This week, 500px opened up its market where photographers can sell their photos.
I have uploaded a few photos for 500px that can now be bought either on canvas or as digital download…
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
Man’s best friend…
Last summer, we got ourselves a dog. Due to my allergies, we had to get a none-shedding, family friendly dog that could keep us company when skiing or hiking. Theo, or Thelonious Rex as his full name is, is a medium doodle. In our case, that is a cross between a poodle, golden retriever and Italian water dog.
He is still only a puppy, and this morning it was snowing heavily, and Theo (as with most children) loved to be outside in the snow playing when we let him out the door. This is the sight that greeted me when I went to get him back inside:
And boy has he grown since we got him this summer:
I am already looking forward to the summer, when we can play in the garden again:
More pictures of Theo can be found on my flickr page
Animal portraits
I live quite close to a riding school and stable (Reppe Ridesenter), and enjoy going out to photograph the horses in all seasons…
I am especially fascinated by the horses that spend all year (day and night) outdoors. Even in the bitterest winter winds, they are out in the fields, looking happy and content.
Of course, the summer is a better time for the horses 🙂 They can enjoy the green grass, like Monty and and Rosie below:
Horses don’t like to be alone, and usually when I walk around the stables, I see that the horses are enjoying each others company. Either they are running together
or they are helping each other with scratching all the small itches from flies and other insects
Of course, life is not all play for the school horses. The last picture is of Salomon, one of the school Shetland ponies. He has just finished his work in the riding hall. You can see his thick winter coat that enables him to be outside on the coldest winter days…
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:
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:
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:
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 🙂
A trip down memory lane
Even if this blog is new, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t taken a lot of pictures… I just haven’t gotten around to creating a blog until now 🙂
To get some entries and learn how to use WordPress properly, as well as testing all the plugins, I will use the next weeks to take a trip down memory lane, showing photos I have taken in the past.
Enjoy!
Harald
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.
Welcome!
Welcome to my photo blog. Here I will write about all things photography that interests me, as well as showing some of my own work.
Enjoy!
Harald
PS! In the meantime, check out some of my old photos at Flickr