A Photographic Journal
One of the approximately only 25 moose that lives in Lille Vildmose. They can be a bit hard to find, as they are wild animals roaming free within the area and not zoo animals. But with a bit of luck and knowledge of their preferred areas and time of activity, it is possible to spot them. Here it is a big bull foraging in the morning mist, as the sun is rising behind. What a fantastic morning that was.
(Trifolium arvense) I remember taking this picture in my garden on a sunny, lazy sunday this summer. I were exploring the garden with my camera and the Lensbaby Sweet 35 with macro kit attached.
I love the way the combination of stray light, swet spot focus and narrow depth of field plays so well together in this picture.
..on a break. From back in the summer, when the barn swallows (Hirundo Rustica) were busy constantly looking for food for their newly hatched offspring.
In the early morning light something as ordinary as a bunch of cows on a meadow became almost magical as the sun were rising behind them and the early morning mist were still hanging in the air.
Usually the Red Pandas i Aalborg Zoo are mostly busy napping i the trees, but one day this one seemed to be patrolling the habitat, so that it was possible to get a better shot of the beautiful creature.
Taken with the Lensbaby Edge 35. I love how it can have to completely different spots of focus in one shot. I think it gives the picture a kinda surreal look.
Taken with the Lensbaby Sweet 35
I took another trip to Lille Vildmose this week. There isn’t as much wildlife as in the summer, but if you are patient and know where to look, it is still there.
..and then, sometimes, you just end up with a random close encounter with a Red Fox that were anything but shy.
Truly an amazing experience.
Playing around with one of my Lensbabies.. This time the Sweet 50. I used a backlit curtain as background for my Boba Fett Lego Buildable figure, to create a combination of the characteristic Sweet 50 look, combined with a silhouette look.
One of the Polar Bear Cubs in Aalborg Zoo. They are not so tiny and cute anymore, but still playful and fun to watch.
The artist Thomas Dambo recently made another of this amazing trolls, made of recycled wood. This this he made the troll Pil Tusindtunge (Pil with the Thousand Tongues), who can talk to both nature and humans. You can write your wish on a stone an put in in Pils basket. Pil will then discuss the wish with nature and if they think it is a good wish they will make it come true.
This portrait of Pil is taken with the Lensbaby Edge 35.
This kinda reminds me of the song “Black hole sun” by Soundgarden
Playing around with the Lensbaby Edge 50, extension tubes and macro filters. With all extension tubes and macro filters mounted you get really close.. almost to the point where the focus plane is at your front element in the lens. But fun to play around with.
A young Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) eating dinner in the rain. It wasn’t too pleased having a human with a camera nearby, so it kinda gave me the look…
I visited the old lighthouse at Rubjerg Knude this summer. My first visit ,since it was moved 70 meters away from the coast line, as the sea is eating away the cliff which would eventually result in the lighthouse falling into the ocean.
Taken with my Lensbaby Edge 35.
This green guy seemed to have found the perfect place for a photo shoot.. I just couldn’t let him down 🙂
A couple of crows watching the beautiful sunset in Lille vildmose.
Funny thing is that a week later I came by the same tree at approximately the same time of day, and there were still two crows in that tree.
I have passed this mural many times.. and taken pictures of it many times. I never seemed to get the look that I wanted. This day I came by, with a Lensbaby Sweet 50 mounted on my camera. I didn’t have any great expectations, but the result came out way more like how I wanted it than any of my previous attempts.
A Cinnabar moth caterpillar, climbing a Ragwort plant. Curiously enough, the Ragwort plant is more or less the only plant this caterpillar eats, but the plant is toxic to humans and livestock. By eating of the Ragwort plant, the caterpillar also becomes toxic.
A Colombian Spider Monkey climbing a line.
These monkeys move really fast, and between the branches all the time, making it really hard to get a good picture. To top it off, their compound in Aalborg Zoo is backlit making it even harder. I figured that IF a monkey would climb the line, it would make a nice silhouette. After a few minutes, this guy came across.
My dog Eddie is always keeping an eye on me and my tinkering about with the camera. Often he ends up being the test subject for my (unharmful) experiments as well.
Taken with the Lensbaby Sweet 50.
My father-in-law occasionally sit quietly for hours, carefully carving and polishing a piece of Briar wood, to create amazing pipes. This one had just been finished as I visited his little workplace.
Another angle of Musikkens Hus (The House of Music) in Aalborg, Denmark. The picture is taken with the Lensbaby Edge 50. It is a remarkable lens and so much fun to work with and I think it goes really well with the more moody black and white style.
It is not only the Aalborg side of Limfjorden that is changing. Nørresundby on the other side of the fjord is changing too.
Taken with my Lensbaby Edge 50.
Cafe Alpha in Aalborg claims to be the oldest Pub in town. I must confess that I don’t know whether or not this claim holds any truth.
Taken with my Lensbaby Edge 50.
Vestbyen station in Aalborg.
Taken with the Lensbaby Edge 50.
The sailboat “Angel” moored at C.W. Obels canal in Aalborg.
Aalborg has been changing a lot, especially in the last decade. The waterfront is one of the places that have changed the most, and even though I like to see how the city changes, I am not sure I am a big fan of these new, usually white towers that are being built everywhere.
Taken with my Lensbaby Edge 50, which seems to be made for these kind of shots.
Once again, the incredible Lensbaby Edge 50.
I can’t remember the last time a new lens kickstarted my creativity this way. It is so much fun and so frustrating and demaning at the same time.
An EH-101 Merlin of the RDAF flying low over one of the buildings along the waterfront in Aalborg.
I am a bit amazed that this picture actually came out as good as it did. I had only a few seconds to compose and manually focus my Lensbaby Edge 50 for this shot.
Another shot taken with the Lensbaby Edge 50. It is a remarkable lens and so much fun to work with and I think it goes really well with the more moody black and white style.
Here we are at Musikkens Hus (The House of Music) in Aalborg, Denmark.
I went for a walk to get some fresh air and to get of of the house for a short while. Home isolation is beginning to take it’s toll on me.
Staying away from crowds is no issue for me. I also try to avoid crowds anyway. And this was the perfect chance to take my Lensbaby Edge 50 out for some real-life trials.
I must admit I was blown away. The Edge 50 is so much fun to shoot with and I just instinctively knew how to twist and turn it, to get the look I wanted.
I wanted to try something new, so I have done something I don’t usually do. I bought a new lens.
A Lensbaby Composer Pro II with Edge 50 optics.
It is a fun little lens, that allows you to get really creative and really frustrated, because nailing the focus can be hard, when the focus plane is not behaving like you have become used to on a regular lens.
Self-isolation and the urge to take pictures sometimes crash…
…and unexpected things might happen while playing around.
Maybe the constraints of being forced to stay at home lets us find new ways to be creative?
For the last five years I have been trying to adapt a minimalist lifestyle. When I say trying, it is because minimalism is not a fixed goal. It is, to sound cliche, a state of mind. And the goal is not to own as little as possible, but to own just enough.
I also try to adapt this philosophy when it comes to photography. Both in the amount of gear and in the actual images. But when it comes to photography, I find it harder to cut down to the bare minimum than it is with everything else.
Today I came across a little video by Belgian photographer Joris Hermans, who talks about how and why he keeps a minimalist mindset in photography. I think he has some great points and I will definitely try to keep them in mind.
Watch the video, and if you enjoy it, give Joris a like on YouTube or follow him on Instagram.
Denmark is still on lockdown. We try to keep ourselves busy and keep up the spirit. And we enjoy having a bit more time for some of the things we don’t usually feel we have the time for. So, my wife and I teamed up. She baked some buns, and I took their picture…
…and then we ate ’em, 🙂
I’m still isolated at home.
I have been looking through my big Lightroom catalog, looking at some of the pictures that ended in my “maybe” collection, containing pictures I might want to revisit at some point.
A lot of them just get binned, but some, like the Vespa here, finally get the treatment it deserved.
Even though most pictures in the “maybe” collection just gets binned, it is still fun to see images like this one, taken with my good old EOS 60d and the 24mm pancake.. I loved that combination.
Denmark is currently locked down, like pretty much the rest of the world, while Covid-19 is sweeping across the globe. While stuck at home, we pass the time playing games..
..like Matador, which is a danish version of Monopoly.
Another photo that has been lying around in my backlog for years.
At the moment it looks like I will have plenty of time to go through that backlog and not so much time (or rather opportunity) to go out and take new, fresh pictures.
Buying Candied Almonds
Even though it it hard for me to believe, it has been almost 7 years since this picture were taken. I actually forgot all about it, but then, as I were messing around with the Metadata search in Lightroom I came across it and though “I know just what to do with this..”.
So.. here it is, 7 years too late, but better later than never, right? 🙂
A blacksmith using the craft used by the vikings to forge tools.
I was out walking the dog on an early morning. It was cold and the grass was frosty, but then the sun appeared and everything turned foggy and yet sunny…
A brittle star (Ophiura albida) washed ashore at the west coast of Jutland.
The Mexican Tall Ship, Cuauhtémoc leaving Aalborg harbour, after the Tall Ship Race 2019 visit.
I went back to the Old town in Rhodes, Greece last summer intending to further explore, but in the end I ended up thinking there were just too many tourists there (myself included.)
Aalborg Zoo brilliantly used the many dark hours we have in Denmark in the winter to decorate the entire zoo with all kind of light installations, like this Zebra that were placed in the savannah where the Zebras and Giraffes usually graze.
From the viking battle reenactment at the annual Viking fair at Lindholm Høje.
My pretty mug…
..I know… ..but all the great masters did it too.
And this was for a good cause. I were experimenting with directional lights with a DIY Pringles Flash Modifier (I will get back to this in a later post), to create a bit of a sinister mood.
A beatiful Citroën Type H, being used as a Donut shop.
From the Christmas exhibition in Aalborg zoo.