Tøcksfors, Sweden – 05.-07.06.15

7 06 2015

Finally..! I have been longing for years to visit one of these old car cemeteries in Sweden to do some artsy photography, and now I finally got my chance! 🙂

Just a couple of kilometers after crossing the Norwegian – Swedish border, you take of the main road, and continue about 20 km south on a gravel road that gets narrower and narrower and narrower, and then suddenly you are surrounded with old car wrecks… from the 40s, 50s and 60s… about 1000 old cars… some of them have almost been returned to mother earth…

It is an eerie stillness in the woods… walking around alone in this vast area… no cell phone signal… and this strange smell… and to add to the mystery, the owner has hung up this sign on the main building:

“This car cemetery is private property. You may still look, take pictures but DO NOT take away parts. Do not destroy or in any other way disrupt this place. If you open a car door, please shut it again so the next visitor get the same experience as you did!! For info: after about 30 burglarys this year I’m fed up with it! I’ve made traps in the buildings so if you get hurt or die, I DON’T CARE! Remember in this place no one can hear you scream…”

I walked around more than 3 hours, and I still haven’t covered some areas… I flatted 2 batteries, and took over 400 pictures with my Leicas. I brought with me a 15mm, 18mm, 24mm, 50mm and a 90mm lens, but I had the most fun with the 18mm and 24mm.

It was really an extraordinary experience…

 


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Categories : Abstract art, Leica, Travels

Svalbard – 01.-05.04.15

11 04 2015

Polar bears…

Well, first of all, we got to see polar bears this time! 😀

I had in fact given up my hopes this time too, we were heading back home, and our guide told us to halt because he wanted to advance a little bit to check if the ice was safe to drive on, and returning he told us that he had seen not one, but two polar bears “around the corner”, not visible from where we were… so long story short, he instructed us what he wanted us to do, to drive slowly and as quiet as possible, and how to park in formation facing away from the polar bears, in case we would have to leave in a hurry… ;-P

We were around 300 meters away, but still we would be in trouble because they can run at 30 km/h if hunting down a snack, so better safe than sorry… 😀


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Categories : Svalbard, Travels

Svalbard – 01.-05.04.15

11 04 2015

Snowmobile trip to the East Coast

Last time I visited Svalbard, one of the main objective and goal was, as well as this time, to see and photograph polar bears.

I didn’t succeeded last time, so this time we had to rent some snowmobiles and travel out in the wilderness to the East Coast again to search for them again…

The journey on a snowmobile to the East Coast is an experience well worth it on it’s own, seeing polar bears or not. The scenery is beautiful, the glaciers are breathtaking, and the feeling of actually driving around out there on open sea, well on the ice obviously, but it is simply a surreal experience…


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Categories : Svalbard, Travels

Svalbard – 01.-05.04.15

11 04 2015

Some pictures taken from my hotel room..!

My first travel advice about Svalbard: Do not go there! Ever! Unless you are mentally prepared to go back… and back again… It is staggering beautiful, mesmerizing, breathtaking, unforgettable, and addictive… so… you are hereby warned… do not go there…! 😀 (yes yes… I know… my travel advices sucks, but fortunately for other fellow travelers, I’m not working as a guide… 😀 )

I had been there once before, the Easter two years ago, and it fulfilled all my dreams and hopes about the Arctic… I am more like a winter person anyway, I don’t like the summers, and we do have winters on the mainland Norway too, but it is something different about the Arctic… not easy to describe, but the purity, the tranquility, the wilderness, and the lack of people.. being alone (well, apart from other tourists and guides…)… and very close to mother nature…

So I had to come back… and this time my wife traveled with me… she had been here one time before too, but in the summer, so she was very excited to visit Svalbard in the winter…

I am still editing and sorting my photos from the trip, close to 600 raw-files and 19GB, but to start this series of blog entries from Svalbard of, why not start with some photos taken from our hotel room..!

About equipment, after all I have declared this blog to be about photography… I brought with me a Canon 1D4 and a Canon 5D mk II, and a 16-35 f2.8, 70-200 f4 and a 500 f4. And a Hasselblad Stellar (really a pimped Sony RX100..) as a small compact, and… a Leica M6 with 50mm Summilux loaded with a Fuji Provia 100… my intention were to take some beautiful landscapes… but the meter died after only 10 frames… how ironic… Crappy German electronics… leave electronics to the Japaneses… 😀


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Categories : Svalbard, Travels

Verbier, Switzerland – 21.02-28.02.15

10 03 2015

Here are some casual photos taken with the Hassy… very deliberating to have a small pocket camera ready to snap shots of peculiarities (not talking about my better half..! ;-P ) and still have great quality for some landscapes… I am even satisfied with this all new (to me..) panoramic function… 🙂


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Categories : Verbier - feb2015

Verbier, Switzerland – 21.02-28.02.15

10 03 2015

Finally..! The highlight of the year! The annual skiing vacation, and this year Verbier in Switzerland was chosen. After a troublesome travel (13.5 hours from door to door), arriving very late (midnight), no dinner, no food, no shops open, obviously no breakfast the next day (we had rented an apartment), so everything got a little bit delayed, but despite of this and a couple of days with very dense fog, we had a wonderful vacation, and I have already started to plan the next…! 😀

Two galleries coming up, in the first (this), all pictures are taken with a Canon EOS 5D mkII and a EF 28-300 (and nearly all..) with a polarizing filter (hence the polarized and saturated colores…), and in the second gallery all images are taken with my new compact camera, the Hasselblad Stellar Special Edition (it’s really a pimped up version of the Sony RX100, but it is really capturing some fantastic pictures..!)

And for the first time in my life, I skied a couple of days without my rucksack, with only the Hassy in the pocket… and it was a very deliberating feeling..!


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Categories : Verbier - feb2015

Dublin, Ireland – 14.-16.11.14

19 11 2014

Long time, no blog… well, it hasn’t exactly happened a lot worthy blogging, but last weekend, I went on a short (too short..) trip to Dublin, capital of Ireland. Wifey left for Poland with her girl-friends, and I thought to myself, why stay home alone instead of fulfilling a long time dream of mine, Ireland with singe-malt Whiskey, dark beer, folk-music and street photography…

It turned out that I barely achieved any one of those goals, but don’t misinterpret this to think I feel that the trip was a failure… everything most probably happens for a reason, but it turned out that this exact weekend it was a national game in soccer between Ireland and Scotland… well, go figure, the city center was loaded with people, no tables to sit down after 3pm, no room to move for a guy with a rucksack full of camera equipment, and all bars and pubs too full to wake my interest to go in after 7pm… adding to list, this is late November, sun is setting at 4pm with good weather, and my old Leica M8(.2) doesn’t appreciate me to turn up the ISO… sounds like a disaster, considering my initial goals, but to sum it all up, it was really a quite pleasant weekend… had some time alone, did some cleaning in my brain, and of course did achieve to take some pictures, I hope they will exhibit some of the atmosphere I enjoyed after all:


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Categories : Travels

Better late than never…

18 05 2014

Things take time nowadays, and I have a big backlog on my photos, so therefore these photos from Mexico City in the Easter are posted now… 🙂   Better late than never… 🙂


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Categories : Mexico, Travels

Helsinki – 25-27.10.13

27 10 2013

We decided to take a small week-end break to visit Finland… One of the few nordic countries we’ve never been to so why not.. 🙂

I hoped for many photographic opportunities, but travelling in oct-nov in nordic countries is a gamble weather-wise, and yes,… we’ve got rain… lot of it… so… not a lot of photos, but I enjoyed the trip, and furthermore I enjoyed travelling light… just my M8.2, 24, 50 and 90… great..! 🙂


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Categories : Leica, Travels

My worst camping trip… ever…

9 09 2013

This weekend we just have left behind us (06-07.09.13), I decided to leave for a nice mountain-trip on my own… wifey was off to London, and I was keen to add another 2000 meter mountain to my list… Rasletinden @ 2105 meter was selected.. one of the easiest mountains in Norway above 2000 meter above sea level to summit, peace of cake I thought…

Well, arriving at the thought-out, selected camp-site, it started to rain, and I thought, well, let me just get up the outer-tent, and everything will be more cosy inside, taking care of the inner-tent in a dry, more relaxed atmosphere… then came the wind… lot’s of it… I had to tie down the tent while mounting it to avoid losing it… finishing of everything inside, including the first beer, I had to go outside to.. ehh.. well the beer wanted to leave, and then the fog had arrived…

I will leave some additional comments below the pictures, and possible you will agree with me that this was not optimal conditions for a nice mountain-trip… 😉


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Categories : Naturescapes, Travels

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