Life of a Norwegian Bloke

New York, New York

2010-11-25T20:20:00.002Z

The last parts of the travel diary we've all been longing for!

New York

2010-11-25T00:24:00.001Z

So, my course went on a little trip to New York last week. Here's a few parts of our cheeky travel diary of the touristy side of the stay:

Night Portraits #2

2010-10-29T21:24:00.004+01:00

Fromaaage!

Night Portraits

2010-10-26T20:17:00.002+01:00

Fromaaage!

Shoot with my sister

2010-09-01T22:32:00.004+01:00

Keeping up somewhat with the model-ish shoots - this time I did one with my sister. She's almost as tall as me (which translates to fairly tall) - potential model? I'm really happy with how a few of them turned out. Definitely think I'm getting somewhere here!

Oh - and I entered a cheeky competition to win an expensive holiday - if you have 2 seconds to spare please hit "STEM" (vote) here! You can vote once a day so please do that and tell all your friends! ;p

Conquering Mt. Gausta

2010-08-15T22:16:00.006+01:00

There's a number of things we don't really appreciate until we spend some time without them. Oxygen is a popular example, but for me I've noticed how much I love the Norwegian nature. One of the perks with being a very large country with very few people is that there's going to be large amounts of empty space inbetween these people - commonly referred to as "nature".

So, when mum asked me to come along for a tiny family hike to Mt. Gausta, I wasn't hard to beg. It's 1.800 meters above sea level, or 5.900 feet for you silly non-metric people. The climb started from roughly a thousand meters, since walking from the sea would take months, and we spent around two hours on getting up to the top. Here's a little vidya!

Yeah. Apparently, this weekend marks the 200th anniversary of the first ascent to the peak of Mt. Gausta, so they made a huge ceremony and a brass band concert. Haha. Not quite what I expected when I signed up for climbing a bigass mountain in the middle of nowhere.

The view was nice though, overall it was a proper nice trip.

I got me some adventure on the way down as well. Farmers in these countryside areas will release their sheep up in the mountains to grass all summer (attaching bells to some of them so they find them again), which is nice for both the sheep and the farmers I guess, and I thought I'd want to document this for my non-Norwegian friends. So, when I saw three sheep lying with the mountains and everything in the background, I just had to get my camera out. Problem: I only had a 40mm lens. In non-photography lingo that means it doesn't zoom more than what we see, so I have to get bloody close. Problem: the sheep were lying really far away, and didn't really want to be disturbed.

Here's a heavily cropped shot I got before things got a bit interesting:

You know the stuff bulls do before they're about to charge? This buddy started doing that. He was flexing his thighs and everything too. Ok, I'm not the bravest guy around, sure, but come on - what are you supposed to do when a sheep charges you? He's been walking around in the mountains for months, he's probably strong as a bull! To top it off, he went to get his two other mates as well - and I had my camera with me!

They started yelling at me and coming closer, so I figured it was time to call it the day and retreat while we were all still having a good time. They didn't agree, and came even closer even quicker, while I backed off. I lifted my hat to them and started running, and bloody hell - they started chasing me! There was a one foot wide stream seperating us and the 20-30 people who had stopped their descent laughing their ass off at the whole situation, and I figured if I jumped over they wouldn't follow. Oh no, they did! Luckily, these 20-30 people served as my reinforcements, and this sheep with his lousy two mates wasn't as tough anymore, so he buggered off.

All these people had cameras, so if you YouTube "dumbass norwegian + sheep" in a few days there's probably going to be something there.

Shoot!

2010-07-21T15:27:00.003+01:00

I need to do some more modelling stuff. I mean, taking pictures of random people on the street is brilliant, but I can't imagine anyone paying me loads of money for it as soon as I graduate, so when two of my lovely friends suggested a model-ish shoot - perfect!

We've done one day of shooting so far, hopefully we'll be able to do some more!

The Beauty of the Internet

2010-06-15T22:27:00.005+01:00

Now, this is why I love the internet. Disregarding the fact that it's ruining any actual physical activity, making us all fat, poisoning our mind with 2girls1cup and scat porn, and generally being very evil, the internet is a beautiful thing.

Why?

Oprah is cool. I always liked Oprah. Recently, she started a whole competition where she encouraged the average Joe to upload videos explaining a concept for a show, and whoever got the most votes would get a chance of getting their show aired on her channel (although it's a bit more complicated than that obviously - nothing can ever only be fun).

Along comes Zach Anner. A guy from Texas with celebral palsy and a great idea for a travel show. Check his application site here. The guy's actually ridiculously funny, I'd watch his show any day. Normally a guy like Zach probably wouldn't have a massive shot at getting a TV show just like that, but this is where the glorious internet comes in.

After an internet campaign probably led by the lads who brought Rick Astley back to fame, and who voted 4chan founder Moot to the top of Time's Top 100 Most Influental poll (and also manipulating the top 21 to spell out "marblecake, also the game"), Zach has 2,5 million votes, a solid million ahead of the second place. Here's the video with the application:

And here's his video thanking the glorious interwebs, plus a priceless reaction shot of when he realised the number of votes he had:

I really hope this guy wins, I'd so watch his show at least.

"This would be something to prove to people that no obstacle is too big, no mountain is too high, no volcano is too hot and no Atlantis is too underwater or fictional."

Lucid Dreaming

2010-06-07T02:14:00.009+01:00

I had this dream last night. No really, stay with me for a bit here. It was really cool.

Campus had apparently undergone a minor expansion, because in my dream we had a lecture in the massive castle up the hill from Tremough. You know, the one with the towers and all that business. No? Well, that's where we had our lecture. Some guy who had apparently been a student earlier but had to quit for reasons which made everyone very sympathetic towards him had a lecture about something he was really passionate about.

I was sitting next to some girl who wasn't as passionate about it. She was smoking a cigarette in the room, but concealed it with a lolly, so when he told her to put out the cigarette she cockily replied she was just eating ice cream. This kept on for a bit and eventually he started crying and everyone felt really really bad for the guy.

Anyhow, everyone went out and I found this group of girls discussing what just happened. They were talking about how this would certainly screw up the university future of this cocky girl, and felt quite bad for it. I casually remarked:

"Don't worry about it, this is just a dream. Bloody hell, it's not even her dream. It's my dream. She'll be fine."

This was clearly not a reply the group expected, and it took a while before one of the girls replied:

"Well, if this is your dream you can do pretty much anything you want then?"

I was starting to get a bit more confident now, and replied:

"Yep! To demonstrate, I'll give us all wings." I made some fancy hand movements, and suddenly we all had those big fancy feathered white wings. Very nice.

"There's no way these are going to work," one of the more negative girls said. "Check this out then," I said and ran off flapping my wings. It was a bit heavy, the whole flapping wings business, but after a few goes I got some solid airtime and flew loads of rounds around campus, just grazing the grass around halls with everyone watching fairly impressed. Very good times. Flying is really tiring though, flapping those wings is so heavy! Massive creds to birds.

I was much more elegant than that guy.

Anyhow, apparently this is called lucid dreaming. It's that moment in a dream where you realise you're dreaming but still don't wake up. If you're up for it, you can then control the dream in any way you like. This is, of course, bloody brilliant - and there's loads of stuff on the interwebs about it. I found this tutorial on the Tubes with some nice hints on how to go about getting into that lucid dreaming state. This was one of my most awesome dreams everrr, I'll certainly give it all a go:

Two More Friends

2010-04-06T13:14:00.004+01:00

These'll be the last Friends I can stick into my book project for now. I'll have to submit the book to print today so I can be sure I'll get it before the deadline or else our Scottish tutor will have my head on a pole.

I'll keep on working on this project though, but in a more relaxed pace. Perhaps in a couple of years I'll have a really strong collection of images going on. I'm selecting nine images for the book, but only about four of them are of the quality I want. Oh well, I still have a few more years to live!

The Road to St. Ives

2010-04-05T00:12:00.010+01:00

There's not really a lot of action in Falmouth these days, mainly because there's barely anyone here.

Today, me, Gopi and Thomas decided to make up for it by going on a good old adventure. We would get the bus to Truro, and then the bus from there to St. Ives. Radical, I know. Anyhow, we got up early and got on the bus to Truro, so far so good. Just as the bus from Truro to St. Ives embarked on it's 93 minutes long journey I had that mildly amusing feeling that I should've used the loo like 15 minutes ago. Mildly amusing as in bloody horrible.

75 minutes and a nearly burst bladder later I was getting seriously worried and decided we'd get off here. Here being the town Hayle 5-6 miles outside St. Ives.

After a toilet break, a coffee and a long chat with a photography teacher of whom I took a picture for my Friends project (picture coming up), we headed off towards St. Ives. Luckily Hayle and St. Ives are coastal towns, and there's a nice coastal path separating them. Coastal walk, here we come.

Following some shenanigans (massively underrated word) and the discovery of a flower,

our journey towards St. Ives began. We soon reached a lake which we'd either have to walk a long way around or cross. Luckily, the tides are fairly insane down here in Cornwall so we walked across it. Apart from two wee rivers in the middle of the lake through which we merrily waded, the conquest of the lake was an easy one.

Across the lake we found a super-cosy house/café/house-café staffed by an older couple who also lived in the house, with the garden used as a dining area. Brilliant. We cleansed our muddy feet and shoes with their garden hose and had some brilliant cream tea with scones.

Strolling along past a man who would only give us directions after we showed him our cameras, we found our coastal path and began the main part of our epic journey towards St. Ives (after passing this really cool church).

Here's our long and winding road, with St. Ives displayed just below that bird there. The tiny thingey that sort of resembles a settlement if you look really closely and squint your eyes.

After a long and eventful road on which we had time to pass a broccoli field, enjoy the scenery, be worried about the golf course adjacent to our little path, watch the tiny beach under us which would be bloody massive if we were on it, and generally tire ourselves, we finally reached St. Ives 5 minutes after the last bus to Truro had left.

Looking back, here's where we came from. I've marked the church tower from earlier with a discreet red arrow.

We caught a bus heading towards the local train station and waited one and a half hours for a train back to Truro. What do you think Gopi, a good day? Tired?

Yes, to both. :)

The Mother of all Chocolate Cakes

2010-03-31T03:26:00.005+01:00

I've just been in Bristol visiting the lovely Chris for over a week, and just before I left, his mother's birthday arrived. We figured we'd bake her a cake, but it couldn't just be any cake. It had to be this: The Mother of all Chocolate Cakes. Picture below, and then, if you scroll just a tiny bit further.. how to bake it (kinda)!

What a beauty!

The Mother of all Chocolate Cakes

You need:

Some cocoa powder thingey
Shitloads of sugar
A massive amount of butter
Flour
A bucket of sweets and chocolate, for various reasons:

1. Get two yokes like this and stick some paper in them. I was deceptively clever and cut four wee cuts in each of them so they made a neat circle. Master baker already!

2. Chuck the cocoa in a bowl along with, uh, a bit of flour, a whole lot of butter - I think there's meant to be sugar too, and some other things that might be a good idea to put in there. Give it all a good mix. Oh, and add some baking powder.

3. Put whatever you end up with in the two yokes you filled with paper earlier on and stick them in the oven at 180 degrees for somewhere in the neighbourhood of 40 minutes. I think we needed a bit more than that.

4. Don't do this:

Instead, add the butter first in a saucepan, then add some cocoa while the butter melts. Oh, and a big chunk of that icing sugar or whatever it's called. Stir a bit and let it cool.

Perfect!

5. Your cake will be done in the oven now. We've cheated a bit (hehehe), we're done too. We added a tiny bit of white chocolate on top of the cakes for laughs. Then apply some of the icing on one of the cakes so they'll stick.

6. Balance the cakes on each other and fill the whole thing with as much sweets and chocolate as you possibly can. In case of icing and chocolate avalanches, have Maltesers at the ready to make a dam.

7. Make a tower on the top and stick in the candles - boom! You're done.

I'm generally pretty hard core when it comes to cake and chocolate, but one piece of this cake had me craving for fresh air. Truly the Mother of all Chocolate Cakes!

Even More Friends

2010-03-15T15:24:00.004Z

Went to Truro on Sunday with the magnificent Gopi, Thomas and Alex. Met some people:

More Friends

2010-03-03T18:06:00.004Z

Went to Truro today to shoot a bit more for my Friends project. I'm still having quite a lot of trouble actually approaching people to ask them if they'll let me take their picture. Getting very inventive in making up reasons why I shouldn't approach people - he looks like he's in a rush, she looks kind of busy, I wouldn't want to bother that guy, oh this guy looks grumpy, I think I have enough shots now, actually I'm kinda hungry let's get some food instead - list goes on. It's getting there though.

People are quite busy on weekdays, hopefully I'll be able to get more done on the weekend. Anyhow, here's two more shots I'm fairly happy with:

Friends

2010-03-01T18:30:00.003Z

There's one thing in photography I've wanted to do for a long time - street portraits. Walking up to random people and asking them if they would mind you taking their portraits and directing them a bit around to get a good shot. I've never done it before though, as I'm honestly really nervous about it. Generally I'm fairly confident socially but when it comes to approaching someone I don't know about anything, my heart speeds up significantly.

We recently got a new project though, which is fairly open, and I knew I had to do this for the project. We are to make a photography book, as in a book with photographs.

I think I'll call mine "Friends". It's a working title at least. I went to Penzance with a couple of friends on Sunday to shoot a bit for the project, and had a great time. The people I met were really interesting and I hope I'll see them again so I can show them the photographs. Here are three I'm fairly happy with:

Project - done!

2010-02-22T20:29:00.003Z

We currently have 6 projects going on right now, and I'm fairly swamped with work. Fortunately I just finished the project re-do: one down, five to go!

Here are my final 12 images. I'm fairly happy with how the project turned out considering how little time I've had with it. It was originally a five-week project, but I only had two weeks on my re-do. To make things even worse it was also on top of current projects, so I haven't really been able to give it the love it deserves. Still quite happy with the result!

Any feedback is very appreciated!

Project Re-do

2010-02-17T20:59:00.005Z

The first project we got when we arrived at uni here was baptised "Whispers: time and place", and was a fairly open project brief - but it had to be outdoors. Coming from a fairly "non art-ish" background, I found the project somewhat difficult and had a bit of trouble coming up with something, well, good.

Anyhow, since the project wasn't that brilliant, my tutors asked me to re-do it. I really don't mind, I'm actually fairly excited about the opportunity to give it a new shot.

I've been experimenting a bit and looking at some of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Lewis Baltz's work, and come up with a style I think might work. I'm going for a very geometric approach, with patterns and the breaking of those. Hopefully it'll work out much better than my last take at the project, and so far it's looking quite good. Here are some shots so far (might not use all):

Excellent!

2010-02-13T23:59:00.002Z

My ridiculously-healthy scheme is going as planned.

On Monday I'll have been going to the gym every day consecutively for three weeks - have to say I'm well proud of myself! I also figured that since I'm spending this much time in the gym I might as well pay a bit more attention to what I eat. I researched a bit online and found a setup that I think should work well, lovely! I'm currently trying to force down a protein shake as I write this, and I'm really full, oh well.

I'm actually noticing progress though, which is fairly encouraging. My plans to become AHNOLD Schwarzenegger by Easter is thus en-route (see above image).

Anyhow, we went to Exeter (a nearby University) today with the International Society to celebrate the Chinese New Year - loads of fun. We went by town and I bought a couple of books, amongst them a Teach Yourself Japanese book - time to get started again! I actually know a bit of very basic Japanese, tried teaching myself this summer but sort of fell out of it. I'll try to schedule 15~ minutes every morning for it from now on so I'll be fluent in no time! A Japanese-speaking AHNOLD Schwarzenegger? Perfection.

The Drunkard's Walk

2010-02-04T14:28:00.003Z

The next step on my glorious quest to knowledge about how people work is the book The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by a fellow named Leonard Mlodinow. It deals with how randomness and probability actually works, and how we're largely incompetent when it comes to judging randomness in our lives. Here's an example from a bit early on in the book (I'm not that far yet):

A psychology professor was doing a lecture for flight instructors and was putting emphasis on the point that rewarding good behaviour works, and punishing bad behaviour doesn't - meaning that you should praise students when they do good instead of yelling at them when they do bad. One of the instructors at the lecture raised his hand and commented that from his experience, most of the times when he complimented and praised a student on a very good flight the student would do a worse flight the next lesson, whereas nearly every time he gave a student a verbal beating after a bad flight the student would improve on his next flight.

All the other instructors agreed, and could tell about similar experiences. Surely the instructors know what they are talking about, so where is the fallacy here?

I reckon we can establish that there won't be any significant, ground breaking, improvement from one lesson to another. Therefore the improvement of the students would only gradually increase, and any exceptional lesson would logically be followed by a less exceptional lesson. If the student did exceptionally good one lesson, regardless of how he was treated afterwards he would most likely do worse in the next lesson - closer to the norm of his current skill. Likewise if the student did exceptionally bad another lesson, the next lesson would logically be better in most cases no matter the amount of verbal beating he took afterwards.

I love these little "mind games", and it's fun to see how we don't notice things like these unless we really scrutinise them. Book definitely recommended! Oh - and the professor was right.

Studio!

2010-02-03T22:22:00.003Z

The project we're currently working on is a studio project. Around 50/50 digital/analogue with medium format and manual tanking. The last part, for digital folks or mortals (not photographers), equals shitloads of work. Especially when you haven't done it before. I did a wee analogue shoot today with my dear Sam Collard, will be interesting to see how/if they turn out.

Anyhow, here's some shoots from the project so far - these are self portraits:

Say No

2010-02-03T19:14:00.004Z

.. to an increase in student fees!

That was one of today's catchphrase as the universities of Tremough campus marched into town protesting against the new government plans to increase student fee caps from 3200 quid to 7000~ quid. Despite the fact that I already pay 9500 quid and that I can't really vote in this country I decided to tag along and support my British mates. Oh, and protests are, I admit, kind of fun.

This event proved once and for all that you really shouldn't trust Facebook when measuring numbers. The event said 400~ people attending, but only 70-80 showed up for the walk down to Falmouth (understandable, long walk) while we ended up being around 150 people down at the Falmouth Moor.

Anyhow, I figured I'd liven up the mood some so I brought my whistle. If you didn't know I play the whistle, now you do. I'm not terribly good, but I know a couple of tunes and that seemed to liven up the place. Actually, turns out I was on the West Country News for a wee bit there. Awkward.

It was fun though. I even met another whistle player. She asked me where in Ireland I was from! That warmed my heart. Apparently there's Irish music going on at a local pub every Thursday, I might just have to check that out next week!

Oh, and if you're British, please vote for this guy. I think he's from the Green Party but frankly that's irrelevant. Look at his bloody awesome hat+beard+glasses combination. Now that is a guy I'd want representing me.

What Every Body Is Saying

2010-02-02T14:08:00.004Z

The last few years or so I've been really fascinated with people. Why they do what they do, what makes them tick, how can you tell how they feel and so on. There's a few things occasional browsing of the holy Internets and Tubes can tell you, but when it all comes down to it, when you really mean business, you're going to have to read a book. I don't mind, I like books.

Anyhow, so I went through Derren Brown's recommended reading list seeing as he's brilliant. I got a few off Amazon and dove into the first one: What Every Body Is Saying by former FBI agent Joe Navarro. Bloody brilliant I tell ye.

I read through the book once and then skimmed through it another time to make sure I remembered all the juicy parts (I'll probably do another read or two) and basically kept my eyes open. Today I got my first completely brilliant example of body language at a critique for a project we just completed.

A critique is basically us laying out the final images we've produced for the project and getting feedback/critique on them from group members and tutors. I tried to keep my eyes open for body language cues seeing as they should be fairly visible in an at least somewhat formal setting like this. That paid off.

As I had finished showing my work, the ball went to the girl next to me. She began explaining about her images in a somewhat confident style - and her body language reflected it strongly. She was leaning against the table behind her with legs crossed. That makes you extremely vulnerable; not a situation you'd put yourself in unless you're completely comfortable.

As she finishes explaining, the tutor takes over. The feedback was not what she expected, and instantly her arms fold across her chest to protect it from "harm". Verbally she barely changed but the body language yelled discomfort. As he went on explaining, her crossed legs switched from being open towards him to shutting him out with her thigh. I really struggled containing a huge grin there, perfect demonstration of subconscious body language!

The book is very recommended of course and weighs in at 6,66 quid at the moment - a devilish bargain.

Oh, and here's one of my shots from the project:

Ridiculously Healthy

2010-02-01T20:55:00.004Z

As none of you know, I began a glorious quest last week to become ridiculously healthy pretty much exactly a week ago. This week I've been going to the gym every day, attempting the appraised five a day, and eating a bloody healthy dinner daily. Today I've already been to the gym (check), had 5-6 fruits/vegs (check) and just had a bloody healthy dinner.

Going from my cooking experience being a single failed omelette this summer to this makes me somewhat pleased, and gives me that despicable urge to brag about it:

Chicken salad with home made garlic sauce. Oh yes - it was tasty!

Recent Work

2010-01-31T18:23:00.000Z

I've been here at University College Falmouth for a good 4-5 months now, and I figured I'd make a post showing some of my favourite work so far. Some from university projects, a some from back home (the ones with the most snow).

There's more lying around somewhere, but I can't find it for now. I guess this'll be some sort of a teaser. :>