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.

I am an avid amateur photographer always trying to improve. Last weekend a friend of mine and I participated in a photography workshop at Venabu Fjellhotell in Norway. Olav Storm, a well-known Norwegian photographer was giving lectures and instructions in becoming a better photographer, but the most useful part was the assignments and the evaluation of them. By explaining what we should try to do, and afterwards by explaining what we did well, and what we might do better, I think most of us found several things to improve.

We were 10 eager students ready to enjoy 2 intense days of photography and instructions, and intense was what we got. Actually that was OK with us, we would like our moneys worth and we got that. The food was very good at the hotel and the management friendly. We found that both the hotel manager and his wife were very skilled photographers as well, and while driving us himself the manager participated in the assignments with great enthusiasm and skill. Some of the photographs we took are available in this photo gallery.

I have included some of the photos I took myself below, and if it is one thing I want to tell all you people out there to do, join a photography workshop – have a great time.

The assignments, the evaluation and the social community kindled my enthusiasm for photography to new levels.

In the woods

Mountain view

Mountain circle

Red

Fenced

Fenced again

Harmless teeth

Rock & Roll oldie

Water under the bridge

Hooked

Hunger

Foggy flow

Arty waterfall

Almost Vitruvian (If you do not get it, google Vitruvian Man)

Canon has this fun little fish-eye lens (alt: site) that came to Norway this week. There is something special about being able to shoot a picture with a 180 degrees view of the surrounding area.

Expect some strange pictures here the next few months.

8mm view of the garden

15mm view of the garden

 


Posted from Oslo, Oslo, Norway.

Earlier this summer NRK had one of the most talked about live shows ever in Norway. They had a Minute by Minute live stream while a ship sailed from Bergen to Kirkenes (5 days of sailing). The stream is available here.
Some of the areas that had a lot of interest was Geiranger and the fjords of Norway. We recently drove trough that area and I got a few nice pictures.

Geiranger in summer sun

Waterfall in Geiranger

Geiranger

Rindal is part of Trollheimen (one of several mountain areas in Norway)

Summer in Rindal

In addition to this I have been playing around with my macro lens and capturing some of the wildlife in Rindalen.

Spying spider

Bumble bee

Bumble bee 2