Category: Black and White

ND filter fun!

On my trip to Washington last fall, I bought a 10-stop ND filter. I haven’t really had the time to play around with it much since the process of using it is so time-consuming.

However, yesterday and today I got the opportunity to spend some time in Drivdalen and at Kjøvangen taking photos with the filter.

The process of using such a filter is quite time-consuming. Since it takes away 99,9 percent of the light, it is impossible to use the viewfinder for composing. Thus, composition must be done either without the filter or by using high ISO snapshots.

The exposure easily runs into the hundreds of seconds, something that gives silky smooth water. This summer has been a wet summer in Norway, meaning lots of rain and lots of water in the rivers and waterfalls.

The dismal summer also means that the beaches are fairly empty (there is no such thing as bad weather, only different photo opportunities). Right next to our cabin there is a public beach with a nice quay. In the summer it has always been full of people, but today it was almost empty. Thus I found another opportunity to play around with the ND-filter.

In the last photo, some people arrived on the quay, but the since they didn’t manage to stay still for long periods of time, the effect was more like ghosts than real people…

Beauty Camp

Grooming

My girls are attending a summer camp at the local riding school this week, and yesterday they had a beauty camp for the horses…

Stars, but no stripes

A lot of planning had gone into deciding the styling, and they were full of anticipation before camp started yesterday morning.

Grid

Together with all the other girls (and one boy) they spent the day grooming their horses and making sure that they did look their best….

Roses

The horses were patient throughout the whole ordeal…

Patience

As usual, more photos can be found on my Flickr set

Captivity….

A loooong time ago, I wrote about my visit to the Kristiansand Zoo. I promised to write more about the visit behind the scenes, and here goes.

We got to visit the Siberian tigers in their cages where they spend their nights (well not into the actual cages, but at least inside the caretakers rooms. The tigers are part of a preservation project, where the tigers are mated according to strict plans to make sure the long-term health and survival of the tigers. There are about 350-400 tigers in the wild, and a few hundred in captivity.

A siberian female tiger
Sad...

When I posted these to my Flickr account I thought that was the best tiger photo, since the cage was not visible. A friend of mine however felt quite strongly that another of the photos were much better, since it captured the captivity better….

Captivity
Captivity

And looking through them both, I found that I agree. The second photo is more moody and captures the tiger in captivity far better… It just shows that the first impressions are not always the right ones, and that different interpretations leads to new ways of viewing…

To round it off I managed to capture a common squirrel monkey (most known in Norway for being the monkey of Pippi Longstocking. The monkey is a known thief and steals wallets, cameras and other goods from the tourists. We were warned to keep our pockets thoroughly closed 🙂

A master thief
A master thief

The PoEM keynote

Last fall, I was invited to hold a keynote at the Practice of Enterprise Modelling conference in Oslo.

I usually talk at a few conferences every year, both domestically (Software 2011) and internationally (SATURN 2011 and Gartner EA Summit 2011), but to hold a keynote would be a new experience 🙂

I felt that I had to stretch a little and decided to make it into my own little art project combining my passion for photography with my message on Enterprise Modeling in an Agile World. I had plenty of time (I felt) to take photos for the keynote.

The first photo was taken in the early spring. I ordered my father and eldest daughter out on bicycles and found a quiet, winding gravel road. The point I wanted to make was that to develop models was a journey which would take time and effort to complete. To have an experienced companion on the journey is good, while to bring in young talent brings in new perspectives.

As you may note, my father is not wearing a helmet. This is very intentional, and is meant to illustrate that even the most experienced companions may not always be up to date on current best practices, so the balance between experience and talent must always be maintained.

The next photo is from Flor og Fjære where I visited in the late spring as part of a project dinner. I had been there before, and knew that they had these apple hedges that are apple trees cropped into growing as hedges.

The photo reflects one of the discussions I have often had with modelers: What are we modeling? Is this an apple tree (important for those that harvest fruit) or a hedge (important for the landscapers). Recognizing that all models are abstractions and focusing on getting the abstractions right is crucial to getting a model that is understood by the target audience.

The last photo in this post was taken over the summer where I got my wife and youngest daughter to pose:

The key message here lies in how my wife reads Fortune as bedtime stories for her, even if she is not interested (and has her back turned). I have often seen this in real life as well, where the story told is not the story that the audience want to hear. Luckily for my daughter, this is a staged photo, so my wife never reads Fortune for bedtime stories 🙂

The rest of the photos is found in my Google+ album, and the paper that accompanies my keynote is published in Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, Volume 92, 2011, pp 126-130

Varese, Italy

Another one of my travels from last fall. I “had” to go to Varese, Italy (just outside Milano) for a conference on environmental monitoring in the EU.

The morning after the conference finished, I was waiting for my plane back home. To shorten the waiting time, I grabbed my camera and headed out into the streets for my first attempt at street photography. I found a table at a small restaurant and waited…

In the center of Varese there is a small square, and people were crossing it on their way to work, school or something else completely. I noticed a beggar going around asking for money, and as he approached to elderly gentlemen I saw the opportunity for a shot…

As I was sitting there, two young girls came over and asked if I could take their portraits. I was happy to oblige, and agreed to send them the photos afterwards. Unfortunately, the e-mail address they gave bounced, so they probably never have seen them…

I found the narrow streets of Varese fascinating, especially considering that Italians drove through streets I would never have attempted

Of course, I managed to “scratch” my car going through a street that buses usually drive through 😛

Washington D.C.

One thing I like about my job as a software developer is that I get to travel. Conferences, workshops, meetings and more take me “all over the world”. I usually bring my camera(s) hoping to get the opportunity to do some photography in between meetings.

Last fall I was in Washington D.C. for a workshop on environmental monitoring. We traveled to D.C. a few days before the workshop to get the jet lag out of our systems. This gave me the opportunity to spend a day sightseeing around town.

The first photo is from the Vietnam Memorial Wall:

The Vietnam Memorial Wall

Looking at the wall and the people I noticed that quite a few of the visitors were grandparents showing the wall to smaller kids, perhaps explaining their own experiences from that time. At the same time I was looking at all the names, and I found the contrast between the names on the wall and the people milling around striking: It could have been these people showing their grandkids around the mall…

The next photo is from the DuPont Circle subway station:

DuPont Circle subway station

I found the symmetry and structure of the station appealing, and when I managed to capture a train coming (or going…) I knew I had a shot.

The last picture is from Lincoln Memorial:

The Abraham Lincoln Memorial

Ever since I went to school in Baltimore back in ’86 and learned about the American Civil War I have been fascinated by the life and story of Abe, and I was happy to visit the memorial 🙂

Waiting for the boat

A few weeks ago, I was in Oslo with my friend Jon. A perfect evening with some photography, a nice dinner at a tapas restaurant and some more photography.

I have always wanted to do some street photography, but have lacked the courage to do this. However, together with Jon and under the cover of darkness I was able to let loose and take some pictures of random strangers passing by.

I felt that I got a few good ones, but my favorites were taken around the ferry to Nesodden.

The first photo shows a lady waiting for the ferry. Typical of the weary traveler she finds rest while waiting, since there is little else to do.

The second photo was taken at the dock towards the entrance to the ferry. The bright entrance surrounded by darkness makes me think of space travel (for some reason)…

The rest of the images from this session can be found on my flickr stream

The images have been edited with the DxO Filmpack so that they look like the old Kodak Tri-X 400 film.