Postcards From A Life Well Traveled

Accidental Abstracts

2012-01-12T18:46:00.000-04:00

Everybody has them. Little "accidents". The sort of "accidents" that turn out to be pretty interesting, even if they don't quite fit in with the main theme of a shoot. In the movies, they call them outtakes. In the case of American television, bloopers. I call mine Accidental Abstracts.

Sometimes I tripped the shutter accidentally when I took a camera off of the tripod. Sometimes I tripped it by mistake when I was checking a lens. Sometimes I forgot the camera was set to a time delay.

In most of these cases, the images recorded were junk. In a very few cases, the images look good enough that I thought I should claim that they were planned. You know, that they are "the product of my genius"!

I wish.

In any case, here are eight images that caught my eye.

While this next image is not accidental, it didn't really fit anywhere else, so I parked it in this post. It is a shot of a bootleg firework set off on New Year's Eve. I saw what was going on and managed to quickly get my camera up to my eye in time to make the capture. Luckly, the composition worked.

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Here is a quick index of my Postcard blog articles for this trip:

My post about some Accidental Abstracts I made during this trip is here.

My post about skiing in Oslo and some Postcards taken with my phone's camera is here.

My post about a side trip I made to Uppsala, Sweden and some early morning streetscapes I made is here.

My post about a fabulous stay I had at Brumma, a cabin above the tree line in Brummastølen, is here.

My post about the wonderful Norwegian Christmas Eve tradition of lighting a candle at the grave of family is here.

My post about my adventure in a hut up in the boreal forest canopy is here.

My post about a wonderful little church I discovered while up above the Arctic Circle is here.

My post about the commonality of fishing between Norway and Newfoundland is here.

My post about being above the Arctic Circle during the polar night is here.

My post about the Nobel Peace Prize fakkeltog is here.

Skiing in Oslo

2012-01-08T04:16:00.000-04:00

There are times when I am out for a run, a ski, or some other activity and lugging around 20 kg of camera gear just isn't practical. Yet there are still Postcards to be made, so I turn to my phone's camera to capture the moment. While a camera phone is not technically the best camera to create images, it certainly is better than not having any camera at all.

I went to Oslo to ski, but in my opinion there wasn't enough snow there to ski. There were still plenty of rocks peeking through the snow, waiting to destroy the bottom of any ski passing over them. When people ski on such snow, they usually use old skis that we call "rock skis".

I didn't bring my rock skis, so was stuck with running. There is a very nice system of trails just north of Oslo (although I suspect it is technically still in the city area). Within walking distance from the train, the trails are accessible by almost all who live in Oslo. I would often see people on the train with their rock skis going to or from the trail system.

Oslo is fairly far north, so the sun at this time of year doesn't come above the horizon until about 9:15. It is down again at 3:30, so it is a fairly short day. This meant I was often running in the dark, which was still quite nice.

In keeping with the festive season, I put on my Santa hat and draped Christmas lights on my reflective vest. This brought a few smiles out from passers-by and the occasional "God Jul" (Merry Christmas).

The running trail I preferred took me past a farm. One morning after a light snowfall, I came across these kids out practicing in one of fields.

Besides being addicted to snow, the Norwegians have a fondness for dogs. I saw many out with their peeps as they ran or skied.

One of my last runs in Oslo was just after a nice snowfall (which was just my luck!). I always enjoy being out after a snowfall, especially if there has been no wind. I love the way snow sits on trees and I am quite pleased with this photo. It is pretty good for an image from a phone's camera.

Just down from this tree is the farm I mentioned. The farmer has a stable and the horses were out feeding. A red blanket on one of the horses really caught my eye.

Unhappy with the amount of skiing I was able to do in Oslo, I decided to compensate the best I could with an outing to the Ski Museum at Holmenkollen.

I said in an earlier post that the word ski comes from an early Norwegian word for “plank”. Looking at the skis in the museum, I could certainly see why.

These early skis were something else. Wide and heavy, I’m not sure how people skied on them. Repairs were made with bolts.

For grip, furs were attached to the bottom of the ski.

Some of the skis used ropes to steer.

Back in the very early days, skiers used only one, long pole

The bindings were often just straps or ropes looped around both the ski and the boot.

I will say one thing, though. They sure knew how to decorate the skis.

Fortunately we have come a long way. Today, gear is pretty advanced and we can even provide equipment that enables disabled people to ski.

While at the ski museum, I swallowed my fear of heights and went up to the top of the ski jump and looked down.

It had an awesome view of the city, and at some point I will have to return with my regular camera to see about making a panorama photograph.

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Here is a quick index of my Postcard blog articles for this trip:

My post about some Accidental Abstracts I made during this trip is here.

My post about skiing in Oslo and some Postcards taken with my phone's camera is here.

My post about a side trip I made to Uppsala, Sweden and some early morning streetscapes I made is here.

My post about a fabulous stay I had at Brumma, a cabin above the tree line in Brummastølen, is here.

My post about the wonderful Norwegian Christmas Eve tradition of lighting a candle at the grave of family is here.

My post about my adventure in a hut up in the boreal forest canopy is here.

My post about a wonderful little church I discovered while up above the Arctic Circle is here.

My post about the commonality of fishing between Norway and Newfoundland is here.

My post about being above the Arctic Circle during the polar night is here.

My post about the Nobel Peace Prize fakkeltog is here.

The Streets of Uppsala

2012-01-07T05:22:00.000-04:00

During my ski vacation to Norway, I made a brief business trip to Uppsala, Sweden. I had a couple of free hours early in the morning and I spent it on the streets with my camera.

What says "Sweden in the winter" better than snow on an old Volvo, even if the snow is hanging off the roof like a lopsided old cap?

The city government found a neat way to cost-effectively decorate this overpass: they simply projected an image of snowflakes onto the side of it!

I also liked the way they used white cobblestones to mark the crosswalks: there is no paint to fade here! They also make for a striking composition, as in the case of the Woman Waiting For A Bus.

I wonder if this is the bus she was waiting for?

There was a bit of a frost on the ground and it was beginning to snow. I was walking along the street looking for a streetscape to add to my European Streets folio, when I noticed how trucks driving over the streets would leave tracks. In this case, the tracks reflected back with the bright light of the overhead Christmas lights.

The further I walked from the city center, the more snow there was on the streets and sidewalks. I also saw racks and racks of bikes. By itself, this is not unusual for Europe. I certainly have seen more bikes in The Netherlands, but even from a distance I could see what looked like bike tire tracks in the snow. Now this was unusual: cycling in the snow and ice?

Getting closer, it was obvious they were being used; there was nowhere near as much snow on them as there was on the old Volvo, so they couldn't have been in the rack all that long.

Could it be that the people here actually ride their bicycles in the snow? I didn't have long to ponder on this when a woman rode in on her bike, locked it up, and scurried off (presumably to work). Not only did she manage to ride a bike in the snow, she did so with that long coat on!

I understand that these bikes almost certainly have studs in their tires, but even so, would you ride a bike on this street?

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Here is a quick index of my Postcard blog articles for this trip:

My post about some Accidental Abstracts I made during this trip is here.

My post about skiing in Oslo and some Postcards taken with my phone's camera is here.

My post about a side trip I made to Uppsala, Sweden and some early morning streetscapes I made is here.

My post about a fabulous stay I had at Brumma, a cabin above the tree line in Brummastølen, is here.

My post about the wonderful Norwegian Christmas Eve tradition of lighting a candle at the grave of family is here.

My post about my adventure in a hut up in the boreal forest canopy is here.

My post about a wonderful little church I discovered while up above the Arctic Circle is here.

My post about the commonality of fishing between Norway and Newfoundland is here.

My post about being above the Arctic Circle during the polar night is here.

My post about the Nobel Peace Prize fakkeltog is here.

Postcards from Above the Tree Line

2012-01-03T17:05:00.000-04:00

Brumma, the Gorrissen family cabin, is in Brummastølen. Brummastølen is a very small summer farm community about 200 kilometres north-west of Oslo. It sits above the tree line on Brummaknatten (which translates as Brumma crag).

The Gorrissens were pretty confident that there would be snow there, if anywhere. Would there be enough snow to ski on? Probably. If not, then Beitostølen, a stop on the World Cup XC tour and only a short drive away, would almost certainly have groomed and track set trails to ski on.

Confident I would get in some good tracks either at Brummastølen or in Beitostølen, I packed up my skis and drove north.

Despite a four hour drive in high winds on an icy road, I was feeling more upbeat and positive than on either of my two previous trips north. This was in no small part due to the fact that I was finally going skiing. That the sun was out and I could see the countryside for a change also helped.

Brumma is well off the beaten track. While you can drive in to it during the summer, the only way in during the winter is to either ski in or take a snowmobile in. Since we had more provisions than was practical to carry on our backs, we opted for a snowmobile.

As you can see, the weather upon our arrival was pretty frightful. A heavy wind was blowing. I couldn’t tell if there was new snow coming down or if the wind was just blowing around what was already down. It was also quite cold. When we opened the doors to Brumma, it was -11 inside. It took a full day of heating from three wood stoves, one fireplace, one kerosene heater, and two propane heaters for the place to warm up to the point where I could take my fleece off!

Brumma dates back to 1943 when Willy and Magdalene Gorrissen purchased an ancient farm house (built in 1682) and put it up in Brummastølen next to some other cabins / summer farm houses. These summer farms were (and some still are) used for dairy pastures.

A massive, central fireplace was installed and a supplementary wood stove was added (just to the left).

The Gorrissens added to the cabin over the years. It is now a fairly large structure that includes a small, detatched "guest" hut, which is where I stayed.

Not surprisingly for a place this old and remote, it is very rustic: there is no running water and only a small amount of electricity is available from a solar powered battery system. That’s not to say it was a hardship being there. With plenty of wood on hand, we could melt snow to get water for washing. For drinking, we had packed in a large supply of bottled water. Also, there were plenty of candles and kerosene lamps to brighten the inside.

I’m starting to get hooked on photographing stars, so when the sky cleared, out I went with my camera. The snow may have stopped, but the wind hadn’t let up. I had to stand in the lun of the cabin to prevent my camera from being blown over in order to make this shot.

There is a simple mathematical equation:

FUN = SNOW + KIDS

The kids were not the only ones happy to see good weather and lots of fresh snow. I was ecstatic because I was able to get out and make some photographs.

The mountain light was incredible. Sunrises are usually pretty special, but come this far north and then go up a mountain and sunrise is pure magic. There were incredible pinks and reds everywhere I looked. For other photographers reading this post, I actually had to desaturate these images!

These colours lasted for about 30 minutes, enabling me to make many captures. I'll start with a wide shot of some of the cabins immediately north of Brumma.

Moving in for a closer composition on some of the cabins:

In the above shot in the top left-hand corner you can see a far-off mountaintop in the background. It really stands out because it is much lighter than the clouds. When I reframed to get a shot of the rolling mountains, I noticed that one peak looked like a wave about to crash on top of the other peak.

I then zoomed in on the cabin in front of the mountain (yes, that black dot is actually a cabin, not a rock), just as a jellyfish-shaped cloud swam over it.

To the north-west, the mountain tops were a little craggier. This gave a little more tone and structure to my images.

During this magical time, the sun continues to rise and the pinks start to give way to the yellows and blues, as you can see in these two shots. They are of the same mountain and taken only a few minutes apart.

Eventually, the cooler pinks fully gave way to the warmer yellows. Here you can see a sapling struggling to move the tree line just a little bit higher up the mountain.

With brighter light you can see the far-off cabins much better.

Since the area is used as summer pasture for milk cows, the milk produced needs to be brought down the mountain. In the "old days", farmers used to store milk in this old shed. The containers stood in a stream which runs under it, keeping the milk cool until it was picked up and taken to the village below.

As I skied by it, I couldn't resist capturing the graphic composition created by the yellow light on the wood-planked door and wall, the lines of which are interrupted by my dark shadow.

The amount of yellow in the light depends upon a couple of things. Here are two very different shots of the farm to the south of Brumma. They are taken at different times into the sunrise, and, there is a different amount of cloud in the sky to reflect the light.

As the sun asserts itself even more, the yellows and blues brighten and the contrast is much higher. This is a good time to shoot black and white images.

Here you can see how the clouds roll over the mountain peaks as if they were water flowing over rocks in a stream. You may need to go here to see a larger version.

As I was processing the above images afterwards, I was inspired to go back and try converting a few of the "pink" shots into black and white.

After only a few short days of skiing and shooting at Brumma, it was time to head back down the mountain. To save expenses, the journey out was by ski instead of snowmobile, which was fine by me.

Skiing in these mountains brought me back to when I was a kid and started skiing. We (me, Bonnie, Mom, and Ron) would often ski in Terra Nova National Park and would usually ski up to the Blue Mountain Lookout. I remember the wonderful feeling of sitting at the lookout with a cup of hot chocolate, munching on some treat, while looking out at the fabulous view. That same feeling came back as I skied around Brummastølen, and I was very much reminded of why I started skiing in the first place.

I had an extra pack to bring out and since he was going for a ski with his son Vilhelm anyway, Fredrik agreed to carry it out for me. I skied on ahead so I could take photographs along the way, including this shot of them with Brumma in the background.

I was in the parking lot waiting for them when another skier came off the trail with a dog hooked on to his pole.

This dog immediately caught the attention of other dogs that were waiting in the parking lot to go sledding. I have never seen a dog with brighter, bluer eyes than the dog in the bottom photo. They were so blue, they were freaky.

The skier had found the dog wandering around. The dog, who was missing an eye, was called “Lucky”. Lucky had an “if found” phone number on his collar, and the skier (whose name I didn't catch) called the number and talked to the owner. While he was talking on the phone, I gave Lucky a good ear rub. They then headed on down the road to meet up with Lucky’s owners who, it seems, were staying nearby and could come straight away to get him.

In the meantime, Fredrik and Vilhelm arrived with my other pack.

With all my packs now in the truck, I set off down the road. Not two minutes into the drive, I met an oncoming truck. This stretch of road was quite narrow and only one of us could drive on it. We both pulled slightly over to one side in order to size up how we were going to get by each other. Besides being narrow, the road also had a camber to it. With 10 cm of fresh snow on top of a solid layer of ice, neither vehicle could hold the road and both slid sideways into their respective ditches.

I got out and went over to the other truck, only to find Lucky inside with his owners! Fortunately, Lucky spread around some of his luck and it wasn’t long before we had both trucks out of the ditches and back on the road. The rest of the journey back to Oslo was happily uneventful.

This is my final post about my trip to Norway and a great way to end my trip. You may want to enjoy these photos in a larger format, and can do so here.

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Here is a quick index of my Postcard blog articles for this trip:

My post about some Accidental Abstracts I made during this trip is here.

My post about skiing in Oslo and some Postcards taken with my phone's camera is here.

My post about a side trip I made to Uppsala, Sweden and some early morning streetscapes I made is here.

My post about a fabulous stay I had at Brumma, a cabin above the tree line in Brummastølen, is here.

My post about the wonderful Norwegian Christmas Eve tradition of lighting a candle at the grave of family is here.

My post about my adventure in a hut up in the boreal forest canopy is here.

My post about a wonderful little church I discovered while up above the Arctic Circle is here.

My post about the commonality of fishing between Norway and Newfoundland is here.

My post about being above the Arctic Circle during the polar night is here.

My post about the Nobel Peace Prize fakkeltog is here.

Postcards in Memory of My Grandparents

2012-01-01T17:28:00.000-04:00

One of the most touching Norwegian Christmas traditions that I have learned about is that of lighting a candle for family members who are no longer here. The ritual is pretty simple: on Christmas Eve you go to the place where the person is buried, light a candle, and place it next to their headstone. The candles burn for a long time, often for over 4 days.

As the Gorrissen family were preparing to observe this year’s rite, I asked if I could participate as well and light a candle for my grandparents. They said yes.

Despite declining church attendance, on Christmas Eve day many Norwegians turn out at graveyards all over the country just to light candles and to remember. This photo is of a normally empty street next to the Ris Kirke. It is about 3:00 pm on Christmas Eve and as you can see, it is jammed with people and cars. By the way, you can just catch a glimpse of the cemetery on the right-hand side of the street.

Upon entering the churchyard, one of the things I noticed first was that some people also lay a wreath when they place their candle.

I’m not a cemetery fan. They usually give me the willies (which, if you are not familiar with that term, are also known as the heebee jeebees or the cold shivers). However, I found the cemetery at Ris Kirke to be very lovely. It is nestled into the hill that leads up to the church, with many trees and plants growing on the grounds. The headstones are mostly natural boulders. I didn’t see many of the manufactured type that dominate Canada's more orderly and structured cemeteries. This, plus the fact that most of the wreaths laid were from evergreen boughs, gave me the feeling of being in a forest rather than feeling I was in a graveyard.

The Gorrissens turning out for the event were Ingeborg, Petter, Nina, and Sissel. The young Santa you see is Lloyd Luiggi-Campbell, who is no relation to me but is part of Sissel’s extended family.

Before lighting the candle, Sissel explained to me who the people in the grave were: Magdalene (her Great-grandmother), Willy (her Great-grandfather), Johan (her Grandfather), Esther (her Great-aunt), and Inger (her Grandmother).

After Sissel lit the Gorrissen candle, I lit a candle for my grandparents: Blanche, Roy, Harold, and Lovetta. These four people were very special to me when I was growing up. I learned so much from each of them and I quite miss them. I guess life is like that: you miss most what you no longer have. So I thought that lighting a candle to mark my memory of them was a great idea.

I thought afterwards about how many people I saw there. I had never seen so many people in a cemetery before. At 3 in the afternoon, most of the grave markers already had at least one candle lit. I wondered what it would look like in the dark with so many candles burning. I went back after supper to find out.

It was very dark when I entered the burial ground, but like miniature lighthouses, the candles guided me straight to the Gorrissen marker. The light from candles next to the headstone, and also from the candles at the surrounding headstones, was very comforting.

Streetlights, which give off an orange light that usually seems quite odd but which on this occasion seemed quite appropriate, lit up the overcast night sky, sending a warm light down from above as well.

With all of this warm light, the white light used to illuminate the church tower seemed quite discordant. This cold and bright light was like an orchestra musician whose out-of-tune instrument makes him stand out in a bad way.

I turned around and walked down the hill in order to take in more of the scene. I can’t really describe what I saw, nor do I think this insignificant photograph can convey how soothing I found the sight of an entire churchyard lit up with red and yellow candlelight.

What you cannot see in the photo is that all of the candle flames were flickering. It was as if there were many conversations underway; the kind you see in a cozy restaurant at night, with people crouched over candles in front of them, intent on their discussion and not noticing how their breath makes the flames jump as they speak.

The footprints in the snow erased the normally solitary feeling that graveyards have, and replaced it with the same feeling of “busy-ness” that homes get at Christmas time.

For a cemetery to feel warmly alive, on a day that traditionally sees families getting together, I thought was entirely fitting. I’m sure my grandparents would agree.

I returned to the grave marker on New Year’s Eve and lit another candle. Just because.

A slide show with larger images from this post is here.

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Here is a quick index of my Postcard blog articles for this trip:

My post about some Accidental Abstracts I made during this trip is here.

My post about skiing in Oslo and some Postcards taken with my phone's camera is here.

My post about a side trip I made to Uppsala, Sweden and some early morning streetscapes I made is here.

My post about a fabulous stay I had at Brumma, a cabin above the tree line in Brummastølen, is here.

My post about the wonderful Norwegian Christmas Eve tradition of lighting a candle at the grave of family is here.

My post about my adventure in a hut up in the boreal forest canopy is here.

My post about a wonderful little church I discovered while up above the Arctic Circle is here.

My post about the commonality of fishing between Norway and Newfoundland is here.

My post about being above the Arctic Circle during the polar night is here.

My post about the Nobel Peace Prize fakkeltog is here.

Postcards from the Boreal Forest Canopy

2011-12-31T16:41:00.000-04:00

Stretching from Alaska, through Canada, across the Nordic countries and into Russia, is the taiga: the world's largest terrestrial biome. I didn’t realize that boreal forest is another term for taiga. In Canada, we seem to use the boreal forest term to refer to the more southern, more wooded part of the taiga rather than the more northern, more sparsely treed part. In Europe, the term taiga seems to be used for the whole thing.

I was able to spend some time up near the top of the boreal forest (taiga) canopy when I stayed in a tretopphytte (tree top hut) while in Norway.

I arrived at the hut late in the afternoon, which in December meant it was dark and cold. The owner of the hut had kindly started to warm up the hut, so much of the chill was already out of the hut when I got there. After dealing with the freezing insides of Bridaro, up in the Arctic Circle, I really appreciated this hospitable touch. He also had lit up some lovely red candles, which cast a warm glow over everything.

Outside the hut was a balcony, which was almost as large as the hut itself. It had several bird feeders, a fire pit, and benches to sit on. The owner provided reindeer skins to cover the benches so you wouldn't freeze your ass off while sitting outside.

I didn’t dilly-dally outside, as it was too cold and too dark to do or see anything. Inside, the wood conspired with the yellow light from the candles to make the whole place seem warmer than it really was. After getting a nice roaring fire going, I took off my jacket and made a self-portrait.

As you can see, it is not very big. But it is well thought out, and resembles a boat's cabin or a camping trailer in that it makes the best use of the available space. For example the eating area is a simple table hung from a ladder. This means there are no table legs to bang your knees off of when sitting at the table.

The ladder leads to a small sleeping alcove. Here is a shot of the alcove taken from the top of the ladder during the day, when there is more light. The space is split in two, with a sleeping area on either side of the ladder.

Each side can sleep two people; 4 people in total could sleep up there, but only if they knew each other very well.

Back down the ladder to main level, looking from the table back the other way you can see the door to the loo (on the left), a glimpse of the main sleeping room (through the open door), and the heat source (the wood stove on the right).

After a good night’s sleep (or perhaps it was a frost-induced coma because I left the window above my head open) I went outside in the daylight to take some more illustrative shots of the hut. In this shot, you can see how well the builder was able to nestle the structure into the trees.

The whole thing is quite solid. There are a lot of beams and posts in place to provide support. In this shot you can see the relative area of the hut (the solid wood) compared to the deck (the planking).

The support beams are well anchored, too. The construction is certified to resist winds up to 22 m/s, which is about 80 km/h. I doubt that would fly in Canada, as it is not even hurricane strength. But then I wouldn't expect to see a hurricane hit a forest valley in Norway.

The curved tree trunks used as support posts are partly decorative and partly functional.

To go up the 8 metres to reach the hut you have to take a long staircase.

I arrived after dark, but thankfully there was a bright red candle burning to mark the bottom of the staircase.

P

With a mind to safety, there is a wire mesh all along the staircase (and all around the balcony, too). More curved tree trunks provide both a decorative touch and functional purpose.

The hut is not that well insulated. You can see how the snowmelt off the roof results in some very large icicles.

The hut is located north-east of Brumunddal, up off of a small, narrow forest road. The attraction of the hut, aside from the novelty of staying up in the tree canopy, is the outdoors. In the summertime, there are a couple of canoes and bikes that you can use to explore the surrounding area. Of course in the winter they are not of much use.

In the winter, you can ski right from the hut. Not thinking there would be much snow, I left my skis in Oslo. So of course there had to be a lot of snow! Worse for me, the snow was the fat, flat flake variety of snow powder that is so wonderful to ski in. Most of it had fallen quite recently and was still hanging on the tree branches, dragging them down to the ground.

Instead of gorgeous ski shots, I bring you a ski lesson: I learned recently that the origin of the English word ski is the Old Norwegian word skíð, which means “plank”. The planks had a lot of uses, including building roofs. You can see the skíð in this cabin. They are the yellow planks on the side of the roof.

It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how someone would adapt a couple of short skíð to get around in deep snow, thus inventing a new means of transportation that would eventually become a competitive sport dominated by the very descendants of the Vikings who invented the whole thing in the beginning. That's a little too cosy for me; I think the fix is in.

In the above photo, you can also see how well the eves protect the side of the wall. Notice how both the wood and the paint are nowhere near as faded under the eve as they are further down the wall.

Moving around the the front, you can see that this cabin had some lovely, muted colours peaking out through the foggy mist.

Since it was winter and I didn’t bring my skis, there wasn’t a lot to do here other than park my butt in the middle of the reindeer skin-covered bench up on the balcony.

From this position I shot birds and squirrels as they fed at the feeders. As in, I shot with my camera (of course). During this shoot, I learned that the photogs who take wildlife pictures are a special breed. They have incredible patience and a knack for timing. I seem to lack both, for out of several hundred photographs, these are the only ones I would bother keeping.

The birds were very cautious and I found it hard to get close enough to them to shoot, even with a long lens. I tried to figure out why by taking a shot from their view point, to see what they see.

Now in the middle of all that put a guy with two cameras hung around his neck and a Newfoundlander's fleece "squid" hat on his head, and I would be scared to get close, too.

The squirrels, however, allowed me to get quite close.

I suspect they have been photographed quite a bit, because I accidentally slipped into fashion photographer mode and blurted out: "Work it baby, work it. That's it, now give me sexy", and they totally responded.

They would not sign a model release, though. Something about there was supposed to be only blue Smarties in the feeders. What a bunch of frickin' divas.

Looking for a different take on a squirrel composition, I switched to a wider-angle lens. This enabled a novel composition of the car below (lower left in the photo) and a squirrel feeding at the birdhouse(upper right in the photo).

If you are ever in Norway and are looking for something unique to do while exploring the outside, I’d recommend these tree house huts. You can go here to learn more about renting them.

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Here is a quick index of my Postcard blog articles for this trip:

My post about some Accidental Abstracts I made during this trip is here.

My post about skiing in Oslo and some Postcards taken with my phone's camera is here.

My post about a side trip I made to Uppsala, Sweden and some early morning streetscapes I made is here.

My post about a fabulous stay I had at Brumma, a cabin above the tree line in Brummastølen, is here.

My post about the wonderful Norwegian Christmas Eve tradition of lighting a candle at the grave of family is here.

My post about my adventure in a hut up in the boreal forest canopy is here.

My post about a wonderful little church I discovered while up above the Arctic Circle is here.

My post about the commonality of fishing between Norway and Newfoundland is here.

My post about being above the Arctic Circle during the polar night is here.

My post about the Nobel Peace Prize fakkeltog is here.

Postcards from a Little Church on the Fjord

2011-12-26T13:34:00.001-04:00

I followed up my Hovden excursion by driving the Highway 820 loop from Straume. It goes south past Fjærvoll, along the coast, and then loops around to return to Straume from the east.

Based on the success of the previous day’s outing, I had high hopes for this drive. Unfortunately, I didn’t find this part of the countryside very inspiring. I only managed to take a few snaps. Or rather, I only managed to take a few snaps until I discovered Bø Kirke.

I don’t know why I wasn’t inspired at the start of this outing. I do know that I found the day to be dark and dreary. After a short while in this claustrophobic environment, I saw Bø Kirke.

It stood out like a comforting beacon in the foreboding countryside. Perched up on a small hill, it was lit on the outside with floodlights, which made its red and yellow exterior stand out against the sky. The lights were on inside, too, so the windows were bright and warm, adding to the general cheeriness of the building.

This one is worth seeing here in a larger size.

After taking a series of landscape shots with Bø Kirke as the subject, I got back in the car and I drove along for a few more kilometres. Again, I didn’t really see much to shoot and I didn’t bother to complete the loop to Straume. Instead, I turned around and retreated to Bø Kirke. It was still calling to me to take its picture, so I drove directly up to the church thinking I would shoot close-ups of the outside.

After taking the above shot, I looked through one of the windows and saw three people inside. So I went in, seeking permission to shoot inside the church. One of the people there was Vivi Hanssen, the Church Warden.

She explained that they were putting up and decorating the Christmas tree. Despite fretting that the church wasn’t suitable for having its picture taken because she hadn’t yet vacuumed, she said I was welcome to go ahead and take whatever photos I wanted. As I shot, she related a bit of the church’s history and gave me a pamphlet, which revealed even more of its story.

The earliest written record of churches on this site is from 1381, so it is likely that there was a church here even earlier than that. This particular church was finished in 1824. Many of the items in the church are from preceding churches, so they are even older than the church itself.

Bø Kirke is unusual for its size. It was many features normally found in much larger churches. I suspect that this are was quite wealthy, so the parishioners were able to afford to add some nice little touches to their place of worship.

For example, it was built in the shape of the cross. Smaller churches tend to be built as simple rectangles and are often just one-room affairs, not large, cross-shaped affairs. To say Bø Kirke is cross-shaped is a bit of a stretch, although I am sure that's what its builders intended. Instead, maybe I should say that its shape is more of a “plus sign”, with all four sections equal in length.

The interior is all wood, which when illuminated with tungsten light, makes for a very warm feeling. Even the blue paint feels warm, despite blue being a “cold” colour.

The paint was in the same flat colours I have seen in historic properties in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. I suspect that the paint-making technology was the same worldwide. The mural behind the altar, which dates from 1762, uses all of the basic colours: red, blue, green, and yellow.

The mural is interesting because the picture is of a vision that King Christian 4 had one morning in Rosenborg Castle. This is the same dude I wrote about here in my "Game of Thrones" post.

There are four chairs next to the altar, two on either side. The two on the left of the image are fancy, embossed leather, baroque style bridal chairs. The bride and groom would sit on these chairs for the mass that immediately followed the wedding ceremony. I don't know how old the chairs are. The information pamphlet only says that someone gave the to the church in 1949.

On the wall on the extreme left and right are two painted oak carvings. They date back to medieval times and represent Mary with Child (in the left of the photo) and St Barbara (photo right).

The pulpit and the sounding board over it (which I just learned is sometimes called a “preacher-snuffer” in some churches), also came from preceding churches. The sounding board is from 1792 and the pulpit is from 1762. I can't imagine why a church this small needs a sounding board, other than for decoration.

In the above two photographs, you can also see there are galleries in this church. This is yet another unusual feature in a church so small. The galleries were reserved for high society and the common people sat below. The galleries wrap all the way around the church. Even those above the altar and pulpit were used this way, and were not set aside for the choir.

Getting to the galleries was quite a chore. The stairs, in the corners of the church, are very steep.

If this doesn’t look steep, try looking down from the top. I had a hard enough time lugging my camera gear up and down them; I couldn’t imagine how the women managed this with large skirts and high-heeled boots.

From the balconies, I was able to get close to the pipe organ. This is another odd feature in a small church. The organ didn't appear to be that old, perhaps from the 1970's. The older organ was moved to make way for this new organ and resides in a different church.

The older organ has an interesting story, though. In the 1800’s, there was a tradition for fishermen to raise money for the church by casting a net and donating the proceeds from that cast to the church. It was from this type of fundraiser that the old organ came to be in Bø Kirke.

I was also able to get top-side view of the ship model attached to the wall. It was made in 1860 and donated to the church in 1958. While it sounds plausible, I couldn't determine if hanging a ship's model inside a church is a traditional thing or not.

Not wanting to abuse Vivi’s wonderful hospitality, I only stayed for an hour. It was hard to leave and I could easily have spent several more hours learning about this wonderful little church. Nonetheless, I bid her “God Jul” (which is Merry Christmas in Norwegian) and left her to finish decorating the Christmas tree.

---
Here is a quick index of my Postcard blog articles for this trip:

My post about some Accidental Abstracts I made during this trip is here.

My post about skiing in Oslo and some Postcards taken with my phone's camera is here.

My post about a side trip I made to Uppsala, Sweden and some early morning streetscapes I made is here.

My post about a fabulous stay I had at Brumma, a cabin above the tree line in Brummastølen, is here.

My post about the wonderful Norwegian Christmas Eve tradition of lighting a candle at the grave of family is here.

My post about my adventure in a hut up in the boreal forest canopy is here.

My post about a wonderful little church I discovered while up above the Arctic Circle is here.

My post about the commonality of fishing between Norway and Newfoundland is here.

My post about being above the Arctic Circle during the polar night is here.

My post about the Nobel Peace Prize fakkeltog is here.

Postcards from the Water’s Edge

2011-12-25T15:00:00.000-04:00

Norway has a lot in common with Newfoundland: a history of being ruled from afar, an endemically poor economy lifted by the discovery of offshore oil, and a wealth of hydroelectric power. It is also the 2nd largest exporter of fish (Canada is 6th). It was this commonality of a culture related to the sea and to fishing that stood out as I explored the coast around Fjærvoll.

As in Newfoundland, there are many fishing stores. Of course their location is not odd to the fishermen, who would put them close to the water so as to minimize the distance they had to walk to get to their boats.

Most stores and barns in both Norway and Newfoundland are painted red. This is a traditional colour because red was the cheapest paint.

I could see that fishing communities in both countries were located with one thing in mind: to be close to the fish. For both Norway and Newfoundland, this drive to be close to the fish has led to some very remote and very isolated communities. The location of these communities makes sense when you think that in the days before gasoline engines, fishermen would have to row out in their boats to tend to their traps, nets, and lines. This would not only have taken a lot more time if they were further away, but would also have required a lot more energy. In subsistence living, energy is a thing to be conserved.

With the advent of the internal combustion engine, governments built roads to many of the larger isolated communities. To reach these places, the roads had to cross some pretty harsh terrain and are often nothing more than narrow, winding paths that hug the shoreline.

As I drove along one such road, I turned a corner and the community of Nykvåg suddenly appeared. Like many Newfoundland fishing communities, the houses were sparsely spread across the land with hardly a tree in sight. There wasn’t much shelter from the harsh wind that can whip in off the ocean.

You may want to see a larger sized photo here.

On the other side of Nykvåg, the road continued along the coast to the tiny hamlet of Hovden. The spectacle of houses located right next to the beach and under the protective shelter of a nearby hill could easily have been seen in any number of Newfoundland locations.

I came across an unusual flake in Hovden. A flake, for those of you not in the know, is a wooden structure used for drying fish. This one was much higher off the ground than what I am used to seeing, and there were tracks underneath it, so the height must have been to allow vehicles to pass below. This sounds like it would provide an advantage, but I couldn’t see how it would be practical. However, I don’t think there is a patent on the best fish flake design. In Newfoundland, there are many styles of flakes. Even how to spell the name took centuries to be agreed upon, having gone by flek, fleyke, fleake, flaik and fleack. While these contraptions go by a different name - they are called hjell by the Norwegians - they serve the same purpose.

The last similarity that struck me between rural Newfoundland and rural Norway was the occasional abandoned building. It’s not a strong connection, as Norway is a pretty clean and tidy country, but this old building wouldn’t be out of place in any Newfoundland community.

There was even some old equipment still inside.

---
Here is a quick index of my Postcard blog articles for this trip:

My post about some Accidental Abstracts I made during this trip is here.

My post about skiing in Oslo and some Postcards taken with my phone's camera is here.

My post about a side trip I made to Uppsala, Sweden and some early morning streetscapes I made is here.

My post about a fabulous stay I had at Brumma, a cabin above the tree line in Brummastølen, is here.

My post about the wonderful Norwegian Christmas Eve tradition of lighting a candle at the grave of family is here.

My post about my adventure in a hut up in the boreal forest canopy is here.

My post about a wonderful little church I discovered while up above the Arctic Circle is here.

My post about the commonality of fishing between Norway and Newfoundland is here.

My post about being above the Arctic Circle during the polar night is here.

My post about the Nobel Peace Prize fakkeltog is here.

Postcards from the Land of the Polar Night

2011-12-21T18:40:00.000-04:00

I wanted to go up north to photograph the Aurora Borealis. I figured I might as well go above the Arctic Circle, since I have never been that far north before. Of course I could do this in Canada, but it is fracking cold that far north in Canada. Here is a quick comparison: as I write this post, the Weather Channel is forecasting Inuvik to be between -20 and -40 over the next couple of days, but forecasts Sortland, Norway, to be between 0 and +7! That Gulf Stream sure does work wonders! Let me see, would I rather be outside, standing still for hours on end in -40 degree weather, or, in +7 degree weather?

So on my trip to Norway, up north I went. I stayed for three days at "Bridaro", a cabin located on the water in the small community of Fjærvoll. I rented a car so I could thoroughly explore the countryside and I have three posts from this excursion. This first post is about the visual impact of not seeing the sun in the sky at all during the day.

At 68.649 degrees north latitude, I was some 230 km north of the Arctic Circle. What was it like that far north in December? It was dark! There wasn't even an official sunrise time. Environment Canada listed sunrise and sunset times as "polar night", meaning the sun never came over the horizon.

That's not to say that it stayed pitch black all the time. From 10:30 am to noon, the sky looked like it was in a very slow sunrise. From noon until 1:30 pm, it looked like a very slow sunset. For a photographer, this stretched the traditional "golden hour" of magic light into almost 3 hours of mind-blowing reds, pinks, yellows, and blues, all bouncing around the sky and over the landscape.

I got my initial taste of what the colours would be like looking out the window on the flight from Oslo to Harstad/Narvik. The colours on the clouds were so compelling that I had to take the sterotypical "wing of airplane taken through the window" photo. However, I was able to goose this old staple not only with the incredible colours, but also with the full moon (and its small reflection off the wing) and the carrier's colours on the blended winglet!

As we approached Harstad/Narvik airport, the pilot had to adjust our course in order to line up with the single runway. This meant dropping the port wing (my wing) just so, allowing me to frame a different composition. I really like this shot because I can see more of the golden sunlight, the different position of the moon and its reflection on the wing, and the contrast between the white of the lower clouds and the red of the higher level clouds.

Fjærvoll is a 3 hour drive from the airport, so the only option to get there is to rent a car. I thought this would be fine, since it also allowed me to roam around the countryside and I expected there to be no difference between driving in Norway and driving in Canada. Boy, was I wrong! Even though the temperatures were relatively warm (-7 to -4 C), the highway crews did NOT use any salt. The reason the road in this photo looks pink is because the 2 cm of ice that was on it reflected back the red light of the sunrise/sunset!

While the driving was a death-defying experience, I was overjoyed with the photographic opportunities the surroundings presented. Depending upon where I looked, the colours ranged from soft and light to hard and deep. I took this shot in the direction of the sun, which was hidden below the horizon. In it, you can see how the clouds, mountain, and sky conspired to present some very nice pastel colours.

When I shot away from the sun, I captured much deeper colours, as in this image.

Now compare the above shot to the image below, which has a wider composition. You can still see the pastels, especially the ones reflected in the water, but you now get a hint of even deeper colours in the top right side of the sky.

This is the same mountain and lake, but framed for an even wider composition. Here you can see the full range of tones.

The above photographs were captured at 11:40 am local time, so you can see it was not very light out at all! Twenty minutes later, as I was back in the car driving along, I noticed a jet traveling overhead that was leaving a contrail. The contrail showed up as bright pink and bright yellow, in sharp contrast to the darker tones closer to the ground.

I found it very interesting to see how the human brain adjusts for the colour of the light. I also found it very frustrating, as I had to adapt how I made my images. While my brain kept seeing "white" snow, the camera kept recording snow that was pink or blue, depending upon where I pointed my camera. In this case, it was a purple-ish blue.

With all of these sober tones, I can see why so many of the buildings are red (aside from the historical reason that, as in Newfoundland, red paint was so much cheaper than any other coloured paint). A touch of red really does brighten up the landscape and in the winter, compliments the pinks and blues quite nicely.

All of the subtle blues and reds make it a challenge to shoot the sea. Here are some fishing boats out working. In it you can see how the pinks from the "setting sun" pushed the blues of the sea and sky into a purple hue.

I was surprised at how high and rugged the mountains are in this part of Norway. Those in southern Norway are much shorter and more rounded. These ones reminded me more of the Canadian Rockies, except instead of seeing a broad expanse of prairie fields in front of them, I was seeing a broad expanse of water.

I very much liked the effect the colours and the tones had when mixed in with a dramatic sky.

It was quite dark as I pulled into Sortland just before 2:00 pm. I was surprised to see coloured Christmas lights, since most Norwegians use only white lights. Sortland has some link with "blue"; it promotes itself as the "Blue City by the Sea" and many of the buildings are painted blue, which probably accounts for these blue Christmas lights.

When I arrived at Bridaro, it was pitch black outside. At least it was to my eye. But even in this darkness there are images to be made. Walking around Bridaro the next morning, I remarked on the way the warm light inside leaked out into the colder, bluer light. It was 9:10 and the sky was only just beginning to brighten in the south when I made this capture. It took a 15 second exposure just to get enough light to make this image.

Later that day, I took a moonlit shot of Bridaro from the front. Since the moon reflects sunlight and the moon is overhead, the snow appears much more white than it does during the day. You can also see the effect of the 5 minute exposure on the stars, which leave a circular streak in the sky as the Earth rotates.

Another moonlit shot, only this one was taken in the morning when the moon was behind my back. The shadows are now pointed behind Bridaro and are much softer due to the overhead cloud. This angle allowed the moon to better light the background mountains. Besides the star trails, the clouds are also leaving a trail as they move across the sky in this seven minute exposure.

None of these shots have the Aurora Borealis lights that I went searching for, nor did I see a glimpse of them the entire time I was north.

---
Here is a quick index of my Postcard blog articles for this trip:

My post about some Accidental Abstracts I made during this trip is here.

My post about skiing in Oslo and some Postcards taken with my phone's camera is here.

My post about a side trip I made to Uppsala, Sweden and some early morning streetscapes I made is here.

My post about a fabulous stay I had at Brumma, a cabin above the tree line in Brummastølen, is here.

My post about the wonderful Norwegian Christmas Eve tradition of lighting a candle at the grave of family is here.

My post about my adventure in a hut up in the boreal forest canopy is here.

My post about a wonderful little church I discovered while up above the Arctic Circle is here.

My post about the commonality of fishing between Norway and Newfoundland is here.

My post about being above the Arctic Circle during the polar night is here.

My post about the Nobel Peace Prize fakkeltog is here.

2011 Nobel Peace Prize Parade

2011-12-11T16:45:00.001-04:00

Life moments can sneak up on you when you least expect them. To get the most out of life, I believe that you have to be ready to pounce on them when they appear.

One such event occurred recently when I was in Oslo. Yemeni journalist and activist Tawakul Karman, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee, and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf received their Nobel Peace Prizes while I was there. I didn't realize this, since I was recovering from a case of sleeping pill over-self-medication following my transatlantic flight. It wasn't until I was walking around Oslo and saw all of the embassy limousines lined up that I realized something was afoot. Well, what was afoot was the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony.

As I walked along "limo row", I tried to identify all of the flags on the cars. I have to say I failed miserably. Here is an example, one of many that I didn't know. I found the crest with the elephant confusing. I'm still not sure, but I think it is a variant of the Thai national flag.

There is a tradition in Norway of holding a fakkeltog (a torch parade) as part of the Nobel events. Wandering down towards the Grand Hotel, which is where the parade ends and the Peace Prize winner(s) make an appearance on the hotel balcony, I took in both the Christmas and the Nobel Award scenes.

On the Christmas side of things, there was a small craft fair along the Eidsvolls plass (nicknamed Spikersuppa, which means "nail soup").

Mixed in with the craft vendors was the prerequisite Santa Claus, which the Norwegians call Nisse (or Julenisse). It seems he is a "barn elf" in Norwegian mythology. This guy looked more like a "bar elf" than barn elf. I mean, where else in a nation of fitness nuts are you going to find a fat guy with rosy cheeks if not on the end stool at a bar?

An enterprising busker had made a snow castle on the other side of the craft fair. He had already collected a fair number of tips for his work when I went past and I could see why: his work was pretty detailed. See the steps? How many people would take the time to make those?

Just behind the snow castle was a skating rink. The rink is usually a fountain, and is, I suspect, the source object for the nickname Spikersuppa.

It was the first time that I have seen a skating rink in Europe where the people using the rink actually knew how to skate! I guess I will have to drop my jokes about Norwegians not knowing anything other than skiing. Fortunately, there is still the small matter of their curling pants, which is excellent fodder for jokes.

There are a lot of "Christmas lights" in Oslo. Unfortunately (for me) they are almost exclusively white. I prefer the greens, reds, and yellows of traditional Newfoundland decorations (although a recent Skype call with Mom revealed that the curse of white Xmas lights has even reached Carbonear. Oh, the shame of it all!).

White lights are better than nothing and they do highlight the geometry of the buildings they illuminate, but can you imagine how gorgeous this building would be bathed in greens and reds?

Both my father and my uncle were members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, so it should come as no surprise that I have the utmost respect for police in most countries. However, as I got closer to the Nobel event area, I had to pause for thought as I saw this battery of police motorcycles. I wondered if the crew riding these bikes are brave, or, are they just crazy? Who in their right mind would drive high-powered BMW dirt bikes on icy roads, even with large studs in the tires?

When I reached the Grand Hotel, I looked around for the TV camera crews because I knew they would place themselves in the best viewpoints. I found one (the two guys under the street light) and parked myself in front of them.

This gave me a great viewpoint of the space in front of the hotel and the balcony where the Nobel winners would appear.

As good as my spot was, these guys had a much better viewpoint of the parade and the crowd. Note the guy in the lower left corner. I will come back to him in a minute.

I didn't have to wait long for the fakkeltog to arrive. All of those bright lights in the crowd are handheld torches.

In the above photo, you can also see a few "protest" signs. Some people took advantage of the news coverage to get out messages, such as the sad case of Martine Vik Magnussen.

I didn't know anything of her story until now. You can read about it in this Wiki article. The upshot is that Norway and the U.K. want a suspect who is in Yemen. Since one of this year's Nobel Laureates is Yemeni (Tawakel Karman), some people thought this was a good opportunity for some publicity for the case. Hence the sign.

While I was waiting for the parade to finish and the Nobel winners to appear, I made this "painting" of the hotel doorman keeping a watchful eye on the people outside. I'm going to add this to my growing folio of "street paintings".

Not long after the parade arrived, the prize winners made their appearance. Braving the cold (which for them I'm sure was quite un-natural), they came out of the warm hotel onto the balcony and waved to the crowd.

One of the nice things about being there in person was being able to observe the behaviour of the winners. How they behave in front of the press and the crowd is not something that comes through in the news reports. Leymah Gbowee (above) waved quite a bit and wandered around the balcony.

Tawakel Karman (below) had a lot of energy and interacted with the crowd the whole time she was out on the balcony. You could tell she was happy because she had a huge smile and danced around the whole time.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (below), on the other hand, played up to the press pool hanging out on the side of the balcony.

One shot that the PJ took from his location is here. It's a great perspective and I can see why he set up where he did. I can also see myself in the crowd, which I find pretty cool.

The press pool weren't the only ones "broadcasting" from the hotel. Check out this shot. It has the Nobel winners on the balcony, the press to the left of the balcony, and the guy I mentioned above, who is now in the upper right of this photo. Look closely and you will see he is Skyping with someone and showing them the proceedings!

I'm quite pleased to have been able to take in an event such as this. The Nobel Peace Prize award can have profound global implications and to have seen one award ceremony, albeit only the very public parade piece, was certainly a life moment.

---
Here is a quick index of my Postcard blog articles for this trip:

My post about some Accidental Abstracts I made during this trip is here.

My post about skiing in Oslo and some Postcards taken with my phone's camera is here.

My post about a side trip I made to Uppsala, Sweden and some early morning streetscapes I made is here.

My post about a fabulous stay I had at Brumma, a cabin above the tree line in Brummastølen, is here.

My post about the wonderful Norwegian Christmas Eve tradition of lighting a candle at the grave of family is here.

My post about my adventure in a hut up in the boreal forest canopy is here.

My post about a wonderful little church I discovered while up above the Arctic Circle is here.

My post about the commonality of fishing between Norway and Newfoundland is here.

My post about being above the Arctic Circle during the polar night is here.

My post about the Nobel Peace Prize fakkeltog is here.

Newfoundland Postcards

2011-09-11T13:27:00.019-03:00

"Home" has always been a very challenging place to photograph for me, as it can be very difficult to "see" what you take for granted. I spent a week at home in Newfoundland with family, getting caught up with them and taking a few photographs. The outcome was this collection of images and a deep longing for home.

It strikes you as soon as you get off the plane: the smell of spruce, wet grass, bog, and a whole host of other wonderful smells that scream "outdoors". But it is when the wind hits me square in the face when I step outside the terminal building that I know I am truly home again.

I guess it's the wind I miss the most when I am away, so this time when I got up on the barrens near Butter Pot, I decided to try and create a shot that took in the wide, windswept landscape. I started with a black and white to emphasize the wind in the clouds.

Not being totally happy with that, I then shot a colour image to play up the soft warm glow of the setting sun.

I found this a bit better, but I didn't like the way my composition was anchored. Or rather, how it was not anchored. If you look in the photo above, you can see two rocks on the right-hand side. I walked down to them and created a panoramic composition using the bigger rock and the sun as an anchor. A larger, more detailed photograph is here.

Done with the barrens for a while, it was up Highway 70 to Carbonear. As I was driving, I could see that the clouds and the sun were going to combine "just right" for a beautiful sunset, so I pulled off the road just up on the ridge overlooking Harbour Grace. The scene was beautiful, almost painterly.

Coming over the hill into Carbonear, I noticed a fantastic cloud formation over Carbonear Island. The light from the setting sun made it look just like the Aurora Borealis. I drove down to the beach and shot over the seawall to make this image.

Edit 2011-09-23
The whole time I was home I kept wanting (and talking) about taking a series of photographs of Carbonear Island. I loved the cloud formations that appeared over the island and behind it, out into Conception Bay. Finally, on my last day home, I went down to the point and took this shot. I forgot about the card in my camera until I was preparing for another shoot this past week-end, and hence this photo didn't make the blog post until now.

I have a fascination with windows. To me, they aren't a way of letting light into a building, but rather they represent a portal through which we can observe. So when I finally settled in at home, I dug out the Ranger Quadra and made this image of Mom in her reading room, as taken from her balcony. The Quadra was inside the house and tungsten balanced.

A couple of days later, while walking on the beach at Salmon Cove Sands, I ran into Michele, an old friend from high school that I hadn't seen in decades. I got the idea of taking a photo of Michele and her hubby, Gord, at the beach at sunset. Peter, another old friend from high school, was there and helped me with the lighting. I strapped the Quadra and a soft box to Peter and we backed out into the sea to shoot into the setting sun.

You can see here that Peter started to sink down into the sand. He couldn't move because the water was so cold, his legs went numb. Also, the waves were getting higher as the tide was coming in. See the wet marks on his shorts? The waves were just short of reaching the Quadra's battery!

While the Quadra was safe (barely), I had my other camera slung over my shoulder with a long lens on it, when one of the waves hit the lens. The salt water didn't play nicely with the lens' electronics, but it was nothing that a quick trip to Nikon Repair and $1,100 couldn't fix. The main thing is that I was able to get a shot of Michele and Gord that I quite liked.

I was also able to get a shot of Peter, Susan, and their pup.

I ran into another old friend, Carol, while I was in Newfoundland.

Carol:
Scott and I met on another island, Vancouver Island, more than thirty years ago while students at Pearson College. I was home from Toronto visiting family. The last time we had seen each other was in 1998 (Scott remembered the year, I could not) in Monterrey, Mexico. Now here we are 13 years later, two Newfoundlanders back on the island and "longing for home." Starting to sound like the lyrics of one of those sappy homesick Newfoundlander tunes! Note to self: Never allow a photographer - even an old friend - come within 12 inches of your nose with a camera lens ever again - make that 12 feet!

Carol had invited me to join her and her family in Port Rexton, Trinity Bay, where they were staying at a beautifully restored old house in Devil's Cove.

The house reminded me of many homes I knew growing up in rural Newfoundland and staying there was as comfortable as wearing an old pair of slippers.

Carol:
You may be wondering why there is no food in these photographs. It may be that Scott does not want you to know that he turned down fresh lobster for supper. He prefers it out of a can! (It's too much work getting it out of the shell.) I should add that he also refused dried "tom cods" for breakfast. A tom cod is a young cod. It's a favourite of mine for breakfast, a reminder of my grandparents and summers spent in Trinity Bay.

Outside the house was a delight as well, and I set out to capture as much as I could. I shot several panoramas from the hills above the house. Here is one showing the fog lifting from the harbour. A larger, more detailed photo is here. It's worth the time to open up the larger image and look at the details of the landscape. You will see the driving force of nature in things like the playground, which is overgrown and still bearing the scars of Hurricane Igor.

I particularly liked the sunrises. A larger, more detailed photo is here.

I caught the sun just as it crested the horizon. A larger, more detailed photo is here.

This was the effect it had on the ocean to the right of my viewpoint.

Of course when shooting sunrises, it is always important to turn around and look at what the rising sun is painting with its light.

Carol took me for a hike on the highly rated Skerwink Trail, with its spectacular views of the coast line, historical settlements, and on occasion (but not this day), whales, eagles and icebergs.

I could see why the trail comes so highly recommended. Firstly, it is very well maintained by a group of volunteers. They keep the boardwalks and stairs in tip-top shape.

This is really important because the trail goes very close to the edge of some very steep cliffs.

It is easy to slip on the wet grass, as this guy did when he went to the edge to take a photograph. Fortunately, he went down and not over.

Carol:
I should point out that there is a noticeable absence of shots taken close to the edge in Scott's photographs. It probably has something to do with his fear of heights. Whenever he got closer than a metre to the edge, I had to hold on to his belt! Of course, it did occur to me that if he slipped and fell, I would just go over the edge with him!

Secondly, the trail has some excellent viewpoints of the bay and the harbours in the area.

Here is a panoramic shot of Trinity. A larger, more detailed shot is here.

Carol:
Trinity is one of the oldest communities in Newfoundland, with earliest settlement dating back to the late 1500's. Richard Whitbourne held the first Admiralty Court in North America there in 1615. Having taken not one but two admiralty law courses in law school, I should perhaps have already known this, but I had to look it up in Kevin Major's history of Newfoundland and Labrador "As Near to Heaven by Sea". Kevin, by the way, was Scott's teacher in grade 8.

As we were looking at Trinity, a boat left the harbour to take tourists on a whale watching tour.

Besides walking the Skerwink Trail, you can also get an eyeful just walking around town. Carol wanted to see the Randell House, a 215 year-old "saltbox" house. It has been very nicely restored and like most Newfoundland homes, loud colours are always in fashion.

Not far from the Randell House was a piece of land Carol was interested in. I took this panoramic photograph for her to capture the view from the property. A larger, more detailed photograph is here.

Back at the house, we decided we would take a run into Trinity to see the grave of one of Carol's ancestors, John Spurrell. As you can see, the headstone is almost 200 years old, which would put John into Trinity sometime in the 1700's. Note that the headstone spells his name differently. Different spellings of words and names were common in that era of no computer spell checking!

Carol:
John Spurrell is my great, great, great, great grandfather on my mother's side. He was born in the Trinity area in 1750 and died in 1813. His parents arrived from the County of Somerset, England in 1748. I only learned of this gravesite and the family history a few years ago. My most vivid childhood memories - and many of my fondest - are of summers whiled away in Butter Cove in the southwest arm of Trinity Bay. It was John's youngest son, Moses, who was the first to settle there in 1845 with his wife and children, lured from Trinity by the rich fishing grounds. Butter Cove and Trinity Bay have always occupied a special place in my heart. Knowing that my family's history here goes back more than 250 years deepens exponentially my sense of connection to this part of Newfoundland, now symbolized by my great, great, great, great grandfather's head stone.

We went into St. Paul's Anglican Church, which is next to the graveyard. It is a lovely timber structure, not uncommon for old churches in Newfoundland. The wood made the atmosphere much warmer than the usual cold stone churches I shoot in Europe. A larger, more detailed photo is here.

I have a thing for church pipe organs: I love their geometry and colours.

I also love church interior doors because I find them so mysterious: What lies beyond? Enlightenment?

We were parked down near the main wharf, and on the wall behind us was a mural depicting life from a couple of centuries ago. I thought it would make for a nice backdrop for a portrait.

Just across from the mural was a classic Newfoundland scene: a boat, wharf, and a stage.

The red colour is not one that I remember seeing much of growing up, but it certainly is a common colour today, as you can see in this shot of a shed in Port Rexton.

Carol:
Okay, Scott may not remember the colour red from his childhood, but I seem to remember it as a popular colour for "stages", more of a brown red or rusty red. But then, the question of "What is a stage?" heated up the cable/phone lines between Toronto and Halifax, with both of us immediately reaching for close at hand copies of the Dictionary of Newfoundland English, which unfortunately did not fully resolve the matter.

I was recently on a flight between Toronto and Buenos Aires with - as it turned out - 44 members of the Lady Cove Choir of St. John's. What are the chances? They were on their way to a choir festival in Patagonia. As we were going down the ramp, one lady turned to her travel companion and said, "Do you have a copy of the Dictionary of Newfoundland English? That was my first clue I was not the only Newfoundlander on this flight.. I wanted to run up to her and say, "Yes, I do, I do, I have a copy of the Dictionary of Newfoundland English!"

Leaving Trinity, we decided to drive into English Harbour. On the way we saw this hilarious sign warning people that "berry picking is not allowed" on the private land. Like most of Newfoundland, there were not a lot of fences, so you couldn't really tell where the private land began and Crown land ended. The fenced area you see is most likely a grave site or an old garden from years past. Given the "private" nature of the land, we didn't investigate further.

Carol:
What struck me as funny is that the sign seemed so incongruous given Newfoundlanders' reputation for generosity and hospitality. At the same time, if those were my partridgeberries, I'd be pretty darned upset if someone else picked them!!!

Down into the community of English Harbour, we stopped at the beach. Looking back up from the beach at Carol, who was standing on the seawall, I could easily imagine a scene some 200 years earlier of someone like Carol, scanning the horizon looking for the fishermen returning from their day's work.

I thought I would end this post with some shots of Newfoundland wildflowers. To me, they represent the essence of Newfoundland and much like Newfoundlanders themselves, they are laid-back and confident. They don't grab you by the eyes. They are a hidden beauty that you have to seek out because they do not need to seek you out. Their power is the passage of time in a land where nature rules. No matter what sort of structure we humans try to impose on the landscape, time, nature, and the wildflowers rule in the end.

Carol:
One of the things I found fascinating is that it's not just native flowers that grow "wild". I kept seeing flowers I've bought from a nursery to plant in my garden in Toronto, thriving in all their splendour by the side of the road in Newfoundland. These Foxgloves that we found not inside, but outside the fence in Port Rexton are a good example. Scott took a photograph of them as well which I think fits in with the theme of this "wildflower" mini-series.

I created a video using some of these photographs and in keeping with the feeling of longing for home, I asked Jade if I could use her wonderful performance of Danny Boy as the sound track. She graciously agreed and I think it really complements the slide show.
Be sure to change the settings to 1080p. The photographs have been sized for that resolution and they will not look correct unless you do.

A static slide show of all of these photographs is here.

More of my photographs are found on my FiggyDuff.com website

Faces of Copenhagen

2011-08-13T16:59:00.079-03:00

Many years ago, I took a course on the History of Western Architecture from Shane O’Dea. Shane was a great teacher and really brought the subject to life for me. I found it interesting to learn how we “decorated” our buildings and how building styles evolved over the centuries. The lengths to which owners, builders, and architects would go to make a public statement using their sense of style was fascinating. Perhaps that is why I love going walkabout in European cities. The variation in building styles is very stimulating and Copenhagen is no exception. You can see the famous Danish sense of style in their public buildings and in how they decorate their communal spaces.

Style usually provokes an emotion in people, no matter if it is the exterior of Gaudí’s Sagrada Família or the clothes the Lady Gaga wears during a performance. Photography is like that, too. A good photo can provoke an emotion as people react to the photographer’s interpretation of what he saw.

Here are some images that reflect what I saw and felt as I walked about three Copenhagen residential neighborhoods. I chose residential areas because a home’s façade is a bit like the clothes people wear: it is a public statement of their personal style.

Nyboder
I started in Nyboder, a neighborhood built in 1631 by Christian 4. to accommodate the enlisted personnel of the Danish Navy. At the time, Nyboder would have been well outside of Copenhagen. As the centuries passed, the city expanded well past Nyboder and I would now consider it to be in the heart of the city.

I am sure Nyboder has been renovated many times over the centuries. However, the premises looked pretty run down when I was there last. I returned on this trip to see if things had changed, and if not, to capture some more images.

The property definitely has a military feel to it. The buildings are laid out in neat rows and the façades are very sparse. All the buildings are the same yellow colour. Interestingly, this yellow hue is so unique, the Danes have a name for it: Nyboder Yellow.

The sparseness and consistency of the neighborhood is pretty much what you might expect of an area where Navy personnel live and probably reflect military values. However, this scheme works against the designer when the yellow exterior fades and cracks like it has. The area picks up a distinctly welfare feel, which I doubt is what the designers intended.

A much larger slide show of these photos is here.

Østergade
Nyboder is in the Østergade area of Copenhagen. In between it and the King’s Garden are some newer housing complexes. This area was the second neighbourhood I toured.

By ‘newer’, I mean built after those in Nyboder, but make no mistake; these are still very old by my North American standards. Certainly the worn bricks and slightly sagging structures hint that these buildings are centuries old.

Like Nyboder, there are some similarities in the houses due to the fact that the homes are row housing and construction would have dictated a certain sameness. For example, each unit has a door in the exact same place (always on the left facing the unit). Also, there are two windows to the right of the door and there is the same slight arch over the door and windows.

Unlike the regimented sameness of Nyboder (which is still used to house enlisted personnel), I found the homes in this area had more individual personalities. The walls were painted different colours and the doors were painted to complement the colours on the walls. Random bits of vegetation completed the individualization of each unit.

A much larger slideshow of these photos is here.

EDIT - Jens Rost commented on my Flickr Stream for some clarifying information:

It's not "Østergade", as Google Map roughly suggest, but "Krusemyntegade" in the area known as "Byggeforeningshusene ved Nyboder" (The Building Society's Houses at Nyboder")

Østergade is a part of the area known a "Strøget", a couple of pedestrian streets in the inner city. The so called "Medieval Town of Copenhagen". Very few houses remains from this period in time mainly because of some big fires, one of them was started by the British Royal Marine in 1807.

It's "water under the bridge" now (almost).

Christianhavn
The third neighborhood that I visited was Christianhavn. While I have done walkabouts in Nyboder and Østergade before, Christianhavn was new territory for me.

I wasn’t surprised to learn that Christian 4. created Christianhavn. That guy really left his mark on Copenhagen. It seems Christianhavn is an artificial island that he had made as part of building up Copenhagen’s fortifications. Originally inhabited by merchants in 1639, the place is about the same age as Nyboder. Back then, enlisted sailors and merchants would have been worlds apart in social status and certainly the difference in the architecture reflects that.

This historic disparity persists today, as Christianhavn has retained its upscale atmosphere. The only commonality with Nyboder is that the buildings are “row” style and all the doors are on the “left”. Everything else is different.

A much larger slide show of these photos is here.

This wraps up my Postcard posts for this trip to Copenhagen. Here are links to all of my posts from this visit:
Faces of Copenhagen
Copenhagen Postcards
Copenhagen Walkabout - Oddities
Postcards from the Bryghus
Postcards from Louisiana MoMA
A Game of Thrones
Postcards from the Glyptotek

Copenhagen Postcards

2011-08-10T18:22:00.003-03:00

In between visiting the wonderful Danish museums and art galleries, I spent a lot of time walking about with my camera. Here is a potpourri of Postcards from these walkabouts.

I came away with a bad impression of Danish mass transport following our trip to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. That is not to say that there are no photographic opportunities involving the train in Copenhagen. I took this shot while waiting for the train on my way back from my visit to the Carlsberg Bryghus. Not surprisingly, I gave up waiting for it and left by this udgang to walk back to the hotel.

The weather during our visit was very unsettled. In the lead-up to a huge storm, the clouds were very billowy. The way the sun was shining on them gave them a lot of tone and texture.

When it wasn't pouring rain, the sun was quite gorgeous. A bright sun makes for great abstract shots using water reflections, such as this tree. I shot it in the water of the Kastellet's moat. If you look closely, you can see two people dressed in white walking on the top of the moat's earthen wall, just beneath the tree.

Here is another tree, springing up out of a paved courtyard, spreading its seed around in vain while a bird struts around underneath.

I was able to add to my Lonely Soldiers collection during my walkabouts. Here are two Lonely Soldiers just sitting alone on a sidewalk early in the morning, as if they are waiting for someone to let them back into the house.

I usually find Lonely Soldiers during my dawn walkabouts, since they are "cleaned up" during the day. Here is one that I discovered upon my return to the hotel at the end of the day. He was just sitting in a bicycle basket pondering the next step in his career path.

I finally made it to Christianshavn. On my walk to the island, I went over the bridge on Torvegade. It appears to be a drawbridge, as does the bridge I used on my way back (on Langebro). That is, they had towers that only make sense to be there if they are used to control the bridge-openings and river traffic. These towers are made from copper, which gives a very nice patina when it ages. The colours and texture of the patina along with the geometry of the lines in the copper drew me in and I did a quick study using them.

Interestingly, you can see the Langebro bridge from the "porthole" in the tower on the Torvegade bridge.

One of my favourite visits on this trip was to the Rundetårn (Round Tower). Christian 4. had it built in 1637 as an astronomical observatory. Instead of stairs, a ramp leads up from the street to the observation platform. If stairs had been used, they would have been quite steep, as you can see in this very short flight of stairs that are near the top.

The ramp is used to access not only the observatory, but also a library and the bell ringer's loft (to the attached church). Moving books in and out of the library and also moving equipment up to the observatory would have been quite a chore. A ramp becomes an obvious choice over stairs, especially one wide enough for a horse and carriage.

Still, the ramp is fairly steep itself as it turns 7.5 times on its way up to the top of the tower. There are no lights, only what is provided naturally from a few windows. It is also crowded with tourists on their way to and from the viewing platform at the top.

Despite these two challenges, I wanted to make a Postcard to show how the light from those windows plays on the white of the walls. The walls are a stark contrast to the dark brick in the floor. I patiently took several photos over a long period of time, which I have pieced together as a panoramic shot.

The hardest part in making the above photograph was waiting for people to move on. Some people liked to stop and look at what I was doing. Other people would stop in one of the alcoves to take a break and look out the window. I usually waited them out, but I accidentally captured someone's shadow just as they passed out of view. It hangs on the wall, like a ghost patrolling the ramp. You may want to go to this version in order to see a full-sized view. Can you spot the "ghost" ?

One of the places I revisited was the Royal Palace. The guards there make wonderful subjects, as you can see in this shot from a few years ago. This time, I caught one of them looking at me while I took his photo. In the stare-down between us, I could hear Al Pacino screaming "YOU LOOKING AT ME?". You may need to click on the photo to go to a larger size in order to see the guard's face.

Here are links to all of my posts from this visit:
Faces of Copenhagen
Copenhagen Postcards
Copenhagen Walkabout - Oddities
Postcards from the Bryghus
Postcards from Louisiana MoMA
A Game of Thrones
Postcards from the Glyptotek

Copenhagen Walkabout - Oddities

2011-08-06T07:51:00.002-03:00

I had a very prolific stay in Copenhagen, photographically speaking that is. Since I took so many shots, it is not very surprising that I ended up with a few photos that defy classification. There are some interesting stories behind some of these shots, however, so I thought I would put them all in a single post before I blog about some of my other Copenhagen Postcards.

I will start first explaining more about why these people are running.

Why do you think hordes of people would be running about the city in the rain? If you said they were running in the Copenhagen Marathon, you would be wrong. They are actually running to this store,

where the staff call their number,

so they can order the world's best Danish pastry.

The food was so good, I ate breakfast AND lunch there a two days in a row!

On many of my walkabouts I saw a lot of dogs. My dog Bobb would have been right at home. It seems the Danes have an affection for dogs and they take them everywhere. They take their dogs in shopping carts.

They also take their dogs on their bicycles, two at a time.

For the cat lovers out there, I came across this sculpture of a cat. This, by itself, is not out of the ordinary,

but when someone leaves a ball of yarn in front of a cat sculpture for it to play with, well, that is something I just have to shoot!

Not far from where I shot the cat and her yarn, was a church with some benches outside. If you look very closely, you will see that the ends of these benches are actually sculptures!

At another church, I saw a couple of things I have never seen inside a church before. The first was a clock.

I am not sure why a congregation would have a clock installed. Doesn't that go against some sort of unwritten rule?

The second odd thing I saw were these pews next to the clock. They had benches on BOTH sides of the pew. Is that so they could prepare to sprint out of church when the service was over?

What's not odd is the Danish sense of style. Here is a fire escape stairway in one of the museums, with the wall painted to complement the wood tones and the colours in the artwork.

Huh? Artwork in a fire escape? Only in Denmark!

While on a walkabout I got to see my first stork. Nothing odd in that, I guess, except I have never seen a stork before.

On another walkabout I came across a hotel that was built on a barge. It appeared to have only 8 rooms, which would almost put it in the "bed and breakfast" class of accommodation. Certainly the prices on their website seemed more in line with B&B prices than the price our hotel was charging!

I will close my walkabout oddities post with this souvenir shot of a restaurant just around the corner from the hotel. What are the odds of visitors from Halifax coming across "The Original Halifax Restaurant" in a city of 1.2 million people?

Here are links to all of my posts from this visit:
Faces of Copenhagen
Copenhagen Postcards
Copenhagen Walkabout - Oddities
Postcards from the Bryghus
Postcards from Louisiana MoMA
A Game of Thrones
Postcards from the Glyptotek

Postcards from the Bryghus

2011-07-30T16:05:00.001-03:00

I didn't spend all of my spare time in Denmark visiting museums, even though I have blogged about going to the Glyptotek, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, and the Rosenborg Castle. No, I also got out to quaff a couple of cool ones fresh from the bryghus! Bryghus in Danish is "brew" (bryg) and "house" (hus), which is literally "brewhouse", but more properly translated as "brewery".

If you are ever in Copenhagen, the Carlsberg Bryghus is a must see, even if you have already been on a brewery tour. This one is different. Oh, the beer part is the same, thankfully, but in this case it is the environment that sets this brewery apart from any other brewery you may have visited.

As you approach the brewery, you can see that the building complex is really something else. Now these are not buildings from the original Carlsberg company. Rather they are from of the Ny Carlsberg (New Carlsberg), a company that Carl set up when he and his father, J.C. Jacobsen, had a very serious falling out. In fact, there were two Carlsberg companies for some time, because J.C. decided that upon his death, the original Carlsberg company would be owned by his Carlsberg Foundation rather than by his son. It wasn't until 1906 that the two Carlsberg companies merged, with Carl at the helm.

Maybe one of the things that distanced father and son was that J.C. was heavily into politics, whereas Carl loved art. You can see clearly how much time, energy and resources Carl directed towards esthetics when building the Ny Carlsberg complex. Here is the famous Elephant Gate that links two buildings in the old brewery.

There are four granite elephants "holding up" this tower. Carl Jacobsen requested Hans Peder Pedersen-Dans to sculpt the the elephants for the base of the tower. Carl named them after his four children: Theodora, Paula, Helge and Vagn.

On the inside of the courtyard, partway up the tower is Ludvig Brandstrup's bronze of Carl Jacobsen and his wife, Ottilia Jacobsen. The statues are placed such that they look out over the Ny Carlsberg complex.

You can see another gate through the Elephant Gate. This second gate is called the "Dipylon" (double gate) at the other end of the "courtyard". The Dipylon has two rounded arches, unlike the single rectangular gateway of the Elephant Gate. The Dipylon was built first, in 1892, and the Elephant Gate came later, in 1901. Both were done by the same architect, Vilhelm Dahlerup.

On one side of the Diplyon is a tile frieze with nine figures. Carl, his wife, and his son are three of the figures, with some of the brewery staff making up the rest.

The style of these gates and surrounding buildings is very eclectic and very refreshing. For example, here is a detail of the iron grating over one of the windows.

Just down from these two gates is a smokestack with its own very interesting design. The bricks were laid in a twisting fashion and the lower part of the stack is decorated with white statues.

Past this smokestack and closer to the visitor centre is an entirely modern-looking building that has a massive amount of white rope tied to the ceiling. I cannot imagine what this is used for. Any guesses?

Closer still to the visitor centre is a small garden, with a replica of the Little Mermaid. Carl Jacobsen donated the original Little Mermaid to the City of Copenhagen and apparently also kept a copy for himself.

In the square of the visitor centre is a small collection of old automobiles that were used by Carlsberg to deliver beer to market. The exhibit gave me a chance to add to my old car portfolio.

While the more mainstream Ford and Chevy are welcome additions to my collection, I really lucked out with the rare (to me) Morris and Bedford trucks.

Just inside the visitor centre square is an exhibit of an even older form of transportation: horses. Just as Budweiser has the Clydesdales, Carlsberg has the Jutlands.

These are massive horses and I can imagine they do a fantastic job at pulling heavy loads.

Another thing that sets this brewery tour apart from others is the "world's largest collection of beer bottles" exhibit. At the moment, there are over 20,000 bottles from all over the world!

Of course there is the traditional brewery equipment to see. It all looks alike to me, so I just concentrated on the shapes, tones and moods as I walked through the brewery.

I rate this as another excellent place to visit if you are ever in Copenhagen.

Here are links to all of my posts from this visit:
Faces of Copenhagen
Copenhagen Postcards
Copenhagen Walkabout - Oddities
Postcards from the Bryghus
Postcards from Louisiana MoMA
A Game of Thrones
Postcards from the Glyptotek

Postcards from Louisiana MoMA

2011-07-27T07:56:00.001-03:00

The most visited art museum in Denmark is the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Getting so many visitors is no small feat for them, given that they are located well outside of Copenhagen and (if my experience is the norm) extremely hard to get to. It is supposed to be a short 20 minute train ride from Copenhagen, plus a 10 minute walk. Well, it didn't turn out to be that easy.

First, we could not figure out what train to take. This was the first time in all of our European travels that Angie and I couldn't get the trains sorted. It could have been the Danish train signs, which are so different from the rest of Europe. It could have been the conductors, who didn't seem to know anything about any train except theirs (we heard "It may be the next one" several times). Whatever it was, I felt like a Muggle looking for Platform 9¾

Then, after we finally got on the correct train, we had to get off again after only a few stops and take a bus. It seems the line to Louisiana was out of service and the only way to get there was to take a detour by bus. We thought we would just follow the crowd, since everyone seemed to be going to Louisiana anyway. At least they kept asking the drivers something about "Louisiana" (which was all the Danish we knew). We had to wait as several buses came and went. All the while none of the passengers knew which bus to take. I gathered from the gestures and facial expressions that the drivers were saying "I am not sure. Maybe the next one"! Do the Danes have a sense of style? Absolutely! Do they have a sense of public transportation? No.

When we finally arrived at Louisiana, there was a large crowd queuing to get in. We were looking at a good 30 minute wait. That is, until we spied a side entrance through the gift shop and cut the queue. This almost made up for the lost time travelling to get there! By the way, we were able to take this shortcut because when we bought our train tickets in Copenhagen, we bought tickets to Louisiana at the same time. So in the end, not only did we save a bit on the price of the ticket, but we saved the wait time to get in. A tip worth knowing if you are in Copenhagen and are looking to go to Louisiana.

We browsed through the gift shop (I always pick up postcards for Anne when I travel), we took a short tour through the main garden where there was a large exhibit. It was made of construction lumber painted high-visibility orange. I'm afraid the artistic merit is lost on me. My interpretation of what I saw is a bit garish, to say the least!

Back inside, we saw several of the Picasso exhibits. I'm not really a fan of Picasso. Like the art above, it is too chaotic for me. There is nothing inspiring or surprising in it, and it simply doesn't hold my attention. But since we were in such a famous museum, and since the Glyptotek held such pleasant surprises, we toured the exhibit halls to see what was on display.

One of the exhibits was of Alberto Giacometti's work. It was in a large room with a glass wall overlooking a pond. A tour group was in the gallery and the guide was explaining the exhibit to his tour group.

As I was watching the guide explain about the work, I started thinking about the fact that there are always tour laggards. These are people who hang behind the main group as it moves from place to place. I thought that there would be a chance I might catch "the laggards" either looking at the exhibit, or out the window. This, I thought, might make for a good composition if I could frame it properly using the walls and the windows. So I ran down the stairs and waited until the group moved on. Sure enough, three people stayed behind to look out the window. My anticipation paid off with a nice capture.

By now you are probably wondering why we went to Louisiana in the first place, given that we don't like Picasso or much of the modern art. It was because there was an exhibit of David Hockney's me draw on Ipad. Angie's husband and my son are iPad nuts. We thought it would be cool to go see this exhibit and report back to them on the use of an iPad as an art tool.

The Hockney exhibit was fabulous. David has created hundreds of drawings using either an iPhone or an iPad. The museum had installed 20 iPads and 20 iPhones around an exhibit hall. Hockney's art was displayed on these devices. I would characterize the drawings as simplistic, very colourful, and absolutely captivating. The museum also displayed a short video of David using the iPad to create one of the drawings on display.

Go here to see some samples of his work at the Louisiana MoMA site. His work was interesting enough to turn a lousy excursion into a good one, even when the return trip to Copenhagen was as fraught with travel hassles as the trip up.

Here are links to all of my posts from this visit:
Faces of Copenhagen
Copenhagen Postcards
Copenhagen Walkabout - Oddities
Postcards from the Bryghus
Postcards from Louisiana MoMA
A Game of Thrones
Postcards from the Glyptotek

My Oslo Is...

2011-07-23T07:28:00.082-03:00

Oslo (and Norway) is one of my favourite places, probably because it reminds me so much of Canada. It is a "home away from home" and literally a breath of fresh air when I am in claustrophobic Europe.

I hope these photos give you a sense of what kind of city Oslo is, because my Oslo is not in the images I see on television today. It is not a city of devastation and blown-out buildings. It is not a city of people laying bleeding in the streets. No, my Oslo is....

... a city where even the dogs get dressed up for a parade.

... a city where kids can laugh and smile.

.... a city that respects its war heros, as only a city that has been occupied can.

... a city where litte girls hug their Moms while watching a parade.

... a city where little girls ride on their Dad's shoulders to watch a parade.

.... a city of storybook colour.

... a city that is colourful even in the dark, pouring rain.

... a city that is colourful as the sun goes down.

... a city where young and old love sports.

... a city where the wonder of the outdoors is not lost.

... a city where high school kids dress up in national colours and hand out their personal "trading cards" to little kids (who collect them). That has to be one of the nicest high school grad traditions I have ever seen.

This is my Oslo. Please cross-post and share this version of Oslo with your friends.

A Game of Thrones

2011-07-17T19:35:00.007-03:00

Rosenborg Castle is where the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg keep their family chair. Margrethe II, the current head of the House, also keeps her Crown Jewels there as well.

With a name that long, you would think she would need a huge vault to store her goodies. Not so. Rosenborg Castle is a nice, but smallish, Dutch Renaissance building in the middle of Copenhagen. It was built by Christian 4, whom I find very notable for the use of the Arabic '4' instead of the Roman 'IV' like all of his peers used. This is but one tidbit of interesting information I got from the guide we hired to walk us through the Castle and the surrounding neighborhoods.

As with any building constructed in the 1600's, there is not a lot of light in the rooms, which are small to start with. This makes the building a bit claustrophobic. The darkness, along with the usual ban on photography using a flash (light kills the historical artifacts) or a tripod (people trip over them), meant I wasn't able to get many photographs while inside.

One exception to the 'darkness' was the Long Hall on the third floor. It has many large windows, a white ceiling, and some white tiles as well. This helps brighten the room considerably. I can imagine that when the tapestries were new, this was a very, very colourful room.

The throne, made of silver and a royal red fabric, stands at one end of the room.

I really like the contrast in the silver and the red.

You cannot see it in the photo of the Long Hall, but one of the tiles is purposely mislaid. The workers were a bit superstitious and thought that only God could be perfect, so they would intentionally make a 'mistake' somewhere in their work. They did they same thing in the washroom on the main floor, where one single tile is turned sideways.

If there was an imperfection in these 'toy soliders', I couldn't see it. But then I also couldn't imagine getting close enough to look in that level of detail with toys that are worth a king's ransom.

Our last stop was to see the crowns themselves. Of course we didn't get to touch them; they were well secured behind glass. Yes, that is Angie in the background.

Here are links to all of my posts from this visit:
Faces of Copenhagen
Copenhagen Postcards
Copenhagen Walkabout - Oddities
Postcards from the Bryghus
Postcards from Louisiana MoMA
A Game of Thrones
Postcards from the Glyptotek

Postcards from the Glyptotek

2011-07-15T22:29:00.142-03:00

I have discovered another gem of a museum: the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek! It was established by Carl Jacobsen, son of the founder of Carlsberg Breweries. This is the same person who donated The Little Mermaid to the City of Copenhagen (see my picture of it from another trip).

The Glyptotek is supposed to be dedicated to sculptures. While there are some fabulous sculptures in the Glyptotek, there are also some wonderful French Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and Danish Golden Age paintings. There are works by Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Rodin.

The paintings are distressed and are housed in a very dark, protective environment: no flash photography or tripods are permitted. Even with my magical, low light-loving Nikon D700 I couldn't get any decent shots under those conditions. However the sculptures are out in the open, awash in bright light, so I'm able to give you a visual commentary on those works.

Carl Jacobsen wanted an impressive building and not just impressive artwork. He succeeded. I'm not sure if I should start by describing the wonderful building or the art it houses; the building does a wonderful job of framing and lighting the artwork.

In the central Winter Garden, large palms grow beneath a large domed ceiling.

The ceiling is a sort of wrought iron and glass affair, letting in a large amount of light, illuminating Kai Nielsen's sculpture Water Mother.

Peering up from the Water Mother, you can see another marble sculpture also bathed in soft light. It is framed in an entrance-way back into the Dahlerup building.

Following the tug of the light, I entered a long narrow gallery where I could see the siren sculpture up close. It was extremely well done and the marble looked silky soft.

I've often remarked at how high a value the Danes place on style, especially architecture and interior design. Not surprisingly, someone had selected just the right colour paint for the walls in this gallery. The combination of the soft, overhead light and the rich blue colour of the walls really set off the white of the marble..

The display in this hall featured several works by Danish artists. One series of work explored a kind of slavery or bondage, such as that which binds a mother to her child.

There are other sculptures on display (after all, this is a glyptotek!). Some of these other works are from the Greek and Roman eras and they are also housed in a suitable environment.

Even in this area, the fabulous building is like a piece of art itself. I consider this ceiling decoration more art than decoration.

The very new Henning Larsen wing is strikingly modern. It has a lot of glass, which allows for a very bright interior. It also has a lot of brick, giving the environment a more structured feel.

Long sight lines frame the artwork in an entirely different way than the older marble works housed in the Dahlerup wing. For example, these long stairs lead up to a Rodin bronze, making it seem as if the cast is trying to get away before you arrive at the top of the stairs.

When you get to the top, you see that there is a doorway right in front of the work and it does indeed look like he is trying to escape the Glyptotek!

There are many Rodin bronzes in the Glyptotek, including Les Bourgeois de Calais (The Burghers of Calais). This piece is the second of the original twelve pieces cast.

Compare this work with another Les Bourgeois de Calais that I came across during a trip to Stanford University a couple of years ago.

I did not know until I saw it again at the Glyptotek, that the Stanford University version was not really the same as the original work. In the Stanford version, the figures all have individual bases. In the original version, in all 12 of the original castings, all the figures connect in one base.

For me, The Glyptotek is about both the art and the building. Even in the basement where there is no art, just a functional area for visitors to store their bags, the light played on the walls in a wonderful way.

You can see more of these photos in a larger format here.

Here are links to all of my posts from this visit:
Faces of Copenhagen
Copenhagen Postcards
Copenhagen Walkabout - Oddities
Postcards from the Bryghus
Postcards from Louisiana MoMA
A Game of Thrones
Postcards from the Glyptotek

On Location

2011-07-07T19:22:00.122-03:00

Except for when I travel, I have put my street, landscape, and abstract shooting on hold these past couple of years so I can focus on improving my skills with artificial lighting. While I have very much missed my regular shooting, this "stretching" has been a great learning experience. I think my photography has benefited from it, even my landscape photographs.

Most of my learning has come from working "fashion" shoots in the studio, such as the one I did here. While I have enjoyed working with the models, I have not enjoyed working in the studio. I find the studio environment sterile and limiting. I really shouldn't be surprised by this discovery, considering I have been shooting "in the wild" for well over 30 years.

While fashion photography is also not really my thing, I very much like the interaction with the models as we work together to create an image. So if studios are out, what's left? Location shooting! Location shooting is like wrapping street shooting and studio lighting all into one package.

I like to shoot with a purpose, so I talked with Tara of Vive Jewelry, and she agreed to participate by providing jewelry for the shoot in return for photographs she can use for her business. So too for Sylvia at Chapel Hill, who agreed to provide some clothes, and Ria of Ria Make-up, who agreed to do the make-up. Four models stepped forward looking to contribute time in return for portfolio photographs: Tamara, Erin, Sara, and Ashleigh. Rounding out our crew was Jackie, who did the models' hair (I'm sure she would have done mine, if I had any).

I looked around for an interesting venue to shoot. I didn't want to do the "grunge" look that seems to be all the rage these days. You know, where a model wears very fancy clothes but the photos are taken in an old run-down factory or with some sort of graffiti in the background. The more rust and junk in the photo the better, it seems.

Trish, Anne, Zoey, and I did a scouting trip earlier in the spring to the Memory Lane Heritage Village. This is a collection of buildings just outside of Halifax. They date from the early-to-mid 1900's and represent what life was like in rural Nova Scotia back then. They are filled with really neat artifacts from that era. There are many buildings, including a General Store.

Some Gas Pumps.

A Garage

And a School House.

What really settled it for me was that the place reminded me very much of Musgrave Harbour, where I lived when I was young. Walking around and taking these scouting shots really got the creative juices flowing. It seemed like a great place to bring a crew to shoot, so I booked us in.

On the day of the shoot, we arrived at the Village early, as the models had to get their make-up done by Ria. While Ria was doing her thing, Lauren (our guide from the Heritage Village) showed Tara and me around so we could evaluate the lighting and the visual environment. We settled on the Gas Pumps as our first shoot site. The sun was still fairly low and we thought we could get some dramatic shots before it rose too much higher in the sky. We dug the gear out of the truck and as soon as we were set up, Ashleigh joined us, ready to rock.

Ashleigh ripped through an amazing series of poses, using the pumps as an anchor.

Ashleigh was able to create one dynamic pose after another, which let me create different moods. The shot above is bright and dynamic, whereas the shot below is more intense and moody.

Sara was ready to go just about the time Ashleigh had worked the Gas Pump location dry (pun intended). We moved on to a couple of buildings that worked, but none of the images got me very excited. We decided to go for a walk and see what struck us. This is the part that I really like about location shooting: if things are not working out in one spot, you can use just pack up and move on. There is always something just around the corner that is worth exploring.

In our case, it was a lovely old red truck. By now, the sun was almost overhead, which usually makes for terrible lighting, but I decided to shoot anyway. We moved to the shadowed side of the truck, and Ashleigh ran a large reflector to push light as needed back onto Sara. The combination of red and white colours, bright and dark tones, and Sara's gamut of expressions made for a very prolific series of shots. There are too many for me to publish here, so you will have to make do with a small slide show:

For a larger version of this slide show, go here.

As you can see, the setting worked for many styles of shots: black and white, colour, soft, romantic, edgy, funny. They all seemed to work.

After shooting in the heat of the sun, we went back to inside in the General Store. Tamara was ready to go and we tried to take advantage of the store's nice ambient mood.

The store is, by nature, very noisy visually, with lots of clutter in the background. In some cases this can work. In others, it can make for a distracting background, so I tried to adapt to by removing as much of the background as possible. One way is to shoot with the outdoors as the background and overexpose the background.

After we had worked through as much as we could inside the store, we went "walkabout" again. Erin was now our subject and I noticed that the rather garish colours of some of the buildings didn't suit her colouring very well. Yellow and green just should not be seen with some models. However, my eye was developed on Tri-X film (hah, another pun!), and I saw in my head some wonderful tonal ranges, so we shot with these buildings anyway and I converted them to black and white. There was a nice pink and white building as well, and while the colour there was much more suitable, I thought it still was better as a B&W image.

Some of the sites reminded me a bit of something you would find in a Beatrix Potter story, so I experimented with a couple of shots to render as drawings. This is a new style I am developing, as I explained in this post.

We ended our walkabout in the School House. The inside was a very bright white, and there was a wonderful light coming in from outside through some large windows.

I took a clichéd shot of Erin at a student's desk.

and then we switched to Ashleigh as the teacher.

Back outside, it was time for some headshots.

We started to wrap up and Ashleigh had to return to Halifax, missing our group "wrap" shots.

Feeling confident about the strength of the day's shoot, the girls showed us their pipes.

As we started to pack up, Tara commented the Gas Pumps looked much different now that the sun had swung to the other side. The lighting was a bit more harsh than what we worked with in the morning, but we did some last minute individuals shots and then a crew shot.

I am very pleased with the results of this shoot. I think everyone has come away with some great shots to add to their portfolio. While I won't be heading back to the studio anytime soon, I'm already planning my next location shoot!

I would be very remiss not to thank Jackie for being able to come to help at the last minute, or to thank Lauren for pitching in and helping during the day. Ria's wonderful make-up complemented Tara's fine jewelry. Sylvia's generosity made it possible to create some wonderful imagery. Tamara, Sara, Ashleigh, and Erin were all fabulous to work with and I appreciated how they jumped in to hold bits of gear necessary to create the above images. Without the contribution of everyone, I wouldn't have so many wonderful Postcards to add to my collection.

A slide show of these shots is here. Just make sure that under "options" at the top right side of the screen, the "embiggen small things to fill screen" is NOT checked. If it is, the photos will look fuzzy and distorted.

Remembering the Follies of the Past

2011-07-01T08:22:00.003-03:00

In Newfoundland, on July 1 we talk about the "July Drive", when the Royal Newfoundland Regiment was wiped out in the Battle of the Somme. Here is one article, although it neglects to report on the contribution of the stupidity of the general staff to the disaster.

How would you like to give your enemy advance warning that the troops you are about to send into battle are coming? Or that you required your soldiers to wear bright reflective metal tags so you could see them through your binoculars, not thinking this also benefited your enemy's snipers?

When we lived in France, we made two somewhat reluctant trips to Beaumont-Hamel, the site of the disaster. It is easily one of the saddest places I have ever been.

The guides at the park are a wealth of information. One walked around the park with us filling in the details of the story. Here is Ron, Mom, and Blair in front of the memorial monument with the guide.

We took in the icons, such as the Caribou and the Danger Tree.

After the guide left us, we wandered around on our own, each with our own thoughts. Here is Ron walking down St. John's Road.

When we stopped by the graveyard, all I could think about were the simple pleasures from home. Eating Ginger Snaps and drinking Purity syrup. Sneaking some Christmas compliment in the basement with the boys. Church turkey teas. Playing rounders. Catching capelin. Copying pans without your mother knowing. And then I thought how much the boys here would have missed those things, too.

On our way out, we met three French soldiers in the parking lot. They over heard us speaking English and figured out we were Newfoundlanders, so they stopped for a chat. They must have been on a course about Great War battles and were visting the battlefield monuments, because they knew quite a bit about the place and the event.

Strangely, this was not the first time a Frenchman stopped me to talk about the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel. Earlier in the year, we were in a restaurant in Versailles when a very old Frenchman asked me where we were from. He detected a very odd accent to my English. How is it that Frenchmen are able to detect Newfoundlanders when we speak English? Anyway, when I replied "Terre Neuve", he stood up and addressed the entire restaurant. He went on at length about the Great War and asked everyone to recognize the sacrifices that the Newfoundlanders had made for France. No-one said a word the entire time he spoke. The waiters stopped delivering food and stood and waited until he finished. When he sat down, everyone remained silent for a moment and then applauded. I was shocked, as was Patricia. Few in Canada know of the importance of July 1 to Newfoundland, yet the French are willing to make a spectacle in a restaurant some 80 years later to mark remembrance of it.

To my fellow Newfoundlanders: if you are ever in France, Beaumont-Hamel should be on your must-see list. It is not an easy place to find, but in this day of Google maps and GPS, it is much easier to get there than it used to be.

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Fulda Postcards

2011-06-19T17:51:00.005-03:00

I love visiting churches when I am in Europe. In particular, I like the stone churches. Perhaps this is because of their texture or perhaps it is because we have so few stone churches in North America. It's not hard to get a fix of churches when in Europe. In most European communities, there is a church every couple of blocks. Fulda, Germany, is no exception. Even though it is a very small town, there were several churches, a Cathedral, and an Abbey to investigate.

Up before dawn for my usual photo walk-about, I came across this church in the center of town. A construction company was in the process of repaving the square where the church was situated. For the safety of both workers and pedestrians, they had arranged their fencing to protect the work, yet still allow access to the church. To me, however, it looked like a giant "people funnel". The idea of funneling "teeming masses" into this church (or any church) was quite ironic, given we are in an era of steeply declining church attendance. It is hard to imagine any church requiring crowd control.

Leaving this church, I wandered up a stone alleyway towards the Cathedral. On the way I passed the Abbey. I didn't get a chance to look inside, as there was a very high stone wall surrounding it and the gates leading inside were locked. This bicycle was backed up, pointed out, and ready to go. I wondered if one of the Abbey's residents intended to use it as an emergency get-away vehicle!

Further up from the Abbey was the Cathedral of Fulda. It is a wonderful baroque church that is home to the remains of St. Boniface. I arrived well before dawn and was able to walk around to scope out the best viewing angle to watch the effects of the sunrise on the facade. Here is a panoramic shot to give you a sense of the environment around the Cathedral. Unfortunately, on neither Flickr nor Blogger will you get the benefit of the very large file size and be able to see the detail in this shot.

The colours just before sunrise are always interesting. When there are no clouds in the sky to reflect the sun's light while it is below the horizon, the sky becomes a deep blue. I find this colour blue is a nice contrast to the orange glow of the high-pressure sodium (HPS) lights that are typically used to light roads and building exteriors. At least they are typical today. I wonder what it will look like when HPS finally gives way to the much whiter light of LED lights?

As is normal when I am out shooting in the morning, there were very few people out. I quite like this because there are no crowds to clutter up my photographs!

On my way back to my hotel, I passed a window with these bottles arrayed on the ledge inside. They looked like empty wine bottles that someone had sewn white fabric around and then placed a flower in the neck of the bottle. On the white fabric was a coloured print of a rabbit; each bottle had a different coloured rabbit. I thought this was a pretty cool way to recycle empties!

Arriving back at my hotel, I noticed an un-recycled "empty" sitting on a bench across from the hotel doorway.

Edit: A reliable source translated the German message that is on the chalk board as "The sun shines form the lion's a**"

A German Sunrise Postcard

2011-06-12T12:43:00.007-03:00

In some photography circles, there is an endless debate about camera specifications and which camera makes the best images. In other circles, there is a cliché that "the best camera to have, is the one that you have with you". The point of the cliché is to say that a camera that is with you but has poor specifications is still better than a camera of good specifications that is left behind.

Ever since cellphone manufacturers added cameras to their feature line-up years ago, I have always had a camera with me wherever I go because I always have my cellphone with me. The specifications of these built-in cameras are not very good. However, when an image screams at me to be taken, I can always reach for my cellphone and use the built-in camera to calm the voices inside my head. Here is a short post on a moment when I used my only available camera to record a life Postcard.

I was out for a pre-dawn run in Fulda, Germany, and didn't realize that conditions were just perfect for a sunrise photo.

First, I was out early enough to be in position well ahead of the sunrise. The sun was just about to pop over the horizon, so I was in position for the pinks and purples that happen for the small amount of time just before the actual sunrise.

Second, there were a lot of storm clouds overhead to bounce those colours back down to me. Storm clouds always make for a very interesting and dramatic composition.

Third, there was a gap between the horizon and the storm clouds. You see this sort of gap when the clouds have only just rolled in and do not yet stretch as far as the horizon. This meant that the pre-sunrise light could actually reach the clouds that I saw in front of me. I was running away from the sun rising behind me.

Finally, there was a great composition to use all of this wonderful lighting on. Ahead of me was a field of canola and their yellow blossoms surrounded a lone tree. In the sky above were those storm clouds I just mentioned.

I had none of this on my mind, of course. I was only thinking about getting in my 10 kms and heading to breakfast to meet the show team (we were at the Rettmobile trade show). As I have gotten older, I have learned that the voices inside my head are images talking to me. Sometimes they whisper and sometimes they scream. This one screamed at me, stopping me mid-stride. I reached for my phone and quickly grabbed this shot before the moment passed.

The next morning, I decided to return at the same time to the same place. This time I would bring my Nikon DSLR. I have a Cotton Carrier that allows me to strap a larger camera to my chest. This carrier is great for skiing and hiking, but I have never run with one until now (if you have one, don't try it - it is not that great for running). When I got to the same point as the day before, the light was completely different.

Even though the first photo (which was taken with my phone), is very soft, I find the above photo (taken with a high-end Nikon DSLR) completely lacks any of the drama of the photo from the previous day. For me, this re-enforces the point that a photographer must be able to capture an image when the moment arrives with whatever camera is on hand.

When I reached the turn-around point of my run, I noticed this field of unripe wheat. The rising sun side lit the wheat, creating a strong contrast between the tracks a tractor had made in the field and the tops of the wheat. This image called to me as well and since I had a camera with me, I stopped to take a photo.

A slide show of larger images is here.

On Inspiration and Perspiration.

2011-06-04T18:23:00.157-03:00

I am always inspired to take photographs when I am in Amsterdam. I find the scenery in this city to be very stimulating and I end up taking a lot of photographs on every visit. Also, there are many fabulous galleries and exhibits where the art on display causes me to step back and think about my own work. On this particular trip we took in Museum het Rembrandthuis and the World Press Photo 11 show. These two exhibits inspired me to push my limits and sweat out a new style of shooting, as you can see in the first image above.

Angie and I planned to go to the Palace at Dam Square, then head over to the Oude Kerk where the World Press Photo exhibit usually hangs out, and wrap up with a visit to Rembrandt’s House.

The Palace, which dominates one end of Dam Square, has been closed for renovations since before I began visiting Amsterdam. I have never been inside it. I have never read any reviews that say it is a stupendous place to see, unlike the wonderful Château de Versailles. However, the constant denial of seeing the inside for myself has built up and actually doing it is now a fixation of mine. On the trip to the hotel from the airport I always ask the taxi driver if the Palace is open. For the past 7 years, the answer has been “no”, but this time I was shocked to hear a “yes”!

I was worried that the taxi driver misunderstood my question, which is not uncommon with taxi drivers who do not share the same first language with you. However, as we approached the Palace we could see signs on the fencing surrounding the Palace confirming that it was open. I’m guessing I am not the only one anxious to see inside!

Imagine my disappointment, after all of the build-up, to walk around to the entrance only to find a much, much smaller sign announcing that, in fact, the Palace was STILL CLOSED!

From Dam Square, it is a short walk over to the Oude Kerk, where World Press Photo 11 was on display. This is a fabulous, inspirational, and disturbing collection of the world’s best photojournalism. Yes, I did say "disturbing". Many of the photos document humanity's ability to intentionally hurt, which is always disturbing. See for yourself at the on-line version of the exhibit here.

The Oude Kerk is a great place to host a major photography exhibit with its large space and bright light.

Besides looking at the photos themselves, I indulge in a bit of voyeurism and watch for people's reaction as they look at the images.

I’m always amazed at the eclectic nature of the audience of this exhibit and am especially happy to see young people in the audience.

These photos never cease to amaze me. The ability of street shooters to capture what Henri Cartier-Bresson called “the decisive moment” is very inspiring. To paraphrase HCB, there is a moment in which to make an image and in an instant it is gone forever. There are no studio lights to adjust to get a better composition, only ambient light. There are no models to pose, only a subject who may not even want their photo taken. These photographers do not get any “do-overs”. There is just them, their camera, and what is around them. They can shoot, or not shoot. No one around them really cares. They have to capture what they see in a way that interests others, and they have to do this while in a slightly hostile environment (or sometimes very hostile environment, as we saw with the deaths of Chris Hondros and Tim Heatherington).

Painters live at the opposite end of the time-composition spectrum from where photojournalists hang out. Painters create everything, typically in the safe environment of their home. They build their composition from scratch. They add every detail and every lumen of tonal contrast because they want them there. I guess painters have the ultimate version of “Photoshop”.

The painters who inspire me the most are the Dutch Masters, Chris Pratt, and Edward Hopper. I find what these artists have done with light and composition very inspirational. I can look over and over again at De Nachtwacht (or more properly titled The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch). I never seem to get bored with it.

Angie loves Rembrandt as much as I do, so when I discovered that there was a Museum het Rembrandthuis (Rembrandt’s House Museum), there was no question of not going to see it.

The lighting inside was very soft, coming from large windows high up on the wall, much higher than you would expect, especially from an era when people were quite short.

The exhibits were wonderful, giving me a lot of new insight into his life. You could see where he slept, ate, and worked. I took this one of Angie next to the spot where Rembrandt painted De Nachtwacht.

However my inspiration began to turn to perspiration as I tried to take photographs in the style of Rembrandt. After all, it was his house and I thought it only appropriate to do so. Taking a photo that looks like a painting is not an easy job. I have been trying to do this for many years as part of my abstract shooting. On this particular trip, all the pieces started to come together. Here is a shot of the door to Rembrandt’s kitchen.

Here is the left side of the fireplace in the kitchen itself.

The way the light fell in the kitchen was such that the right side of the fireplace looked quite different. There was no dominant red here, but there was a quite interesting green pot.

Upstairs, I learned that Rembrandt assigned the task of making his paints to his apprentices. It wasn’t hard to imagine Rembrandt hovering over these pots of paint, freshly made, selecting which he would use for his next painting.

I was quite pleased with this evolution in my still life abstract work, so I tried applying these new techniques to my street photography. Here is an abstract of wooden tulips a sidewalk vendor had for sale.

Adding these concepts to the process I use for my nighttime street photography seems like a natural thing to do. I quite admire the style of Edward Hopper, such as his 1942 painting The Nighthawks, and I think this now gives me a technique to emulate his style.

By removing details from the scene and adding a swirl of a painter’s brush, I find I am able to add a touch of mystery to the image. What does this guy want? Does the fellow inside know him? What will happen next?

I am still exploring this concept, seeking the limits of where the technique works and where it doesn’t. I have no idea where it will take me, but here are some more samples:

A slide show of the photos in a larger size is here.

Night Moves

2011-05-29T20:31:00.120-03:00

Thanks to some really good drugs, I was able to sleep on the overnight flight from Halifax to Heathrow for the first time, ever. Usually I pass out the first night on the eastern side of the pond and am then awake on the second night. Seeing as how I was finally able to sleep on the flight over, I was curious to see how this would affect my jet lag. The answer came quickly, as I was awake at 1:00 a.m. on the first night. It was like I skipped the usual first night's hibernatory sleep and went straight to the second night. As I usually do when suffering from jet lag, I got up, grabbed my camera and I went out to shoot. Since the Leidseplein, which is a nightclub quarter, is right next to the hotel, that's where I headed.

I use my tripod for most of my night shots because my exposures are very long, typically between 2 seconds and 30 seconds. This means I get an odd combination of sharpness and blurriness in my compositions. Fixed objects like buildings are tack sharp, but moving objects like people are blurred. This can make for some interesting shots.

First up was a panorama of the square itself.

To create a panorama, I carefully set up my tripod to ensure it is perfectly level and then take multiple, overlapping exposures that I then stitch together in Photoshop to create a huge photo. You cannot see how large these photos are here, because I have scaled them down a lot to fit on this blog page. But if printed, they are typically over a metre wide. In one of the shots below, I have a link to Picasa where you can see a lot more detail in one of my panorama shots.

In the image above, you can see how sharp the buildings and how blurry the people are. Many people are hardly visible at all and you can spot only pieces of them, like hands and feet. This creates a misconception that this square is almost empty, when in fact it is teeming with people out partying.

I drifted up a bit from the square back to the intersection by the hotel.

I have shot many times in this location and I always have people coming up to me wanting to have their photo taken. Invariably, these people are hammered out of their skulls. I usually make some remark about how my camera ran out of film (hah!) and they walk on. This time, I decided to shoot a few of them as an experiment. Here are a few of the results.

An exception to the “I’m drunk, so take my picture!” rule was Ayush Bhandari and his friend.

They are from India but living in Switzerland. Ayush was out shooting as well and stopped by for a chat about technique and gear. He has some pretty awesome shots and you may want to check them out on his Flickr site. Of course they were not stumbling around all over the place, and in taking their photo, I wanted to make sure they were nice and sharp. So I hit them with a manually fired shot from my SB800 (which I carry to nuke any drunk in the eyes, should they decide they want to take their own photo with my gear). You can see this difference in the white balance, with Ayush and his friend looking normal, but the background is very yellow. It also means that they were crisp, along with the background, and the people moving in the square are all blurry, which is kind of appropriate!

I packed up my gear and went back to my room to crash. I was able to sleep about an hour and then I went back out again at 3:00 a.m. The crowds had dropped off dramatically by then.

There were only a few people hanging around on the benches. Some were holding their heads, some just looking around. While the number of people was down, the amount of garbage was way up.

The view to the other side of the square was more dramatically empty.

I wandered further down the street to take some more panorama shots.

One of my favourite shots is a street level composition I took while in Helsinki a few years ago. Since then, I keep an eye out for a dramatic, street level black and white shot.

I’ve done something a bit different with the above shot. I have uploaded it to Picasa instead of Flickr so that you can see the detail in the scene. Click on the photo to go to Picasa. Then click on the + sign / magnifier that is above the photo and it will take you to a full-sized file. You can zoom in and pan around the shot to see some of the detail that you would see in a full-sized print.

By this time the sky was beginning to lighten and it was time to head back to the hotel, although I had enough time to take one final “canal” shot before the sun came up.

A slide show of these photos is here.

Postcards: Jet Lag Walk-About

2011-05-25T19:34:00.044-03:00

I'm fresh back from an extended business trip to Europe and I have a few Postcards to share from the many photographs I took in my off time. I've sorted the photos into a series of small posts, starting with some shots I took walking around the Amsterdam American hotel. Jet lag, especially when flying east, can be a real bitch and I find that a photo walk is great for dealing with the time-warp of international travel.

Starting out a photo walk before the crack of dawn means you can catch the first rays as they bounce off the clouds.

There is something about watching the sun rise in the Netherlands that makes me think of Rembrandt and the other Dutch Masters. They seemed to be able to capture the glorious reds and pinks so well. I didn't have a wide expanse of sky to work with and using a camera instead of a paint brush meant that I ended up with blurry water and trees. Still, I loved the result.

One of my co-workers once paid me a compliment by saying I could "take a picture of garbage and make it look nice". Ever since then I try to not overlook debris as a possible subject.

On the opposite side of the bridge from where I took the sunrise photo was a scene of abandonment: a coffee cup, a banana, and a pair of shoes. In my mind I could see the person to whom they belonged as they stumbled to the stone bench and sat down. Munching on a banana, and sipping their coffee, they tried to recover from the alcohol that they had drunk in the nearby bars of the Leidseplein. It was a futile attempt. Slipping off their shoes they lay down on the cold stone, oblivious to the discomfort and hoping a few minutes of rest would help. Hours later, they awoke with a start. Late for work, they grabbed a bicycle from the nearby rack to hurry home, forgetting their shoes in the process.

Further down the street was more evidence of an alcohol-fueled evening that is common at the Leidseplein square.

These sorts of scenes call out to me and I'm starting to piece together a few of them into a series I'm going to call "The Lonely Soldiers". There is something about a single bottle, or in this case a red cup, that makes me wonder if the person who put it there was a social or a solitary drinker. Strictly speaking, this cup is not a lonely soldier, but the two cans blend in so well to the background I decided I would make an exception.

As the day builds, people come out to prepare for the work ahead.

Like a fisherman who returns to a productive spot on a lake, I had walked down to a place where years ago I had made a photo of some guild houses. It was on a wide canal, which afforded me a good view of the buildings opposite.

Mokum is full of such canals while the streets are crowded and narrow. Many companies operate tour boats on the canals for tourists to easily see the city. There are more such tour boat companies now, and the spot I had gone to was full of tour boats tied up to docks, blocking the view of the guild houses.

Cursing my luck I turned to go, almost missing this shot of a crewman prepping his boat for the morning's first excursion. I had just enough time to raise my camera to my eye, compose, and fire the shutter before the moment was gone.

It's not only the inhabitants of your host city that you can see early in the morning.

If you pay attention you can see all kinds of people getting ready for their day ahead. Walking past the hotel around the corner from my own, I saw these two gentlemen in the window of their room. I imagined they were businessmen preparing for an important meeting that was to take place later that morning. The position of their window in the frame of the hotel was a happy chance I was glad to take advantage of: I shot this with the intention of cropping it closer to put the focus on the readers. However, I chose not to crop in the end, as I quite like the asymmetry the raw shot has.

Whenever I am in Amsterdam, I try to take a stereotypical "canal" shot.

This one is my submission to the classic canal category from this trip. I had found a short canal with a church at the end and trees in bloom to frame the lines leading to the church. A red car blends in nicely with the whites and the blues. As nice as this is in colour, I prefer the black and white version. Without the colours to distract me, I can see the structure of the photograph better.

Back in my hotel room I had one more shot to take. Rather, I had one more to take from my room's balcony.

The hotel's "Café Americain" was directly below me. It was a very warm spring this year in the Netherlands and they had put up their umbrellas to protect their customers from the sun. When I peered out over my railing, which was no small feat for someone with acrophobia, the red sweater jumped out at me right away. I found the hint of the red sweater and the whites of the shirts to be beautifully balanced by the black of the umbrellas .

A slide show of these photos is here, where you can see a bit more detail in the photographs (such as the two men reading in the hotel window) than what you can see in the photos posted here in this blog post.

Hot Rodding and Models

2011-05-05T21:46:00.004-03:00

The theme for the 3rd annual HPS car and model shoot was custom hot rods. Mike McCarthy set up the shoot with Curtis MacLean of Radical Garage. Curtis has some pretty cool cars in his garage and Mike arranged for some pretty hot models to go with those cool cars.

We had four cars, four models, and nine photographers, which adds up to a lot of photographic opportunity, but not much time to capitalize on them. Making things even tougher was the "noisy" visual environment of the garage (which is where we shot). Since I knew we wouldn't have much time, I opted to shoot with my SB900 on Nikon iTTL using a hacked ethernet cable. It was the master for an SB800 and an SB600 on slave via Nikon CLS.

I had two shots that were decent. This one of Pauline is the first,

and this one of Wendy is the second. This is my favourite from the shoot.

More Ashley

2011-04-24T18:52:00.034-03:00

The thing about social media is that it can enhance creative opportunities besides just keeping people up to date on the minutia of others' activities. In this particular case, Ashley (whom I have know and shot with for a while and was already a FB "friend") had posted a series of self-portraits on Facebook that caught my attention. I thought they created a look that suited her very well. I dropped her a quick message to see if she wanted to shoot the same concept again, only with me as the photographer. She agreed.

The shoot itself was short and uneventful. I'm really loving my new Elinchrom Quadras. They pack a mean punch yet they are small, light and easy to carry. The set-up was a simple over/under with two soft boxes. The upper head was set at f5.6 and the lower at one stop under that (which is automatically the setting on port B). The only thing remotely remarkable was my choice of background: a table turned on end (a trick I have done before).

Ashley went through a quick series of poses and we were done.

Hopefully she has walked away with a good addition to her portfolio, thanks to a chance encounter on Facebook.

"Female" + "Martial Artist"

2011-04-23T09:14:00.047-03:00

While some women have their place cemented in history as warriors (Joan of Arc, Boudicca, Catherine of Aragon), their numbers are much fewer than those of men. Indeed, history records some women as having to fight disguised as men: Hua Mulan, Hannah Snell, Kit Cavanagh. I was pondering all of this when I was taking some photos for Angela over at Chikara.ca a couple of months ago. Chikara is a magazine for female martial artists and as I was shooting, I was mulling over my perception that "female" and "martial arts" is still not something that is expected to be said in the same sentence, even with the sacrifices of women like Nichola Goddard etched into the public psyche.

I wanted to portray a female martial artist as both a woman and a fighter. To do so, I decided to try a technique I saw in one of Joe McNally's photos where he used both strobe lighting and continuous lighting to create a dynamic multiple exposure in-camera. I thought it would result in the perfect image to tell the story of a "female" + "martial artist".

I explained my idea to Angela and she recommended Krystal Knowles as a subject. I also explained my idea to Mike McCarthy and he found me a great location and agreed to help me with the shot. I would like to say that everything went as planned and my genius as a photographer allowed me to bag this very complex shot on the first try, but I cannot. Even with Angela's and Mike's considerable help and several hours of shooting, I was not able to put all of the elements together in a way that I was happy with. Getting the static and the dynamic lighting to balance properly AND create a multiple exposure in the camera (and not in Photoshop afterwards) proved to be beyond my skill level.

I went back to square one and pored over my shoot notes and photos. Mike had suggested (several times!) to simply create the image in Photoshop from multiple images taken separately, but I wanted to create as much as I could in-camera. After much thinking, I came up with a revised plan.

I rented some movie lights from Dave over at PSPS, a production service company here in Halifax. The movie lights would allow me to control the dynamic lighting, since I could turn them down or up to suit the exposure. I then worked with Charlie at Neptune Theatre to find an opening in their production schedule when I could spend a few hours on their stage. The dark theatre with its black backdrop drapes would allow me to not only control how the light bounced around, but it would give me ample space to create the composition. Everything aligned this past Tuesday when Charlie had an opening and Krystal was off at the same time, so we quickly locked in the shoot.

I set my lights up on Monday afternoon.

As this was a workday, I was on my own to test and adjust the lights. I made do by clamping a broom to a light stand and giving the camera's self-timer a workout (allowing me to jump into the picture and pretend I was Krystal).

With everything adjusted as closely as I could get it, I met Krystal and Angela the next day and was able to put everything together for one shot, which I call "Two Sides of Krystal Knowles".

See a larger version of this shot here.

Many thanks to Krystal and Angela for their patience as we went through hours of shooting which was nothing more than an exercise in learning for me. Also thanks to Mike for his help and advice during the first shoot, which helped tremendously in setting the stage for the second shoot. A special thanks to Charlie and Dave in finding ways to get me a discount on the rentals. Without their help, I could not have afforded to create this image.

DIY Light Gear Bag

2011-03-05T12:26:00.042-04:00

Even if you are a minimalist Strobist, all of that gear (DIY or otherwise) starts to add up and becomes a PITA to store and to carry around. I've got a lot of DIY gear, so when the time came to look at a bag to tote this gear around, I went for a DIY solution and found one using a snowboard bag and some Velcro.

My first step was to pick up an inexpensive ($25) snowboard bag on sale. My second step was to buy a roll of self-adhesive Velcro (also about $25).

I cut the Velcro into strips and attached the rough portion to the inside of the bag at regular intervals so I would have a lot of flexibility in arranging my gear inside the bag.

I did a test run with some gear (you can see the smooth portions of the Velcro still have the white backing on the tape).

Happy that everything was on track, I then attached the smooth Velcro to some black cloth I happened to have and then used a box cutter to trim the cloth to the Velcro.

I looked for a snowboard bag specifically because they have to be thick enough when closed to accommodate a snowboard's bindings. That thickness means I can attach gear to both the bottom and the cover, and with the right bag (like the one I bought), I can lay the whole bag open and reach straight for the specific piece of gear I want. Here you can see the final result with my gear attached to the inside. BTW, the cloth bags are my DIY sand bags from an earlier project.

Some post-production notes:
- the instructions on the box of Velcro said that the adhesive needed 24 hours to cure, so make sure you don't go playing with your new bag until its ready.

- the adhesive apparently doesn't stick that well to flexible vinyl, which is what my bag is made of. I haven't had any problems to date, but I figure there are lot of adhesives out there that can get the job done if I do.

- my gear is all "short" so the bag actually folded in half when I picked it up; there was nothing inside to give it rigidity along its length. This is pretty cool and allows me to pack the bag in a pretty small place, but it is a bit awkward for carrying. To give the bag some stiffness, I place my painter's pole on the inside near the "hinge" and extended it the length of the bag.

Visit my photography website at FiggyDuff.com

Oslo Postcards

2011-01-23T14:19:00.339-04:00

Oslo is a nice place to shoot; everyone speaks English and Canadians are welcomed. I was back in Oslo in the fall and of course I went out to shoot. It felt good to get out of the studio and back to my "home turf" of street shooting.

It's not that I do not like the studio. Unlike the street, it is a safe, controlled environment, but you have to think every shot out ahead of time. In the studio, you are usually shooting portraits or fashion so you also have to pay very close attention to colour and hues. It is pretty much the opposite of the "run and gun" that I do on the street. Differences aside, I think the studio has had a positive influence on my street shooting and I will explain as I go through this Oslo Postcards post.

I was out on the street again and loving the return of that feeling I get when I wander around with a camera in hand. There is something intoxicating about the anticipation of seeing photos set themselves up and then capturing the moment.

There was a street musician panhandling in front of the Lindex store on Karl Johans Gate and I grabbed this frame.

I am always amazed how a scene can change so much and produce totally different images with a few changes in the environment. A couple of years ago, I took a shot at this same location. The above shot was composed in the afternoon on a dry day and the one below was composed in the very early morning in the pouring rain. With only those differences, I was able to make compositions that are worlds apart.

Speaking of street musicians, I came across another panhandler singing "What a Wonderful World". Now you might know this song as a Louis Armstrong standard. Indeed, the song has quite a history. The composer offered it to Tony Bennett who turned it down (he did later record it). He then offered it to Satchmo, who recorded it in 1968 and it became a hit. Imagine having a chart topper when you are 66 years old!

Anyway, this is not why I love this song. I love this song because when Anne was a little girl, she was ALWAYS smiling and laughing. Her world was truly wonderful and I used to play this song for her all the time, so it became a "daddy/daughter" song.

So when I heard this song performed by two panhandlers (who I assumed to be father and daughter), I had to stop and make a short recording for Anne, which I then posted from my Blackberry straight to Facebook for her.

It's too bad my clip is so short. You really don't get the optimistic mood of the song from it. To make up for that, here is a video of Satchmo himself singing it.

After listening to the panhandlers for a bit, I went back out on the streets prowling around for shots. I came across this amazing "sculpture".

Not only did it defy definition as to what it was, it gave me fits trying to figure out how to shoot it. I never really did come up with anything too impressive.

I took a short walk over to the Akershus Fortress to look at the setting sun and spied a person on a bench looking at that very sunset. He was up on the rim of the earthen wall and I was below at the base, shooting up for a simple composition.

Curious to see what the sunset looked like, I ran up the berm to the tree that you see on the right of the frame. I then used the branches of that tree to frame the setting sun.

When out street shooting, your head needs to be on a swivel. There are often very different, but just as compelling, compositions behind you. In this case, the sun was still quite bright. It was bright enough that I was able to capture these two people up on the castle wall behind me, as they made their own sunset postcard. I was amazed at how the warm sun complemented the yellow of the leaves on the tree. The second person might be hard to see, so look closely for the dark coat that almost looks like another tree trunk.

By now I was feeling pretty comfortable and back "in the zone", so it was over to the Opera House to see what could be had there.

As I approached it, I was drawn to the geometric lines created by the glass facade and the stone supports. I was thinking that it would be a wonderful place to get some abstract shots. Here is one of my approach shots so you get a feeling for the structure.

In the shot above, the dark dots on top of the building are people looking out over the harbour. The sun was setting and it was quite a popular place. The public can get to the roof by walking up long ramps on either side of the building. It was while shooting the ramps (below) that I realized that my eye has changed following my studio time.

Previously, I would have waited for the people to leave the frame before taking the photo, but I realized I was quite enamored with the formal structure afforded by the geometry of the building and the random "organic-ness" brought to the image by the people.

Another change was my approach to colour. Previously, I would see shots only in tones, which is why the above shot is in black and white - that's how I saw it. However, I noticed I was now more struck with how colour worked in what I was seeing. For example, I loved how the setting sun painted red and yellow hues in a light tone in one part of the sky, while the darker blueness of the glass of the Opera House anchored the other side of the sky.

The above is my favourite shot of the series, although I also quite liked this composition that I made as I walked around the building.

The setting sun gave just the right amount of light for the glass facade to act as a mirror. Walking up the ramps on either side of the building gave me a chance to play with the reflections, such as this shot of a couple looking in the Opera House. Rather, he is looking in while she is fixing her hair!

There was a performance on that night and people walking the red carpet gave me another composition using reflections from the glass curtain wall.

When I was half-way up the ramp, I turned around and made this image using Radhusgata (the street opposite) as an anchor and the reflection for the right 1/3 of the frame.

From the roof, I was still seeing lots of images with the structure of the building providing a framework for some random placement of people. I like how even the rectangles have a random element.

I will close with an image of the setting sun bouncing warm light off of a jet's contrail, as seen from the top of the Opera House.

I am now caught up with my backlog of shots that dates back to last spring! Over the next couple of months I am going to focus on print making, but hope to also get in the occasional shoot.

Zoey's First Postcards

2011-01-16T14:03:00.138-04:00

This post has been a long time in the making. I started preparing for it back when I was shooting photos of Anne when she was pregnant. I wanted to include shots from Christmas, which was Zoey's first, so I haven't published her first blog post until now.

I've taken quite a few "belly" photos of pregnant women up to now, and I usually start off with a 3/4 profile of the "mom-to-be" or shots with her favourite puppy.

Anne's eyes have always been a brilliant blue, and when I was shooting this series with her blue top, I noticed that it matched those bright blue eyes.

Of course when Zoey came along, I started to take her photo as well. Because they sleep a lot, newborns are very patient subjects.

You can take shots from all sorts of different angles while they snooze.

You can even go through wardrobe changes and they don't bat an eye (or wake up).

Even an inquisitive little puppy sniffing the baby won't wake her up.

Since they sleep so much, it's easy to piece together some abstract shots.

As you can see, Zoey was born with a full head of fine, dark hair!

When Christmas rolled around, Zoey was bigger and not as sleepy. Anne put her in her new red outfit and we took some photos around the Christmas tree.

The red outfit looked quite nice in a black and white composition (this one is my favourite of Zoey so far).

After a short pause for some food for Zoey and a wardrobe change, we took some more photos, although Zoey was still hungry and was more interested in chewing on her giraffe.

Of course I have quite a few shots of Zoey and here is a slide show of the best of Zoey's first Postcards. You can move your mouse over this show to see an index of all of the shots, as well as commands such as "pause" and "play"

Sunday Shoots: Five

2011-01-09T12:08:00.091-04:00

Postcards: First Tracks

2011-01-09T07:29:00.067-04:00

Other than a quick course check before a race, I haven't skied in 4 years! When I heard there was snow at Kouchibouguac National Park, I was determined to get in my "first tracks" this week-end, coincidentally timed with this article on XC in the Globe and Mail.

Trish, Andy and Angie came with me on the 3 hour drive to Kouch in the search of snow and groomed trails. Trish hasn't been on skis in quite a while either (its been so long since I prepped her skis that I brought the wrong ones with us). As for Andy and Angie, they had never skied before, so this truly was a case of "first tracks". I brought my camera along to get some postcards of their first-ever ski.

There was a LOT of snow at Kouch. It had snowed heavily over night and more was coming down as we skied.

Skiing on the trails was like going through a tunnel of white.

The temperature was hovering around 0 C, which made for a wax challenge. Sometimes we would grip and sometimes we would slip.

Despite the weather and the stickiness, there were still smiles when we stopped at the Patterson hut for lunch and to warm up next to the wood stove.

While we were at Kouch, Anne and Zoey were at Martock where they made enough snow for a 1 km loop. Anne got her first tracks in there, and Zoey got her very "First Tracks" looking out the window at the skiers.

Since the Canada Games are there in about a month, Martock will likely keep making snow on their trails, and being only 45 minutes away, it is a more convenient place to get some tracks in than Kouch. I might even be able to convince everyone to go get "second tracks" this coming week-end!

Here is a slide show from the ski.

Sunday Shoots: Four

2011-01-03T15:59:00.076-04:00

I booked every Sunday in the month of October this year to do some in-depth studio shooting. I called the series "Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots" and I arranged my time in three blocks for each Sunday. A casting call on Model Mayhem for each slot brought a lot of offers from models to pose, but as usual with Model Mayhem, many of the models did not show up for their bookings. Fortunately for me, the models who did show were fabulous. We learned from each other and we bagged a number of great shots.

This Sunday was dedicated to doing a fashion shoot for 2428.

2428 is a new clothing store located just around the corner from the studio I was using. Since they were so close, I thought it would be interesting if we could incorporate some of their clothing into a Sunday Shoot. Logan is one of the co-owners and we included him in the shoot list.

Of course I started with high-key, as you can see in this shot of Ashley.

The beauty of having such a nice white background (besides not affecting the colour of the clothing) is that you can easily extend it on the top or the sides.

Extending the background like this allows the ad writer to put copy on the ad. Here is a mock up of what an ad or poster could look like.

The other nice thing about shooting on a white background is that you can turn off the lights used to illuminate the background. Why? Because doing this means you are now shooting on a grey background and you don't have to change out the seamless paper.

Here is another example of how versatile it is: by moving Jenn closer to the background, and still with the background lights off, the background goes from grey back to white, but not as white as before.

Nadine was running make-up on this shoot, and I made sure I got a few head shots for her to use in her book. Here I moved Jenn a long ways away from the background so it darkened up dramatically, then used a ring light to light up her face.

And here is the same idea with Carissa. The ring flash creates this "glow" of shadow all around the model. I think you either like this effect or hate it.

We wrapped up the shoot with a "team" shot.

We also created a video of the shoot:

I learned a lot on this shoot about "managing" a shoot. There are obvious things like making sure the models have enough water and snacks. There are also things like making sure the models don't have the clothes on for too long, or walk on the seamless with their shoes on! Just measured by the learning alone, this was a success but we all also got some great shots for our book. Thanks to everyone who helped out on this shoot!

Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day One is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Two is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Three is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Four is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Five is here.

Sunday Shoots: Three

2011-01-01T21:57:00.095-04:00

I booked every Sunday in the month of October this year to do some in-depth studio shooting. I called the series "Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots" and I arranged my time in three blocks for each Sunday. A casting call on Model Mayhem for each slot brought a lot of offers from models to pose, but as usual with Model Mayhem, many of the models did not show up for their bookings. Fortunately for me, the models who did show were fabulous. We learned from each other and we bagged a number of great shots.

This Sunday's shoot was with Ashley, Carissa, and Tena.

Ashley was first up this Sunday. Again I wanted to practice my high-key, as there is no substitute for practice. Even though I had now shot quite a bit with this style, it appeared I still had a LOT to learn! The initial shots with Ashley seemed to work well.

But what you do not see is all of the work I had to do in post-processing in order to get the colours back in line. I under-exposed the shot and when I compensated for the exposure, the reds went all wonky. I usually shoot a colour card as my first shot and check the exposure from it. I then use that shot in post with Adobe DNG editor to make sure all of my shots with that lighting set up are processed with the proper colour correction. I was able to get the high-key shots back in line somewhat, but the reds are not quite the same from shot-to-shot:

From high-key I switched to coloured backgrounds. First by using a gel on the background lights to change the white to purple. Here you can really see the effect of poor colour management.

From a gelled background we went to a mustard yellow background (it was the only yellow background I could get). The "accidental" colour management I was using worked a bit better, but the highlights are a bit hot.

We actually didn't shoot in this order. We started with Ashley and high-key, but we then shot Carissa in high-key as well.

After shooting both Ashley and Carissa in high key, we set up the yellow background and shot them both again.

We tried Carissa posed on a dark couch. I turned up the background lights in order to lighten the mustard coloured seamless, which of course meant that the wrap light from the background was yellow. It was a nice effect here, but one that was totally unplanned, which is putting a positive spin on a dumb move.

Look at the difference in the colour of the couch from the front to the back and you can see how much of a colour shift is happening from the background light. Fortunately the key light on Carissa's face is bright enough to drown out the yellow wrap light.

A quick shift in composition and the effect of the wrap light is muted in the over all image.

While the yellow background was still up, Tena stepped in with some wonderfully bright and contrasting colours.

The blues and pinks went much better with the background than the black and red we were using earlier, but I really wasn't liking the yellow. We changed the set-up to use the dark wall of the studio and light it with a ring flash.

There is enough blue in the wall's colour to work with the colours Tena had on. In post, I tried a bit of high-pass filtering to create a bit of edge to the image.

The learning from this shoot was to always shoot the colour control card, even if you think you will not need it. If you don't need it and you shoot it, you have an extra frame and lost a total of 20 seconds in your shoot time. If you need it and haven't shot it, then you will spend days in extra post-processing.

Here is a slide show of the best of the shoot.

Thanks to Ashley, Carissa, and Tena for modelling and to Jenn and Elle for helping with the shooting.

Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day One is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Two is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Three is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Four is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Five is here..

Sunday Shoots: Two

2010-12-30T06:22:00.254-04:00

I booked every Sunday in October to do some in-depth studio shooting. I called the series "Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots". This second shoot of the series was with models Sara and Jade with Nadine running the make-up. As with the first shoot, I learned quite a bit.

This Sunday's shoot was with Sara and Jade.

Sara was up first. She wanted a series of "glamor" shots and had selected suitable clothes and props. Before we got to shooting her concept, I wanted to try out a pose I had seen in an ad for lipstick. The ad photo focused on the models face to highlight the lipstick, using a very dark frame to highlight only part of the model's face. The emphasis was therefore on the lipstick. Nadine didn't have the same color deep red as that used in the ad, but it was close.

I then tried to combine "high-key" with Sara's glamor concept.

Sara changed into her shoot clothes and got out her props, one of which was an awesome sailor's hat.

As I pulled back, I lost something in the composition and most of the shots did not work. We spent several hours shooting and grabbed a couple of hundred images, but none of them really worked for me. I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board for Sara on this one. You can see Sara has classic good looks and I would love to shoot her in Steichen's style. Maybe that was my problem: I kept visualizing Sara in a high fashion composition and not a glamor composition.

After Sara and I wrapped up, Jade came in. She had an idea to shoot a "doll" series. As I was still working on my high-key shots (and still learning quite a bit), we agreed to shot some high-key before we moved to the doll concept.

High-key was becoming more natural to me now. I was able to set up and shoot without too much trouble. I still learned a few things, such as to test your lens on a high-key shoot BEFORE using it. The 50mm f1.8 is normally my sharpest lens so I use it for key portrait work but when I tried it here with Jade I got lens flare right in the middle of the shot. It seems some lenses cannot handle all of the light coming off of the background and they just flare out. So I tested my other lenses first and settled on my 70mm-200mm /2.8.

After the high key, we moved to the same "lipstick ad" concept I tried with Sara. I started a little further out than with Sara and moved in with each shot. I also kept the light a little wider to see what the effect would be. I think the result is quite different from the one I did with Sara.

Nadine had the idea to apply some sort of whitening cream to Jade's face and arms to enhance the idea of a "doll". I think Jade had in mind a "Raggedy Ann" concept, but when I saw her all made up, I was reminded of the sort of porcelain doll my grandmother would have had. So I call this series of shots "China Doll".

We used an old trunk and some other items in the studio as props. I set the camera, Jade did her thing, and I fired away like a madman.

I treated the images in post-production to get a daguerreotype look, as if I had discovered some old photos in a trunk. (As an aside, if you are not up on the Vivian Maier story, go to this website.) I thought about stressing the images with an overlay. In the end I decided not to as Jade would no longer be the focus. I also thought about black and white and tried out a couple of shots to see what they would look like.

I think B&W is great because they are so graphic, but it loses the "old photo, china-doll" feel that I was looking for.

Jade went through several poses and we got several fantastic images. I think this one gets the "best of the shoot" title.

To see a larger slide show of the photos from this shoot click here.

Thanks to Sara for her patience as she waited for me to get her shots done and for her understanding that not every day is an "on" day.

Thanks to Jade for her usual creativity. I never know what she is going to come up with when we shoot.

Thanks to Nadine for her wonderful work on make-up in these shots.

Without people like Sara, Jade, and Nadine, I would still be shooting garbage on park benches.

Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day One is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Two is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Three is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Four is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Five is here.

Sunday Shoots: One

2010-12-26T19:58:00.054-04:00

I booked every Sunday in the month of October this year to do some in-depth studio shooting. I called the series "Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots" and I arranged my time in three blocks for each Sunday. A casting call on Model Mayhem for each slot brought a lot of offers from models to pose, but as usual with Model Mayhem, many of the models did not show up for their bookings. Fortunately for me, the models who did show were fabulous. We learned from each other and we bagged a number of great shots.

This is the first in a series of posts from my first round of Sunday Studio Shoots and was with Jenn, Anne, and Tena.

My first slot on this particular Sunday was with Jenn. We explored a lot of high-key shots, as I wanted to be able to shoot this style without even thinking about it.

The nice thing about high-key is that you can extend the background quite easily, such as in this shot.

This allows copy editors to lay down text for ads, but it also means you can quite easily make composite shots.

After shooting high-key for what seemed like hours, we flipped to a neutral back ground for a few close-ups.

As a photographer, I am always looking for the expression in a model's eyes. Here you can see how unique Jenn's eyes are and how they pop with the combination of colours in this composition.

I had my Steichen "In High Fashion" book with me, which I think is really Fashion Porn for Photographers. I explained this to Jenn, a photographer herself, and she struck a suitable pose with the text.

The studio had a wall with the paint peeling off of it and we tried a few poses against it. Nothing really worked until we brought in a fan to kick back Jenn's hair and amped the lighting for some harsh shadows.

My daughter took the second time slot and I am saving those photos for another Postcards post.

My third slot was with Tena, a fabulous and experienced model. I wanted to explore some of the concepts in Steichen's book and we settled one of his shots that shows a foot and some jewelry.

I was lucky to have Elle with me. She is another photographer and is pretty skilled at reverse lighting a photo. We worked on the lights for a bit and came close to the Steichen shot, even though Tena wasn't really dressed for the fancy, formal nature of the original shot. I noticed that my composition was a bit higher than Steichen's, which meant that I was lighting Tena's face.

I loved this idea and flipped around to camera left to change the composition and at the same time, angled the second light up to illuminate Tena's face even more.

This was a great start to a month long series of shoots. More to come.

Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day One is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Two is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Three is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Four is here.
Scott's Sunday Studio Shoots Day Five is here.

Vamping Around

2010-12-25T18:52:00.207-04:00

Another of the very creative Halifax Photo Outing's themes was "Vampires". This shoot was set, quite appropriately, in Stefano's Victorian-style home in Halifax. Toss in the usual very creative cast of characters and we had a wonderful time exploring photographic possibilities.

I usually start these things with a general direction that I want to take the images in and then I just play with the concept as I go. This time I couldn't decide on a final approach for the images. Did I want a "normal" photograph as if it were for a magazine? Did I want a black and white style, as if it were an old B-horror flick? Did I want some funky cartoon-style treatment? I decided to see if I could light for all three and make the final decision when I got to post-processing.

First off, I decided to light each scene using off-camera flash. I used my SB900 on an iTTL wire, which I find totally awesome for allowing me to focus on composition and less on working out flash ratios. In most cases I set the SB900 to EV+1, as I wanted the faces of the vampires to be pasty and white.

The first scene I had in mind was a "Vampire's Management Meeting". This one I quite like in black and white.

I wanted all the models to gather around the great table in Stefano's dinning room, but the image had to be "ghostly". I set the exposure to f20 and 30 seconds at ISO 200. I had all of the models pose in place and hit one of them in the face with the flash. After 15 seconds, they all slowly got up and moved out of the frame. I then repeated the entire process for the next model. For my final shot, I had them all pose at the back of the room for the same exposure but did not use any flash. I used this last shot as the first layer in PS and put each of the other images as a layer on top of it. I then flattened the image using "lighten" blending. In hind sight, I could have posed each model individually rather than collectively.

There is something about vampires and mirrors in folklore and I wanted to see if I could capture it. I first shot Stefano framed in this mirror in the hallway, which while a nice composition, it really doesn't get to the mythology of a vampire's reflection not showing up in a mirror.

So I tried shooting using the dining room mirror with both Stefano and Jenni. My idea was to have Stefano not appear in the mirror part of the image. Jenni, as the victim, appears in both.

I didn't think most people would catch the idea of this shot, though, so I tried it the other way. Stefano appears in the mirror only and Jenni appears in both. In this shot, I did a lot of "high pass" filtering in post-processing and the result is more of a cartoonish style than the previous shot.

Again, I didn't think most people would pick up on the fact that Stefano is violating the laws of physics in the photo, so I tried using a colour / black and white combination. The first was to look at the mirror as colour and the rest as B&W.

This was OK, but I think the flip works much better, as if Jenni is actually having a premonition about being a victim.

In the ebb and flow of shooting, I was taking a break and noticed the others were shooting some interesting scenes, so I shamelessly leached on and shot over their shoulders. This time, these were all shot using ambient lighting.

I noticed Stefano had a wonderful chair and with a few other props, I proceeded to shoot portraits of both Stefano and Melanie. Here I used the SB900 (iTTL wired) on their face, and an SB800 (CLS remote from the SB900 Master) on the prop skull.

For the final scene, I wanted to explore Stefano's wonderful couch that had an interesting painting above it. I thought I could get something to work between the idea of the exposed flesh in the painting with the stereotype "exposed neck" in many vampire movies. I used the SB900 again to light the models, but I used a very slow shutter speed as I wanted to create some blur, or "ghosting", on the models.

I really like this shot, which I call "Exposed" to reflect the theme of the exposed flesh in the painting, Melanie's exposed neck, and the exposed emotion as the little tear in the corner of Melanie's eye reveals.

I also quite like this alternate composition that works well in black and white.

I'm still not sure which style I prefer and would like you to leave a comment below as to which you prefer. I have packaged up slide shows of each style for you to review.

Here are the "normal" shots.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

If there are problems with the slide show, or if you want to see a larger version of the slide show, click on this link.

Here are the black and white shots.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

If there is a problem with the slide show, or if you want to see a larger version of the slide show, click on this link.

Here are the "not-normal" processed shots

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

If there are problems with the slide show, or if you want to see a larger version of the slide show, click on this link.

As always, thanks to the gang at Halifax Photo Outings for the creativity and patience that goes into every event.

EDIT: There seems to be a problem with Flickr at the moment and the slide shows are not working. YOu can always click on one of the photos above and go to my Flickr photostream and see all the photos from there.

Lauren's First Postcards

2010-12-19T18:56:00.016-04:00

My niece Alison was expecting her first child this fall and I wanted to get her baby's "first postcards". I was able to take some pregnancy shots on a trip home and later some more of Lauren on another trip home.

I had arranged to use a local photographer's studio to do these shots, but I wasn't able to reach him on the day of the shoot (nor at any time thereafter), so we had to make an impromptu studio in Aaron and Allison's basement. Instead of nice, bright studio lights, I made do with my small Speedights.

My first series focused on Allison's pregnancy so the shots are of her, her belly, and Aaron. I much prefer black and white for these compositions, but colour can work nicely as well.

Here is a short slide show of the best shots from this shoot.

Last week I flew up to St. John's to drive back to Halifax with Blair following his final exams. While I was there, I was able to get in a short session with Lauren and her parents. Even though I didn't have much time, I'm pretty happy to have been able to get shots of Lauren on her first Christmas. Here is one of her under the tree.

Here is another of her and her parents.

The rest of the photos are in this slide show.

Between Lauren and Zoey, I have lots of subjects to shoot as they grow!