The last day of Easter turned into a rainy, gray day here in Drøbak. So in-between cleaning and doing the laundry I found the time to play around with a flash and a macro lens. I did not have that many motives, but two flowers, a cat and a bag of fruits and nuts held my interest for a while. After some fast manipulations of sliders in Adobe Lightroom, I got the following results.

Light from behind

Orchid in black and white

See-thru orchid

Curious cat (or should I say nosy)

Cat eye - in colours

Fruit and nuts

In Sweden there is a lake called Lake Hornborga (Link in Swedish). For some years now this lake has become famous for its annual visit from thousands of cranes migrating from Africa to Norway and Sweden. Two days before my visit they had a new record with more than 26.000 birds staying the night by the lake.

I visited on a sunny but cold April day. The wind blew quite hard and I had bit of a hard luck, the cranes did not come very close to the viewing areas, but kept to themselves down on the fields. If I am going to visit another time I’ll probably try to rent a tent or a small bird watcher cabin down by the lake, and plan for a longer stay. This time I just stayed for an hour or two.

There is quite a history to this lake. About 100 years ago they tried to drain the area and change the swamp and wetland into agricultural land. They have tried to restore the lake to its former glory now, and by dumping several thousand kilos of grain down by the lake every day they have created a haven for migratory birds.

Anyway it was quite an experience to watch, I would recommend it for any nature interested person.

Here are some of the pictures I took (and one that my girlfriend took of me). Remember, you can click on all the pictures to see them in a larger size.

Overview to the North West (extra large)

Cranes dancing

In flight

As close as I got

Battle of the great birds - obviously some swans do not like cranes.

A stroll by the waterside

A lot of birds

Swedish landscape

Big wings

Look I am jumping

Not only cranes

Me in the cold wind

Here are some galleries that are better than mine (Link in Swedish)

Other Resources
Expedition Hornborgasjön
Aftenposten Reise
Web cameras
Common Crane (Wikipedia)
Lake Hornborga (Wikipedia)

Posted from Drøbak, Akershus, Norway.

Winter fog

I am not sure if you have ever considered that weird thing that surrounds us everywhere we go. The air around us. The atmosphere. This thing that we very seldom bother noticing.

There are moments when the air and what it means to use is more visible than other moments. Fog is maybe one of the most obvious ones. The weird fact that misty air can reduce the visibility to such a degree that we lose detail and color, in fact so much that we might get lost in our own well known woods.

Here are a few photos I have taken of fog over the years. I have a couple of misty images from Venabygd as well.

Autumn fog

Spring fog

Bridge

Crane in the mist

I captured these two using my little Canon G12, and not my regular 5D mark II that I usually lug around. I am not sure it is one of my greatest shots, I should have gotten a bit lower, but I do like how the shadows of an old pier kind of looms behind the great birds gliding over the surface of a cold winter sea. In some areas the ice has already covered part of the harbor, but here the water is still free. It has been a reasonably mild winter so far. Not like last year.

Swans in the shadow of an old pier.

I happen to have a friend that shares my interests in photography. He lives in Trondheim, but once in awhile he visits Oslo. Last friday we got do indulge in some photography together. We brought some of our equipment and started capturing lights and shadows.

A view trough the fence while others are driving trough

A bent world view using a fisheye lens

Waiting for the ferry in Oslo

You better stop before going trough here

Update 2011-01-22: My friend has gotten is own blog now. Please give him a visit at hwfoto.net 

Posted from Drøbak, Akershus, Norway.

As a hobby photographer, it is mostly during the weekends that I am able to play around with my camera and my computer. During the weekdays, work and other social responsibilities normally take up too much time to really spend some hours just clicking.

I happen to live near the cost, and while enjoying a sunny -1 degrees Celsius, I walked down to a beach called “Elleskjær” near me.

The usual suspects greeted me when I got down to the beach. They were alert though and flew away when I tried to get a bit closer.

I tracked them, but as most of you know, seagulls are capable of escaping in 3 ways; walking, swimming and flying. I was prepared to engage in only one of those activities.

A seasoned tracker could probably tell the sex or something like that from this print. All I can tell is that it most probably was a bird that can swim. And most likely a seagull.

This is a northern view in two ways I guess. It is the view towards the north, and as you probably have guessed; this was photographed in Norway.

During the summer most boats you see are slick, big, fast motor powered boats. During the winter the "real" men are out using other means of propulsion.

The sun got down to my height after a while, and the snow almost went totally white.

It is always nice when the sun shines trough the trees.

 

Posted from Drøbak, Akershus, Norway.

Just before Christmas I got myself a mono-pod. I had to test it during the Christmas shopping going on in Oslo. We had a mild December with hardly any snow at all, and it shows in these two photos.

Christmas

Christmas

Earlier this year our old cat of more than 15 years got sick and had to pay her last visit to the veterinarian. She had her special moods and loved her “mother” and “father”, but did not appreciate that many other people. She could tolerate a few, but preferred to be left alone by anyone else but us.

Friday one week ago we got another little member to our family. Say hello to a modest little girl, that probably will happen to visit this site in between my other pictures. I promise not to only show you sunsets and kittens, but I guess there will be some pictures like that as well.

A new houseguest

Fotovideo is one of the better photography shops in Norway. Among maybe having the largest selection of photography accessories, they also arrange workshops and training in everything photography. On Thursday they arranged a quick intro to macro photography with one of their instructors, Roger Brendhagen. I was lucky enough to get one of the spots available. We started with a quick intro and tips and tricks before we went to Oslo Reptilpark (a small zoo specializing in  snakes, lizards and other slightly scary creatures.

As usual I mainly add photos to this blog, so below you will find some of my attempts at nature photography.

Life in colours

Redbeard

Tasting the world

Climbing the glass window

Not that big, but big enough

Not a tiger

Textured colours

Slick texture

Textured in brown

A few weeks ago I posted an entry on a few attempts at doing street photography. Today we had lovely weather in Oslo, and I walked around playing around with my camera. Close to the Norwegian castle there were a farmers market where they were showing off Norwegian special products. Some of the salespeople were a bit more flamboyant than others.

This pink/lilac lady was selling goods at a farmers market in Oslo.

Her lilac clothes lit up her white stall. I took two other pictures of her as well, but they where not as sharp as this one. Her bright colours were interesting enough to include her in this blog though.

There were a lot of interesting people visiting or displaying their wares. This man sold meat, but when I saw him I thought he would be selling fish.

He made me think of a sailor and not a farmer, but looks can lie.

Street performers are always an interesting motive. This golden statue had just taken a brake, and was counting his earnings. I liked the way the ashes of his cigarette was getting very long, and how his golden costume was getting very old. The zipper on his jacket was broken and he used safety pins to keep it closed.

He was making his living as a live statue. But even a statue needs a pause sometimes.

His scruffy looks made for a very interesting picture. He had obviously been doing a lot of different things in his life, and his face had been marked by this. His fingers was dirty and his hair graying.

The golden statue looked very scruffy without his mask on.

A few days earlier I had walked around with a little Canon G12 and two of the pictures from that day are below. This street performer was overdoing it by a fair amount. His way of playing made him look like this.

He is a not so typical street performer. He was REALLY into himself playing. So much so that it made me take this picture.

Norway is multicutural

Some of these images have been published earlier on my Google+ and Picasa streams.

 

Posted from Drøbak, Akershus, Norway.