Merry Christmas - God Jul!

Season's Greetings to one and all!

Mirror, mirror on the ...

A reflection of my favourite star - the fairest of them all.

Locked snow

We got some more snow. It was locked.

PS A nice week-end to all who passes by this blog :-)

Nailed snow

We got our first touch of snow for the season. It was nailed.

Scotland through the railway-window

It is comfortable to travel by modern trains, but it is not easy to get really good pictures. The train is usually moving, the subjects are coming fast and taking photos through not-too-clean windows with the sun in sight is not especially easy. But I tried.

BTW - these photos are shot between Aberdeen and Dundee. Here we are passing over a ravine. Care to dive?

The Station Hotel is an institution in the UK. This one is in Stonehaven.

The orange-coloured fields (cropped grain?) was marvellous, especially with so many rich colours in the low autumn light.

We are now stopping in Montrose, as you can see for yourself. Famous among many other things for the high steeple of its church.

The coastline was fabulous with the large beaches and the intense green fields of grass.

The Scots are a friendly and helpful people, so also in Arbroath

And even more shore beauty before we arrive in Dundee.

PS A nice week-end to all who passes by this blog :-)

How we escaped "Berit"

I'm not talking about my wife, but about a storm/powerful low-pressure area that hit the coast of Norway this week-end and killing several people and causing a lot of material damage at the same time. Luckily we had booked a tour to our neighbour in the west - Scotland. So all we saw of "Berit" while crossing the North Sea was these clouds .

That made it possible for us to study gulls on a roof in the afternoon light in Aberdeen,

or watching a Christmas shopper on her way home.

Scotland is much more than Aberdeen - for instance this scenery with a light house shot through a train window on our way to Dundee.

The Christmas shopping was in full swing in Dundee's shopping centres. Someone had even left their shoes in their hurry ...

But the most decorative photo subject I found in Dundee this time, was this magnificent and famous ship, The RRS Discovery.

After the Rain

Rainy weather is associated with autumn, but it has its own charm. If you look for it.

PS A nice week-end to all who passes by this blog :-)

Broken Bunker

It is actually not a bunker, but more of the inside of the experimental ocean wave power station ("Bølgekraftverket") shown in my former post. Power indeed.

Broken Reality

This is not a picture from a war-zone, but shows the remains of two experimental ocean wave power stations ("Bølgekraftverket") that were set up around 1985 in Øygarden, outside Bergen. They were destroyed by the waves after just a few years. The ocean is not to be trifled with.

It is calm here, but the waves broke this bridge and threw part of it a long way off and left the rest "off line".

PS A nice week-end to all who passes by this blog :-)

Inversion

This morning the view towards the entrance of Bergen harbour looked like this. The ugly, purple, smoke-like structure you see in the background is due to a phenomenon called inversion. According to Wikipedia this is:

"In meteorology, an inversion is a deviation from the normal change of an atmospheric property with altitude. It almost always refers to a temperature inversion, i.e. an increase in temperature with height, or to the layer (inversion layer) within which such an increase occurs.^[1]

An inversion can lead to pollution such as smog being trapped close to the ground, with possible adverse effects on health. An inversion can also suppress convection by acting as a "cap". If this cap is broken for any of several reasons, convection of any moisture present can then erupt into violent thunderstorms. Temperature inversion can notoriously result in freezing rain in cold climates."

The pollutants causing the smog? Industrial emissions, emmisons from ships, burning of firewood and traffic, traffic, traffic ...

And is anything being done about it? So far very little that has had any effect ...

PS And despite the rather grim background, I wish a nice week-end to all who passes by this blog :-)

Autumn Colours

During the last weeks we have had a couple of periods with "hot" and fine weather. Consequently a friend of mine and I decided to see if we could find some of those autumn colours that have been missing this year.

And we found some - in this kind of light even power lines become a photographic subject.

One tree still had its leaves - one had lost them. But with this kind of light ...

And of course we found a waterfall - Hesjedalsfossen (about 70m high). Much beloved by photographers in this area.

PS A nice week-end to all who passes by this blog :-)

Post No. 1000 - A small Celebration

I started this blog in the beginning of 2006 to have a site to place my photos. Much has happened since the first post. 1000 posts is not much compared to many bloggers, but it is a lot more than I had ever anticipated to make. I have learned a lot about photography since then, and the more I get to know the more I find I need to learn. It has been great fun for me, and I hope that I have been able to transmit some of this to my visitors, without whom (and their comments), my world would have been a much duller place.

So I decided that a small celebratory post was in order. I found this colourful balloon stuck in a small stream while out walking in the Norwegian "wilderness" last Sunday. I feel it somehow symbolizes the purpose of this Blog.

And will there be 1000 more? Only time will tell ...

Cornerstone

The bicycle is a Cornerstone of life; at least in Arendal ...

PS A nice week-end to all who passes by this blog :-)

Reflecting Beneath a Bridge

We have spent part of the Norwegian autumn holiday in the city of Arendal,as charming a city as any that can be found in Norway. There are many small waterways with accompanying bridges. And a perfect place for a bit of reflection on life, the universe and everything ...

PS A nice week-end to all who passes by this blog :-)

Mirror Through Windows

Few things beat shooting a side-view mirror through the windows of the car for composite reflections.

PS A nice week-end to all who passes by this blog :-)

Rhododendron in October

We have had a spot of "Autumn Summer" lately, so one of our Rhododendrons (Cunningham's White) has got spring feelings. It usually blooms in May around here.

An Old Autumn Chestnut

How do you like your chestnuts:
Alone on a lonely road?

With a red car passing by?

Or just with another person strolling by?

PS A nice week-end to all who passes by this blog :-)

"Sitting on the dock of the bay..."

The title may not fit precisely, but I could not resist the temptation when I met these two students who had a pleasant evening at the quay while watching Hurtigruten's ship MS Nordnorge getting ready to leave Bergen.

"My" beautiful ship is burning! - Updated

At 09.30 this morning the ship MS Nordlys, belonging to Hurtigruten (The Norwegian Coastal Voyage) caught fire. It happened just outside the city of Aalesund on the western coast of Norway, so that help was close at hand. The passengers were speedily evacuated, bur I'm sorry to have to tell you that two of the crew are dead and about ten are in hospital with fire related injuries. At the moment the fire (in the engine room) is not under full control, but one hopes to have it soon. The local Fire brigade, with reinforcements from other cities, the Navy and Coast Guard are assisting, as well as medical personnel, police etc. The photo above is from NRK (The Norwegian Broadcasting Cooperation), and more can be found here.

I feel I have a personal relationship with this ship: Two and a half months ago we travelled all the way from Bergen to Kirkenes with this ship. We had a wonderful trip aboard a wonderful ship (the photo below was shot at Kirkenes). In addition, it has passed beneath my windows innumerable times. It is a sad day.

Updated! The fire on the ship was luckily extinguished and all the passengers were evacuated without any large problems. However, shortly after the fire the ship developed a bad list to the port side - more than 20 degrees - due to the fire. After extensive work by competent personell, they managed to stabilize the ship. It is at present still in Aalesund awaiting repair.
I hope some day to make another trip.

At the same time I wish to thank you for all the nice comments!

Red Toadstool - "Rød fluesopp"

The official name of these visual beauties are Amanita muscaria. I found them this morning while out walking, and I couldn't resist the temptation of taking a few photos. However, I didn't pick them since they are NOT recommended for eating. BTW, this is supposed to be the "grown-up" version. I thought I might start with a photo from a somewhat unusual angle.

A more usual way to look at it.

Or maybe one should look at it from the top?

According to Wikipedia, this is a slightly younger version of the one above.

Including a view from the top.

Bounty

The sailing vessel "Bounty", made after the drawings of the original "HMS Bounty" for the famous '60s movie, is visiting us at the moment. She is clearly leaving an impression.

Autumn monochrome

Need I say more?

Autumn Light

The autumn has formally arrived, at least according to the calendar. And with September comes the Autumn Light. The evening light gives colours that is almost unbelievable to people who are not used to them. I took these shots yesterday evening.

Above is one of our "sacred" mountains, Fløyen, basking in the evening sun.

This is our currently most famous ship, Hurtigruten's M/S Nordnorge, just leaving Bergen.

This is not a church, but what is known as Corps de Garde. The name is due to its former use as a watchtower for the local militia during the Napoleonic wars, and was built in 1794.

The church silhouetted against the sunlit clouds is called Nykirken - literally The New Church. However, it was initially built in 1621, but has been destroyed by fire and rebuilt a number of times. The last destruction was during ww2.

A nice week-end to all who passes by!

The Library - A Place for Reflections

The Bergen Public Library (Bergen Offentlige Bibliotek) has recently been extended and modernized. Now you can reflect there even more.

We were hoping for eagles ...

... but had to settle for feeding yearling gulls.

OOPS!!!