Summer-activities

Ta-daaa!

It's been a while since I blogged.

Did I stop shooting?

Nah....

I have calmed down the activities a lot though, I have mostly been shooting analog the whole time, enjoying the various pieces of excellent gear I own.

Also, we had the driest and hottest summer in over 70 years in 2018, so being inside, either shooting or processing photos, wasn't really very tempting.

Outside-activities this year, was confined to bike-riding in the trails around Oslo and generally enjoying the warm weather and day after day of sunshine.

The areas in the south-east of Norway is.....well...crap in regards to photography to be honest.
Messy forest-areas and low, boring hills (no real mountains to speak of), and the farm-land around here was dry as Sahara too, which prevented shots of those rolling wheat-fields.

Naturally, the sea-side (which is a bit boring down here as well to be honest), was filled with sunbathers.

So, for photography, it has been pretty boring.

Besides, I am still in debt to deliver some goodies from a former shoot, so I don't take on anything new until I have delivered all that I felt I could deliver.

Inspiration has also had a bit of a slope this year, which has affected both digital and analog photography a lot and post-processing ideas and practice.

Combine that with a pretty hectic work-week and a chronic lack of Vitamin B12 and you get the speed of molasses in January =)


But a month ago, I went out the door and shot some infrared in the old-town and canals in Horten:

Canal infrared

Mamiya RZ 67 Pro II
Rollei 400 Infrared
Hoya R72
1 second exposure (EI 3)
HC-110B for 6 minutes

And then I finished this roll, with some shots between the tourists, of the fountain in the lovely queen's park here in Oslo.

Fountain, with a small island, with an even smaller house

Mamiya RZ 67 Pro II
Rollei 400 Infrared
Hoya R72
4 second exposure (EI 3)
HC-110B for 6 minutes

This is basically a re-shoot of a photo I took a while back with Fomapan 100 and my Rolleiflex 2.8F. I think the Fomapan looked much better, but this is not half bad. (surprisingly the exposure went well, even in the shadows).

There is also very little water in the pool, this was at the end of the drought-period, even the royals were suffering =D


I also went on a trip with my friend Pedro, we drove towards Kongsvinger and the Swedish border (which was  more or less on fire at that point) and tried to capture some farm-landscape.

He used his lovely Sony A7R III and I used my Mamiya RZ 67 Pro II again, this time with some EFKE IR820 Aura, and I also brought my 5D MK III with my 70-200 f2.8 IS, because I knew of some interesting stuff to be shot out there.

Alone on the line

Mamiya RZ 67 Pro II
EFKE IR820 AURA
Hoya R72
2 second exposure (EI 1.5)
HC-110B for 6 minutes

House in the distance

Mamiya RZ 67 Pro II
EFKE IR820 AURA
Hoya R72
3 second exposure (EI 1.5)
HC-110B for 6 minutes

First, I didn't like this shot too much, but it has grown on me. As the title suggests, there is indeed a house in the distance.
The moving grass and the black sky and rather dark forest around the house, creates quite an atmosphere in my opinion....others may disagree off-course, in any case, it is a very different type of photograph from what I usually do. 


Here are the shots with the 70-200, I wanted to try and capture the color, shapes and lines of the harvested landscape.

Interesting to get a new idea and also try something new, without including roads, roadsigns, houses, power-lines and whatnot for a change. ^^

The muted colors came from a non-existent sun (already set below the horizon and thick clouds)

Flowing fields abstract I

Canon 5D MK III
Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS

Flowing fields abstract II

Canon 5D MK III
Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS

Finally, I went to the polar-regions just in the start of September to cover my brothers wedding.
The day before, I was able to capture a slit of the setting sun, in a small river close to the resort we were at.

Basic traditional landscape I suppose.

Bøvær in September

Canon 5D MK III
Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS
1 stop grad-filter

From the other side of the little river, square cut

Shot just a minute after the other one, note how fast the sun actually moves.

Canon 5D MK III
Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS
1 stop grad-filter

None of these last two were processed in the sky, I used a simple 1-stop neutral density gradient Cokin filter, no polarizer, most post is done by lifting the shadows a bit in the foreground and adjusting the color-balance.

Both shots are at ISO 800 at around 1/20s, had to do it that way since I did not have a tripod, a slight noise-reduction and they should be printed pretty damn large before noise is an issue.

The weather was good that day, and the next day, but as soon as the party and dinner started inside, the clouds finally won and the rain started.

So we were lucky with that one, up there it can rain for weeks, as long as the wind-direction is "right"....which is 270 degrees of rainy opportunity, these two days had drier winds from Finland and Russia. 



So not completely inactive, I do still shoot and have no plans of stopping ^^


I suppose I blog as much as I shoot too! =D