Photographing Copenhagen: Getting hygge with it

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. 

Cafe society is alive and well and stopping for a smørrebrød, Tuborg and akvavit. There are over 40 brands of the latter. Akvavit is to Denmark as pastis is to Provence.                           

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)

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. 

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.  

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)

Dreich at Hellerup #1

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.

Working Stiffs: The Book

Well, this embarrassing. I opened up my text editor and found the following article. What with one thing and another happening around the maison, I forgot to post the following announcement.

I’m pleased to announce the publication of my latest photobook, “Working Stiffs: The People”. This is a collection of images is dedicated to the men and women who get things done.

You know, the ones who deliver the beer, make sure the traffic flows, make sure that the lads don’t get out of control. The ones who build our buildings, clean our streets and catch our fish — the overlooked, the unseen, the ignored, the spoken down to — are the ones without whom our urban world would quickly grind to a halt.

I started on this project about a year ago and after some twists and turns prints have been pulled and a book published. You can go have a look at the book by following the link in the sidebar (and buy one).

I learned a lot of technical "stuff" over the course of the year. Things like:

• "Windex cures more than arthritis and tennis elbow" It's true! Best print head cleaner ever! Remove the print head, soak in about 1/8" of Windex for 24 hours, wipe with distilled water (the real stuff, not just Brita filtered) and your're good to go.
• Monitors are too bright; turn them down to 80% (at least) and then calibrate. This gives you a fighting chance pulling a print that comes close in luminance to what is printed. To get even closer (at least for black and white prints) order the calibration print from Ilford Labs, download the the calibration file and tweek the monitor so the file and the print match.
• Paper makes the difference. When I started printing, I softproofed in Lightroom and printed on some off the shelf Canon Super Glossy II paper. The result where OK but not what I remembered when I was printing in the darkroom all those years ago. I settled on Moab Juniper Baryta paper and the results where stellar. It was like looking at the Ilfobrom Type 3 resin coated paper I cut my teeth on all those years ago.
• Keep the book layout simple. I decided on a minimalist layout. The hard bit was deciding on a typeface that was reflected the subject matter and wasn't a distraction to the image. I ended up deciding on the DINPro typeface in varying weights.
• Blurb's software doesn't recognize OpenType fonts: I needed to change my OpenType fonts to TrueType. Come on Blurb, that should be a no brainer.
• NIK Silver Efex is still the best Black and White tool out there. Franzis BW Projects 5 is getting close and I like some of the effects. I'm going to work with it a lot more. I wish Google would just opensource NIK and be done with it. The world doesn't need more abandonware.
• Run a checklist. Being solo means no external eyes to do QA or QC, make sure you're exporting files properly, proofread, spell check and provide feedback on layouts, sequencing and all the million things that go into an enterprise like this.

Be ready for the unexpected turn. In doing the photo selection, I discovered I had another project at about the same state as when I started this one: "Working Stiffs: Tools of the Trade" Given the speed I work at this should be ready this time next year.

Some photographers are of the school that holds "A photograph isn't exist until it's printed". I have to agree with that. There's an intense satisfaction in seeing the image emerge from whatever process you use.

The Working Stiffs galleries are here.