Last weekend I went on a trip with some friends to our mountain cabin. The purpose of the trip was photography, and especially night photography. We had brought various gear (star tracker, time-lapse rail and more) to toy with, and it was great fun.
While we were waiting for the evening, we visited the museum of water usage (Vannbruksmuseum) at Atnfossen. I had brought my 10x ND filter, and had great fun photographing the river flowing by.
I’m not sure if I like the color or the black and white version best…
The small waterfall in colorThe small waterfall in black and white
This summer my wife and I participated in the mountain horseback riding expedition arranged by Kvistli Icelandic Horses. We rode in the mountains around Folldal and had a clear view towards Rondane National Park. In total we rode around 140 km (88 miles) and spent hours each day in the saddle.
Riding in Grimsdalen
One of the great things about such treks are that the pace gives me lots of time to take in the scenery.
And of course, to spend time with all the magnificent horses was great.
Posing against the mountainsRestingA formerly white horse
Such a trip offered plenty of photographic opportunities
Meeting in the Kvistli Chapter of the Icelandic Horse Union
I can really recommend a slow trip in the mountains, and thank my new friend for carrying me and my camera gear safely throughout the trek.
While I was photographing squirrels in Flatanger, we also got visited by a group of small forest birds. One of them was the Eurasian Jay. Just as with the squirrels, it was hard to capture them in the darkness, so it was only when they were sitting still I had any chance of getting of a shot…
Eurasian JayEurasian Jay eatingSparrows (?)
I also saw a lot of sparrows (I think) perching on a nearby branch. It was difficult to get them all pin sharp, as they were moving around a lot. Additionally, the forest darkness meant that I had to use a large aperture, leading to a small depth of field…
Also, check out my friend Jon’s photos from the same trip
Last fall I was on a trip to Flatanger to photograph sea gulls and white tail eagles. We also spent some time in the forest to photograph small animals such as squirrels.
A squirrel in the forest
It was very dark, and difficult to get focus and exposure right. It was especially difficult to capture them when they where jumping, but I managed to get one or two decent shots.
Jumping
It was a continuous test of reflexes and trigger skills…
Ready to jumpJumping
As you can see, it was difficult to get the moving squirrels pin sharp, since they were moving so fast and the forest was very dark… Sometimes I managed to follow the squirrel and get a blurry background, but mostly it was a miss. The photos are mostly taken at ISO 3200 (it does say something of ISO improvements over the past years. Remember the ISO 3200 films of the old days?)
It was easier to follow them on the ground as they were digging to hide their catch.
Saving for the winter
I also shot some forest bird life, but that is a topic for another post…
This week I was on a short trip to Oslo. Since it was the beginning of my holidays, I took a few days extra to visit friends and family. On Thursday, I visited my photographer friend Jon Leirdal (over at http://leirdal.net/blog/) and we went strolling around his home “town” Drøbak for a few hours. On the marina of Drøbak there are a statue of three mermaids.
As we were standing there, a cruise ship passed by, giving us an opportunity for some storytelling:
Sing! Sing! in your sweetest voice!It’s getting away!!“All your fault!!” “I know noooothing!”
Hopefully they will get another chance when the next cruise liner passes by…
Over the New Years weekend I visited Lanzarote for some sun and warm weather. Although most of the days were spent swimming, I also went for a trip around the island with the charter company.
In Norway we are (fortunately) not very exposed to volcanic activities. Therefore, the landscapes seen in Lanzarote are very different from back home. The first photo is from a small volcano just outside Playa Blanca on the south side of the Lanzarote island.
View towards Playa Blanca
Living by the coast, there were some spectacular sunsets over the Atlantic ocean…
Nice sunset over the Atlantic
The trip around the island in itself gave a lot more views of volcanic landscapes so different from home. We stopped at the coast to view a small bay.
Volcanic coastal formations
The scale of the structures was immense as shown by the people in the show above.
Some years ago, I tok a course in geology. Unfortunately, none of this was remembered when we got to some really interesting formations further along the coast…
Interesting layering in the mountainsVolcanic lake
In between all the rocks, there were small pockets of vegetation.
Small pockets of vegetaion
After the coastal visits, we headed for the Timanfaya National Park. That is a topic for another post…
Earlier this month, I entered my first photos into a competition. The competition, Nordic Nature Photo Contest, is for nature photos taken in the Nordics. After thoroughly reviewing this years photos, I found that most of the photos I wanted to submit was from my trip to Flatanger earlier this year (Eagles, seagulls and seagulls)
The “main entry”, so to speak, is a series of photos of a white tail eagle that is on approach to pick up a fish in the water. At the last moment, a competitor comes in and snatches the fish right before his claws…
Competing for food
The nice thing about the series is that all the photos are pin sharp, so they can be used in multiple settings…
I also decided to enter other photos from the same trip:
ScoutingTime for coffee!!Reflections and bow wave 2Reflections
We had a constant stream of seagulls following the boat. They served as an alert to the eagles that we were around and to us as alerts that the eagles were inbound (the change in behaviour was noticeable when the eagles were inbound).
The seagulls did not hesitate in grabbing whatever they wanted…
Thief!!!
Watching Ole Martin of Norway Nature with the seagulls was very entertaining. He knew exactly what to do to get great shots, and he posed willingly with the seagulls.
Time for coffee!!Stay away from my cup!!!Cannot be just coffee in this cup…Scouting
I didn’t know that seagulls could be such great photo opportunities… Check out the rest of the photos from Flatanger in my Flickr sets for eagles and seagulls
While out photographing white tail eagles last weekend together with my friend Jon, we had some time in between the eagles. Our guide, Ole-Martin from Norway Nature, is also an experienced photographer, and he suggested that we took some photos of seagulls on a black sea.
Reflections
I was curious to see how we could do this, as most of the photos I had taken so far did not get the black sea I was looking for.
However, Ole Martin knew the perfect spot and soon we had the seagulls taking off and landing near the boat, making it possible to get that velvet-like black feel and with great reflections.
Reflections and bow wave
Also, as they landed, the seagulls got great bow waves that caught the light and made them stand out.
Reflections and bow wave 2Reflections and bow wave 3
Last weekend, I got to photograph something other than horses. It was the third weekend in a row where I could really go out and enjoy my photo hobby 🙂 Together with my friend Jon Leirdal and some colleagues from work we travelled to Flatanger to spend the weekend photographing wildlife. We got to photograph a lot of different wild life and in this first blog post I will show some white tail eagles. I have photographed birds of prey earlier in a park, but it was something else to experience it in nature
We spent some hours in together with Ole Martin Dahle of Norway Nature where he took us around the habitats of the white tail eagle to see if we could catch them fishing. We got to see a lot of eagles, and they came quite close to the boat.
We would see the eagles soaring in the sky
Once in a while they would discover fish in the sea and dive in to retrieve it.
Discovering fish 1Discovering fish 2
There was a lot of fishing to be seen, so I got a lot of practice. It was a technically difficult shooting, since the boat was constantly moving in the water and the eagle was unpredictable in its behaviour. So I have some thousand out of focus shots as well 🙂 Also, check out my flickr page for more eagle shots
Catching fish 1Catching fish 2
For the technically minded people out there, these shots where taken with a Canon EOS 7D with a 70-200 lens, using mostly manuall settings (except focus).
Check back later for some photos of seagulls. Never thought they could be so photographically funny.
