Impressions

There are many different ways of trying to leave a mark to prove you did exist.

This is one of those marks.

The photo was taken on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Savannah

Summer in Jutland





 

This is a photo of my sister.

 

We were visiting our parents and went for a walk in the countryside.

 

What the image do not show, is that my sister is holding some of the crop from the field in front of her. Checking the grain.

 

I like this photo because it to me is tranquil. Also I love that the crop on the field is in focus in the bottom right corner, as well as my sister. And the rest of the background is blurry.

 

Showing the importance of my sister and the fact that she is checking the grain.

 

 

Wish or reality?

I was recently in Atlanta.

Walked around near the Olympic park and as I was about to leave, I noticed this inscription on one of the bricks.

Mystified

I am currently in Miami (South Beach), and yesterday morning I went for a walk at 6.30 am.
I stopped to do some shopping at Walgreens on the corner of Collins and Lincoln.
When I left Walgreens I noticed a building on Lincoln that displayed time and temperature.

I wanted to take a photo of that, but when I looked through the lens, I realised that the airconditioning inside Walgreens had impacted the lens.

I decided to take different shots despite the lens being cold, and this is one of the results. I quite like it, but would have preferred that the camera had not been exposed to the aircondition at Walgreens.

Bubbles

These photos are from the day of the Copenhagen Carnival in 2012.

I was waiting for the parade to get closer to the square in front of Copenhagen City Hall. While I was waiting I was talking to another amateur photographer, discussing lenses, camera settings and how excited we both were at the great photo opportunity the parade was going to be.

While we sat there on a bench talking, a man was laying down a thick rope and placing it in the shape of a circle. I kept talking but was wondering what that rope was for. Was it part of the parade?

A few minutes later all was revealed. This man was going to blow mega and small sized soap bubbles. Much to the instant and surprised amusement of any children who happened to pass by :-)

I and the other amateur rushed in closer to meet the challenge of getting some photos of this.

 

The soap bubble man :)

 

 

Some of the mega bubbles

 

These small bubbles would quickly be filling the air around the square.

 

 

Carnival

Each year there is the Copenhagen Carnival - partly celebrating the Whitsun. I have been a spectator twice. I love the beautiful costumes and the dancers seems to be enjoying the parade.

I love how the dancers will pose for the cameras.

The first photo is from 2007 - these girls were wonderful together and I was sad that I wasn't in the front row of the crowd, but I still love this photo. In the background other spectators are clearly also starring at these two girls.

The second photo is from 2012 - I just loved her. She noticed me, came to a full stop and waited for me to actually say: "ok" (to acknowledge that my photo had come out just right), before she moved along to the next camera :-)

The birds & the bees and the flowers & the trees

Naturally, this will showcase four photos. A bird, a bee, a flower and a tree ....

I went to the zoo in Copenhagen twice this summer. Both times with my nieces.
The first photo was taken on my first visit this year. I love the beak and the colors.

I love taking photographs when I go for a walk in my local park.

The second photo is a couple of years old. I love the fact that the wings of the insect is a little blurred because they were moving so fast when I took this.

I like to just play with non moving objects.

The third photo is also a couple of years old. This is a macro shot of a yellow tulip. I love symmetri, and I just think this is beautiful.

 

 

This photo is from the January 2006.

I used to have it as the desktop photo on my old labtop. I love to look at the branches, where do they start, where do they end. I love the blue sky and the remembrance of cold frosty air.

This is from a day spend with my parents, my sister and my then 2 year old niece. We had fun pulling my niece on the sleigh and enjoyed the snow covered ground and trees.

 

 



 

 

Memorial site for 9/11

My friend and I travelled the north-east of USA last October. That meant for us to be in New York for 3 - 4 days.

Naturally, we just had to go and see the memorial site at ground zero.

At the site, a couple asked me, if I could take a photo of them with their camera. The woman asked me: Do I smile?

She didn't mean: Do you see a smile on my face? She meant, is this a place where you smile and look happy, or do you try to look sinister?

A very good question. I would not have thought about that, unless she had asked me that question. I think my reply was: I suppose it is okay to be happy, but not to appear overjoyed.

This photo is not very good quality and no, it is not of that couple. It is of the memorial site.
I find that I do have some photos that are of poor quality but since they are mine, and since they mean something to me, I am willing to showcase them anyway. Perhaps they will inspire me - given the chance - to do a retake :)

This being the 11th anniversary of a very sad day, I naturally think today I should post this photo.

The second photo is also from the memorial site. Again, poor, poor quality. But it is on the subject of showing joy.
When I shot this photo, my focus was on taking a photo of the area. Afterwards I noticed that I captured a person (in the center of the photo) who has their arms straight into the air. Almost as if they have just been jumping for joy.
I do believe they are waving at someone to say: "I'm here", even so, this scene/person puzzles me everytime I look at it.

Deafening silence

Have you ever been to a remote place, where noone else is around for miles and miles? Or those who are around are part of your "party" and they are indoors while you are outside. And everything is so quiet that you think you've gone deaf?

Well, I have. In 2002 my parents and I was on vacation in the USA. We finished our trip by going to Minnesota to visit relatives in St. Francis, north of Minneapolis.

A few days later my parents, our relatives and I drove to their cabin located at one of Minnesotas many lakes.

It was Easter time and there was snow outside. The lake was frozen solid (we had driven past a few lakes with cars "parked" on them), the plumbing in the house was frozen, so we had to use the outdoor toilet located behind the cabin. I guess they kept that building for situations like that - seems strange to have one, when your cabin have a beautiful modern indoor toilet.

Anyway my point is, late at night, I needed to use the toilet and had to go outside. Just me and mother nature. There was no street lights and there were no clouds. So right outside the house I stopped. Tilted my head back and gazed at the stars.

And it was soooo quiet. No wind, no sound of cars, people, animals. Nothing.
I honestly did think I had lost my ability to hear. Until I moved my foot and the snow under my foot made the noise of snow compression  :)

This photo is from that day - naturally not from that night. I was using my analogue Olympus (OM10) and back in 2002 I didn't think of having a digital copy made. So this is a scanned version.

Visibility

This photo is very special to me.

I was at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco in May 2009. As I was taking various shots of the Martin Luther King memorial, letting my camera play with the water coming down from above I walked around the memorial shooting photos from different angles. From below the water wall, above and inbetween the water.

While I was standing above looking out towards the grassy area I noticed this couple. So sweet - obvious granddad and grandson. At first my eyes stuck to them because of the way they were walking (granddad holding grandson by each hand). But then I realised how special this set up was. How unique.

The memorial is based on grey and white-ish tiles. Granddad is wearing green trousers and darktoned yellow colored shirt. Grandson is wearing brown trousers and darktoned orange colored shirt.

Also (and I definately do not mean to step on anyones toes, I am not a rascist) the fact that they are black and that I - as the photographer - know that they are at the Martin Luther King memorial in San Francisco adds another angle to the composition. - I often think of this photo and that day at Yerba Buena Gardens, and whenever I do, I never recall them as being black. I recall them as being grandfather and grandson, wearing colorful clothes on a setting that has (in comparison) very dull colors.

But for them to be there, it just seemed like a set up!

Unfortunately, my labtop stalled three days after I returned to Denmark. I had not had time to make a backup of all my photos. Fortunately, I had uploaded several of my photos from the trip to my Facebook profile.

Unfortunately, that means that the version I do have is grainy as FB (at least back in 2009) compresses images that are uploaded. Also, back then it was unsure if FB owned the rights to the photos that were uploaded to the site. The user agreement indicated that it is FB that owned the photos - so I never uploaded the very best images, as I didn't want to someday find my very best photos published as postcards or circulating the internet. In short, for others to earn money on my "work".

I have send in the photo to a photocopy shop and now I finally have a version of this photo on my livingroom wall. But it is suffering from the FB compression. As you will probably notice if you view this in full size.

But I am sure that you can tell from the composition that this was a tremendious loss for me :-(

 

 

 

 

I call this Visibility - because to me it is about clarifying / highlighting the bonding between the granddad and the grandson. And I find it fitting to start my new area of blogging with this composition. Since I myself, from now on, abandons being anonymous on my blog :)

I've been absentminded in this universe for 6 years or more. Blogging has not been very interesting, or I've been too busy with real life and naturally: Facebook.

But I recently inspired a friend to create a blog of her own, and I now realised: I'm not likely to create the website I've dreamt about for the past 6 years as a showcase for my photos.

I am a developer, I simply find it uninteresting to do any development that is not work related. I want to be able to present stuff fast an easy, and there are so many ways of doing that.

Facebook for one. But I limit 99% of my stuff on Facebook to only being accessable by my FB friends.

So, since I would also like feedback on my photos, I think it is also time for me to stop hiding. Allow for comments and make a proper profile.

... but now, it is Friday afternoon and I am about to go to a party :)

So - more to come in the near future. That is a promise