Streetphotography

Amazing tour with Nittedal Bygdekor to Bratislava

/ elibrager / Leave a comment

DSC_4287 – Kopi

Slovakia is a country in the central Europe. The capital is Bratislava, a growing town with about 450 000 residents. We lived at hotel Devin which was located near the old town and near to the river Donau. I think the location was excellent for walks into the old town and for walks along Donau. But it´s also a lot of traffic near the hotel. We had a room into the backyard and then it was quiet from the traffic.

435px-EU_location_SVK

The choir were singing in a restaurant on Friday afternoon. Saturday afternoon the choir attended a catholic mess in the central old town. It was amazing. Sunday we traveled to Cifer a little place in the countryside were the choir and a local choir were singing in the church. Amazing. After singing we was in a hall we got wine, food and friendship with the Slovakian people. We felt very welcome. They gave us a lot of wine and finger-food.  After the session in Cifer, we traveled on with bus to Madra, where we eat dinner. The choir were singing a lot of songs and the atmosphere was very festive.

Under is some pictures from Bratislava. Donau is the river that flows through Brattislava. We went up in the UFO-tower 95 m.o.h it was a fantastic view. It costed 7 Euro to go into it, but it was worth it. So if you are in Bratislava take a trip into the tower. It´s amazing.

 

I was just a companion in this choir, my better half sings in the choir. I´m so happy to be able to be a companion on happening like this.

I liked Slovakia, maybe we come back to see more of this country.

 

 

As a photographer you are your own IT boss

/ elibrager / Leave a comment

What are you doing with your pictures? Is your camera or phone the only disk where you save all your pictures? How do you organize your pictures? If you don´t organize your picture how can you find the best picture of uncle Tom from 2017 in five years? As a photographer, you also need to know about cloud services, hard disks, software and hardware, WIFI, and how to handle all this IT- stuff. I have written some words about how I handle all this stuff.

The cloud services I use for backing up my pictures

Some days ago my old PC crashed, it was damaged by an accident, but it had also been a little bit slow the last year. Like many others I use to install a lot of programs, pictures, music and a lot of other things. That´s not necessary today. This year I also bought a new iPhone, and the iPhone is a small PC. I use a wireless WIFI connection from my DSLR and transmit the pictures to my iPhone. I learned how I could save pictures to iCloud and I have used it every day, automatically all pictures I take I save in iCloud and in “min sky” at Telenor.

Backing up to an external disk

But, if something happens? What if the internet should stop working some day? Or Apple not want to have a Cloud  Service. Therefor I also want my pictures saved on the old way, on an extern disk.

Organizing

And I want to use Lightroom, because I can then organize my pictures like I want. With LR I can rename the files to better name than those from the camera. And I can put on keywords, to simplify finding the right picture I want. I can also flag and rate the pictures. It is a very useful tool when I later want to find the pictures. LR and pictures on an extern disk give me the full control. I can also make collections for example “summer 2017” and put all pictures from the summer 2017 into that collection. Smart.

My point writing this is; don´t let your pictures be in the cloud or on your phone, download the picture, use for example Light Room organizing the pictures, and you can make what you want for example a book about the summer. It´s fun to be your own IT boss. It is educational. So take a deep breath and jump into it.

IMG_5104

Beautiful people

/ elibrager / Leave a comment

Today I went out for a photo-walk in my lunch. It was crazy, but it was like coming from one world to another world in a minute. Today it was Ed (Id), one of the muslims holy feast.  I didn´t know that when I went out, but it was so many beautiful people out there in colorful clothes. I went to Grønland, the place in Oslo where it is most muslims, and the street was full of happy people. Self I am a Christian, but I got very fascinate of this people, and I asked some if I could take portraits. The man with the two kids, knocked me on the shoulder and asked if I could take a portrait of them.  Of course I did. And the ladies and the children I asked.

IMG_4857

IMG_4894

It´s really a challenge for me, go out there to another culture in my own town that I not are used to. I think everyone should do this, start talking with people who not necessery is like you. I think of the prayer to Fritz Perls the grounder of Gestalt:

I do my thing and you do your thing
I am not in this world to
live up to your expectations,
and you are not in this world to
live up to mine.
You are you
and I am I
and if by chance we find each other,
it’s beautiful.

I think this prayer is meant to live in peace for all people.

 

 

 

Why do I shoot streetphoto

/ elibrager / Leave a comment

Yesterday I was on a streetphotography course in Oslo.

The exercise was asking people if I could take a portrait photo. To ask people has something with our comfort-zone to do. I had butterfly in my stomach, but I had done this before and was prepared to do it again. I think this is about how much I dear to challenge myself. I have to ask myself why I am doing this. Why do I want to take pictures of strangers? I want to challenge myself, and I am feeling well when I have taken a picture I am pleased with. Maybe I have the same feeling walking out in the street with the camera than somebody have jumping in parachute. It is exciting and I think that I am documenting how people react and live today. I try to catch the atmosphere in the environment where I am. When I walk in the streets with my camera, try to catch something to capture, I feel free and living. I use all the senses, I am aware what I am feeling, and I react to capture the picture on reflection. That’s awesome.

IMG_4829IMG_4828IMG_4827

To day I did it!

/ elibrager / Leave a comment

Yes, really, today I did this very difficult thing. Do you know what it is? It is to ask people if I could take their portraits. Oh, I feel so stupid, and the devil sits on my shoulder saying “dont do it, are you stupid? go around asking people for a portrait, no normal person does that”. And the other voice says to me “do it, you make it, it isn’t stupid, it is good for you, you make documentation of the real life, the life the way you see it, the life the way it is through your eyes. It is a good thing to do. And you are not the only one, and you improve your photography to a new level. That’s great, go ahead!” And today I listened to the “do it” voice and I met four positive people and two babies. I was so happy.

 

From Alta to Hammerfest a special experience

/ elibrager / Leave a comment

Norway is a country with much wilderness. If you want to experience this you can buy a flight to Alta, rent a car and drive further north. We drove to Hammerfest, The northernmost city in Norway. The landscape is so huge. It is mountains and widen, fjord and seas. And it's raindeer. We saw a lot of raindeer, eating grass along the way. Here is some pictures from today.

Raindeer along the road.

From Oslo to Alta.

Sunset over Hammerfest. Panoramapicture, me sitting left in the picture. The photographer is Silje Schiørn.

Portraits of Birds

/ elibrager / Leave a comment

Birds are fascinating. They are busy all the time trying to find food. It is meditative to watch them fly and hear them signing. With a 300mm lense and a tripod, we can come very near also the small ones. When the light conditions also are great, like it was this morning, the portraits can be really beautiful.