Been looking at my blog and it's been over a year since I've written anything. There's a reason for this. See, I've got this gig re-doing training materials for an old employer. Sure, it's just 20 hours a week, but at the end of a 4 hour stint in Powerpoint, LibreDraw and diety of choice knows what other software you really don't have that much creative mojo left especially when you're up to your armpits in the Canadian Air Regulations, a soul stifling document if one ever existed. I think only Lord Vetinari's clerk Drumknott's soul would take flight reading that benighted document. I digress.
I was fortunate enough to visit Copenhagen this past May. My eldest son works for an architecture firm there and has his four year residency visa. I was able to stay with him and his significant other (which makes it affordable as hotel rooms are astronomical, even at a modest inn). Their place is in Nørrebro, right by the train station. He describes it as "the hood" (with tongue firmly planted in cheek). It's a neighbourhood in transition, hosting migrants from many countries; one can see the first mosque in Denmark from their balcony.
Photographing in Copenhagen can be challenging, not because of the subject matter but because of the environment. Copenhagen is held up as a model for the modern bicycle-centric city. Thing is, they've made it more pedestrian hostile than New York (if such a thing can be imagined!). To make way for the bike lanes, they've narrowed the sidewalks so the buses and cars can still use the streets. Narrow sidewalks mean tap dancing around shop displays (more often then not of bicycles for sale), Danes, parked bicycles and you're often forced into the bike lane just to proceed down the street. And if you think that you're safe in a crosswalk with a red light showing for bikes and green light showing for us lowly foot travelers, think again. More than once I had to resort to my broadest NooYawk "Hey, I'm walkin' here!"
I digress, again.
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| Friends Dining |
Sometimes, if you look up you can see DEATH on holiday (naked, I might add, I doubt that Albert or Susan would approve)
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| DEATH takes a holiday |
I process all my black & white in NIK Silver Efex but since DxO bought NIK from Google, I decided to plump for DxO Photolab and FilmPack 5. This is the result of using the Velvia 50 preset.
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| Tag, Hoodie and Bottle |
The heat broke for a day as I was headed up to Helsingør in a sometimes steady drizzle. (No wonder Hamlet was gloomy). This was taken as we pulled out of Bispebjerg, one stop away from my son's apartment with my iPhone using the 645Pro Mk III camera App. It (to my mind) is probably the most underrated, app on the market. It feels like a camera.
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| Scratched Glass |
Ducking out of the drizzle after a rare passing thunderstorm at Hellerup station I saw this fellow traveler huddled against the wall doing the same. The first is with Silver Efex, the second is FilmPack and I can't remember what preset. I usually don't remember because it's really not all that important. They both remind me of a frame snatched from "The Sweeney". (I used the Scots word for "dreary, gloomy, bleak, miserable, grey, depressing, devoid of sunshine" in the caption. No doubt there is an Danish equivalent)
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| Dreich at Hellerup #1 |
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| Dreich at Hellerup #2 |
Not my best oeuvre but as they say, "A bad day's fishing beats a good day in the office"
Once you get your head wrapped around the idea that people on foot are invisible to anyone on wheels and therefore fair game (hit the photog and level up!) photographing in Copenhagen is quite interesting, especially once you are off the tourist trail and a become attuned to the tempo of the city. Next time, I hope to go out at night as I get the distinct feeling there is a side to Copenhagen that isn't all that hygge and would be very interesting to pretend to be a Brassai and have a look at that.
