The little things that make you happy

I cheated, I did macro again.

Although with a very different lens than before. That has to count for something. 

Constantly pushing your own limits is tiresome and challenging in the long run, so I gave myself some time off to pop back into old habits. These photos were taken in April, so I am not yet up to date in my blogging. I am also not going to write as much this time as I am feeling really good today, and do not feel a need to dwell into life’s difficulties.

Almost done. After some research I found out that these are named “wood anemone” in English. If that is correct, that is the most adorable and absurd name I have heard in a while.

 

Kine out.

The time I went to Serfaus

Travel log #3

I went skiing in Austria,

and it is everything that you would expect.

One of the goals of this blog was to challenge myself in new ways. Although you can argue that the mountains of Austria can be slightly more extreme than the ones I would find back home, that is not the direction I want to go in. With my travels to Trondheim and Paris, I challenged myself to explore skills that involved a more urban environment, and I can honestly say that I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to settings and composition, and that is fine. I am still young, I am not even 20 yet, I have time to learn.

This time the challenge was landscape photography. Capturing nature as a massive force, and yet include the tiniest details. That is were I struggle. That is where I have to grow and develop.

Because, yes, I am a perfectionist, at least when it comes to things I enjoy. Not a perfectionist in the way that I would give the same piece of work a thousand touch-ups to make it brilliant. There is a reason to why I skipped over drawing and painting, and decided to capture what was already stunning about reality. Some may say it is an easy way out, and in that I may or may not agree. Nevertheless, I am a perfectionist in the way that it must be perfect on the first attempt. I absolutely hate going back over a piece of work, especially a piece of written work, looking for things to improve or fix those small grammatical errors. I start it, I finish it and I store it somewhere safe never to look at it again in most cases, and I am fine with that.

Back to the point of this post, which is, in the style of the two previous posts, to combine words and images to a great appreciation of this place. There is beauty in every single place, and in this instance the only thing you need to do is to look out of your bedroom window.

Not bad, eh?

Serfaus is not a hidden gem in terms of tourism. In fact, this appears to be what the natives makes a living on. Yet, they have found a balance between the authentic Tiroler-style and mass tourism. Coming back for the third time, I am still envious of those who grow up in such a majestic environment, and maybe especially those who can make a living of skiing. And note to self, or more of a question for the future: Was it worth the paranoia you felt racing down the slopes with an unprotected camera in a thin backpack? 

I belive it was. At least I had a chance at capturing the breathtaking gems of nature that I experienced while on this trip.  And a goal for next travel log, talk more about the travel and less about the inner workings of my mind. Although not entirely unrelated to this trip, it is an entirely different story for another time perhaps.

Kine Out.

The time I went to Trondheim

Travel log #2

I explored my home country,

it did not fail to amaze me.

As I am currently the only one in my “high school gang” that is still living in Stavanger, I felt like a trip to visit a member of this “gang” was in order. This is the story of my three days in Trondheim.

Calling it a story is although very pretentious and optimistic. It is a fairly detailed summary with attempted comedy here
and there. Please ignore any inconsistencies, sit
back and just look at the pictures instead. That is my strategy, pepper you with photos until you forget about the text. Cheers mate.

I am a very sensing person. When I come to a new place, what I really want to do is to just observe everything around me, feel the texture of the ground beneath my feet and touch the buildings and plants underneath my fingertips. One way to satisfy this need is to document the beauty I see in pictures, and experience the intense satisfaction when I am successful. So I guess this is what I want to share with you, the, maybe hidden, beauty of the places I visit.

I have grown up in a coastal town, so I do recognise some of the aspects of my town in Trondheim. A major aesthetic difference is the colour of the houses. Norway is a country were wooden houses are the most popular house type, and Trondheim’s wooden houses are beautiful. Everywhere I walked there where pastel coloured houses, especially by the river, Nidelva. I spent a lot of time just watching and taking in the view, and the sunset made it all so much better.

Trondheim is also the city with the biggest student population in Norway, I believe. This makes it a place of so many dialects, I thought. I was wrong. Way to many people spoke the Oslo-dialect, so hurray… I ended up playing spot the “Trønder*” with myself. Conclusion: I have met more *Trondheim natives outside of Trondheim than in Trondheim itself.

Oh, and before I forget, it is not like the university building isn’t gorgeous either.

However, what really made my stay was the snow. It made all the beautiful scenery possible.

As for the goals I have set for myself this year. Call them New Year’s resolutions if you believe in that. I don’t, I call it stepping out of your comfort zone. This I manage one step at the time, by not bringing a macro lense with me when I go on vacation. For me, macro is easy. Landscape is worse, and that is what I want to develop.

Kine out.

The time I went to Paris

Travel Log #1

I went to Paris.

And it was beautiful.

I took French for four years in school, and after four years you would think I would be able to maintain simple conversation with the locals. I am not. I am however, a very frequent user of the phrases “Je ne parle pas français” and “Je ne comprends pas”. This, combined with a confused look did not get me very far. Luckily, I stayed with a French fry. Correction, a French friend*.

Museums were free for students I believe. Given my French skills I have no idea why I got in for free. Nevertheless, I spent 3 hours aimlessly walking around Les Invalides. I could easily stayed for longer, but they closed for the day…

After my numberous visits to various monuments, I could probably start a series called “the window collection”, or maybe “The glass is stained” because I am the master of the unfunny pun and was very fascinated by all the glass artwork in the churches and chapels. Oh, and ceilings should not be forgotten either. I call this one “Ceiling Small”, because like the ceiling is so big it got you feeling small…

If you look closely at this picture, you will perhaps spot a group on tour with a tour guide. From overhearing what this tour guide said, I learnt that I should definitely visit Versailles. Why should I do so? Because it has beautiful gardens. Why does it have beautiful gardens? Because they are pretty? Why are they pretty? Because they are gorgeous? Why are the gorgeous? Because they are big. This may, or may not have been paraphrased to some extent, but it catches the essence of this tour guide’s enthusiasm (and knowledge)

Other highlights included seeing the Eiffel Tower once or twice a day, from every angle, except the top. That cost money, and well, let us pretend that it is just as beautiful from underneath, shall we? And let us not forget from the side, as seen below.

After walking through the art district, I learnt that every photo becomes artistic after it is converted into black and white, so I turned some of my shittiest photos into B&W, please enjoy:

NO? okay, I do agree.

Lastly I just want to show you how elegantly I touched Le Louvre, and lost my way and found a very nicely lit back alley.

Thank you Paris for being beautiful, and sorry for not understanding a word of what you tried to tell me. And as a future goal and promise, I will have a story to tell and write it a bit earlier than a month after visiting.

Kine Out.

Walking out into the new year

I struggle with commitment. Not to tasks assigned to me by others, or tasks where others depend on me. I struggle with fulfilling the tasks and goals I assign to myself, and that will only benefit me, but also require some effort. 

In that regard, I have given up on the goal of exercising more on my own accord, I know that is not going to happen. I simply do not enjoy jogging without a purpose, and I am not a believer in the phrase “You will like it after a while, it becomes more of a joy than anything”. Please go somewhere else with your motivational speeches, thank you. In a similar regard, I am also skeptical to motivational speakers that tell you to change simply by following “these simple steps”, but that is a very different story.

Nevertheless, I wish there were some things that I would actually truly commit to. I constantly tell myself that I need to take more photos, that I need to bring my camera with me more, be more open to new methods. Hence, I am now making a list of things I want to work on within my hobby throughout 2016. Here we go.

• Get out more, and bring my camera with me when I do get out.
• Be less critical of what I photograph
• Practice my portrait skills. (and find willing test subjects..)
• Stick to these goals…

In the spirit of this list, I want to share some of the photos taken in the new year.

Kine out.

 

How to not write a cliché first post

First of all, I am fully convinced that you should take my advice, as I have never, ever written a blog. I did not even own a blog when I was fourteen and all the other people around me was into pink, fashion and blogging. Mostly because I did not have any friends, but shush, let us not dwell on the past. I wanted to talk to you today on a much more important topic. I really wanted to make this post super ironic, but I do not have the skills yet. So hang in there, maybe you will see some top shelf writing sometime during the next 31,4 years. Please be content with some basement class humour and sucky puns. Ok let’s go.

1. People are tired of seeing list posts. Yes, they are easy to read, but do they really bring anything to the table? Except which Winnie the Pooh quote is the most absurd and adorable one, that stuff is important.

Use stylised text to make your important points stick out more, just in case your potential tsunami of readers are too lazy to read all the good stuff. Because, let’s be honest, ALL YOUR STUFF IS THA BOMB.

Use proper grammar. Be consistent. Stick to either contractions or keep all the words for a higher word count (or because your English teacher yelled at you each time you used “don’t”). Also, peeps, if you want to be conveyed as an important person, use fancy pants language, avoid informalities. Oh! Don’t forget sentences of different length, that creates a certain flow that makes the text read naturally and creates natural pauses, and for heaven’s sake, know where you are going with each sentence, such as if you are going to go to the kitchen, you can use a sentence to walk over to the kitchen, especially if you are super hungry and really want a pizza.

Oh, and please have some form of organisation in your post. If you feel that you are lacking any sort of organisational skills, follow this list:

• Dig deeper, they are in there somewhere
• When found, use them.
• CREATE MAGIC

NEVER YELL IN YOUR POSTS, NO ONE LIKES A YELLER. imagine if they are text deaf or something, I have lost track of the all the illnesses of the world, there is always a new one that can be found. (sorry, not sorry)

And lastly, stick to what you said you would do in your headline, so there are no open endings and unanswered questions?