one. It sure looks like that.

Nothing much to talk about today, as you most rightfully noticed. I will be back though, and hopefully with some more serious business than this chit chat. 
So long then!