Daydreaming and the excitement of the unknown.

Wow.... Been a  while since I've done this whole shebang. To be completely honest, I have been way too busy for my own good lately. I feel burnt out and unmotivated.

I go through this phase every Autumn. I have this cycle of being so amped during Spring and Summer that I shoot and shoot and grind myself down. Then I sit and scheme and plan and spend more time worrying about how to actually make things happen than getting anything done. I was planning to write a book on procrastination, but I think I'll start that next week. When Autumn and Winter come round I have run out of creativity and have no will or energy to even think about doing something interesting. I know it has something to do with the weather. The Norwegian weather kills me, I have no sense of belonging and am completely out of place in the snow. Today was the first snowfall in Trondheim. The initial excitement of waking up to a completely white city wore off as soon as I had to trundle up to the shop to buy coffee and rolls. Its not romantic. Its not cosy. It sucks. I remember last year or the year before I went through the same shit. I didn't pick up my camera for two months. I was worried in the beginning. Then I kind of grew to accept the fact that I cant squeeze creativity out of myself, at least not all the time.

 I walk past my camera everyday, mentally it feels we are like a couple with some intimacy issues. She wants my attention, wants to be held and have her buttons pushed. I greet her as I get out of bed on my way to the kitchen. I make some coffee and sit in the deepish nook of my window sill that is my favourite "drift off and zone out" place. I smoke a cigarette and watch the world scuttle past down below. I steal a glimpse at her poking here head out of the shelf. I think about how good things are when we are together. We make things together, we compose, manipulate and create together. I know what she is capable of, I know how to take care of her, and recognise her in my hands every time. She makes some mistakes some times, but I forgive her, she is not perfect, but neither am I. Some times I blame her for my mistakes too. I could be better at taking responsibility for this. She sits there staring at me on some days, pleading to be taken out into the world and shown things she has never seen before.

I have been shooting a bunch of personal projects lately, some of them you will see and some f them you won't. The ones that you will see are great and something I am really proud of. They might not have great meaning to you as the viewer, but for me, the personal effort, sentiment and value is enormous. My head is in a thousand places now. So many things to finish, so many to get started, so many to follow up. I can only do so much at one time. This whole vibe of not shooting and being idle is ok for now. I have accepted that there now only a few weeks left for me to start getting things done. I have committed myself to the process of making some of these happen. Commitment is such a massive thing for me at the moment. I have been so scared to challenge myself and do things out of my usual way, experimenting, playing, testing, making mistakes. A while ago I had to remind myself why I started doing all of this..... Why was that again? Recognition? No. Fame? No. Money? No. To be talented at something? No. Fun? Yes. Photography can be a mental burden, a leech on one's soul when the inspiration runs out, a financial gamble, an art, a rewarding pastime, and a form of art. For me its the reward and the process of making something beautiful come to life. Capturing a moment that can be shared with everyone.

Winter here is a fuck up. Unless you have some winter fashion idea that will probably be cheesy as fuck no matter which angle you look at it. Actually, I do have some cool ideas for shooting outdoor stuff in the snow, but my word, how I can not be bothered to haul all the gear out into the snow and stand there and freeze. Hopefully when I get round to doing these, they won't be cheesy as fuck. Hopefully. So apart from the freezing temps, the shitty light, the misery of just living in Trondheim in Winter, there is actually nothing for me here in this time of year. In fact anywhere north of Morocco is fairly superfluous this time of year.

I hold my hope in one thing that is just around the corner. One thing that will fill my heart and my sun deprived skin with warmth. One place that always make my heart beat to a rhythm I can dig. Home. Cape Town. Oh yes. It has been way too long my old friend. Sun, beach, shorts, lazy evenings, my car, my family, my dog, food, moms cakes, dad's shit jokes, friends. Ill take it all right now. The best part of all of it is the time, 10 weeks!!! Half of which will probably go into shooting and building up my book so that I can show some spring/summer fashion when I get home in February. Its going to be great. I also have this bucket list of shots to get. Some of the big ones will start falling off the list soon. This one thing is pretty much the only thing that is keeping me from putting the toaster in the bath right now.

At the moment I have some other things going on here, making my new home feel like home is coming along pretty well. Tying up the last of the offshore jobs for 2012 is also on the cards. A short trip down to my favourite coastal town in South-Western Norway is also a possibility. And then I'm gone. Will try put up some things whilst I'm working through my mountain of shit. In the mean time here are some of the things, and people I have been shooting with my iPhone. For those of you that are on Instagram, you can follow me @twoshoesphoto. Much love as always for all of you out there following my blog. Take it easy. N.

PS. iPhone 5 camera? OMG!!! I want one soooooo bad. (Just had to drop that in there!)

Sad looking dogs always have the most personality.

Skate session with the boys. Rock, paper, scissors for who goes first.

I made dinner for 9, one of my most impressive feats to date.

Give some, Get some! Got invited to dinner with my girls. Thank you!!!

Collected the key to my new crib. So proud, so stoked, so much spaaaaace!

Went IKEA shopping with the rarest Pokemon from Bergen. Swedish meatballs are a given.

Went shopping for furniture with Linsa, acquired this bad boy Transformer of a coffee table in jet black.  Its now in feed me stuff mode.

And now in: "Oh hi! Im a sneaky coffee table" mode.

The boys testing out the PS3 and the stereo that is waaaaaay too big for my own good. Noise complaints are expected shortly.

Made a biltong pizza. OMG! Words cannot describe the stoke.

Norwegian poetry. Makes me restless!

Bought a bad ass little floor sucker! His name is Darth Vader.

Fast wireless internet courtesy of Apple. This thing is the business!

Breast cancer awareness. I showed and am still showing my support.

Tooooo many potatoes.... Amazing home cooked food ala TwoShoes.

First snow today. Tooooo soon.

SATURDAY!!!

Good Afternoon all, hope you guys had a good Friday night? I did! I connected with a fashion designer  in the UK, who is doing some very cool stuff. Basic, simple and beautiful. Also she is one of my best friends sisters. So I'm very excited to get some more fashion stuff going... Watch this space. In the mean  time though, you can also watch their space at:

                                                      www.rokadesign.com

or their blog at :                      www.rokafashion.blogspot.com

Now then, hopefully now the female percentage of readers here is satisfied with something shiny to look at instead of listen to me ramble. Here is some more news though, Im making a relatively conscious effort at the whole social media, network thing. I decided to reclaim and liberate my Facebook account from the harlot of a girlfriend that had control over it. Was great to find out though that since we split, she changed her status to single, or emotionally incapable, or just plain fucking deranged, but didn't bother to change mine. I only figured that out a few days ago. Its been like 3months since we broke up. What bothers me about this is that the potential amount of passer by's that could have possibly been Mrs Schwerdtfeger is well, realistically not that high considering I only have like 60 friends, but still existent. To make up for the unforeseen catastrophe and somewhat humorous attempt at cock blocking me, from today there will be a period of reconciliation. What this means to you is that if you were a single girl, that was turned away by the false pretence of me being monogamous during the said time frame, you can now make up for lost time. Im single, virile and disease free now, and have been for the last 3 months. You know what to do.

Back to Facebook, yes I'm on there. Find me, my general rule for being friends is that you should not be someone I want to strangle in real life. I'm on Instagram too now! Im using it for what it is, and trying to expand and get my work seen by as many people as possible. Twitter is next, but that will wait for a bit. Im getting used to the whole mish mash of this Facebook, Blogger, Instagram stuff first. You can find me on Facebook as: Nic Schwerdtfeger and on Instagram as: twoshoesphoto.
Uploading DSLR pictures to Instagram? Showing pictures that are post-processed in Lr or Ps on Instagram? What you guys think? Does it beat the purpose of Instagram as the platform it is? Or is it cool? Leave a comment.

Now for some pictures. All shot on iPhone, all fixed in Lr, except for the last one, you'll see why. Oh... I almost forgot. Here's a video that I have fallen in love with. Its Norwegian artist that one of my girlfriends introduced me to, Susanne Sundfør. Check it out, reminds me a bit of LARK! Have a rad Saturday everyone! Caio, N.

Pictures:

Plenty of time spent on trains over that weekend.

The cool part of Groningen, the city.

Acting like a horse?

Hulle kan mos langarm dans daar in die oorsee.

Two Shoes gets new shoes! Myself and my cuz rocking it.

Best fun you can have with a lawn mower engine.

I WON!

Kokomo Beach Club, sounds like a place outta Vice City or a Travolta movie? It is! The DJ booth is a frikkin' boat!

Most beautiful sunset Ive seen in 6 months, lasted for an hour. Straight out of camera. No PP. 

iPhone-o-graphy part 2.

Hahaha. I just used Google Chrome to translate my last blog into Norwegian. What a laugh. I remember once at work offshore we spent the better part of half an hour laughing at Google Translate saying perverse things in a Norwegian Stephen Hawkins voice. Small things amuse small minds huh.

Hopefully going back to Reykjavik in September to teach at the Reykjavik Fashion Academy for a few days. Really excited about that. For the meantime though I have slightly more bigger issues to worry about. After completely crashing out from sleep deprivation yesterday, I flopped into bed at 9:30PM, content just to be horizontal for more than 30 minutes, my peaceful slumber was violently brought to a halt at just after 3:00AM after the general alarm went off. ( There is no different alarm for major or minor accidents, same flashing lights and infernal pitched beeping regardless) The first thing that races through your mind is: Oh Fuck. Nothing more, nothing less. Just that. Either something has gone wrong on a catastrophic level in which case you have to act smartly and quickly or something has gone wrong on a  catastrophic level and its too late to act at all. The next thing that floated into my semi-conscious state of mind was: Where is my survival suit? And do I have time to put it on? Right. Its under my bed, and lets wait and hear for what the platform chief says next. First sign of the word gas rolling off his tongue, and Im out of here. That suit will keep you warm for 8 hours in frigid sea water, but will not help for 30 seconds in a room being pumped full of hydrogen sulphide. I always think the worst, that way when it is the worst, at least you've had a few seconds to mentally prepare for what happens next. My plan was to gun it down the hall, make for the stairs and get to either the helideck or my lifeboat station quick sticks.

Luckily the word gas never saw the light of day. The words sewerage, 1st floor and problem did though. A gentle wave of relief lapped over my now cold sweat ridden and tense body. At least the problem wasn't going to affect me immediately. You can safely assume as well that all is well here considering I had time to plot out and type this post. As much I love blogging, if I had to jump into the sea, you wouldn't hear about here. CNN, BBC, or the local newspaper might be the best options to keep your eyes on.

Turns out the entire sewerage system on the first floor decided to give up on life in the early hours of the morning, spewing out its contents to the bathroom floor of every cabin simultaneously. Keep in mind there are +-30-35 cabins on the 1st floor, this meant big shit. (Sorry, I had to. That isn't the last one either). I was on the 4th floor, but with one peek out down the stairwell I could smell the problem. Ventilation in the living quarter is quite good, its over pressured for safety reasons, which means the air circulation is better than a normal room with normal atmospheric pressure. This proved to be a serious issue 20 minutes after the initial porcelain volcano erupted. The aftershocks were quite powerful and its 2:35PM and the stench is still very much there. This meant that the entire 1st floor was evacuated, all the unnecessary personal were sent home by chopper and the people that needed to sleep were found rooms by 10AM this morning. The hotel manager must have had fun organising that by herself at 7AM. Three choppers in and out within a 1hour time frame. One of my colleagues was unfortunate enough to have been caught in the shitstorm. This meant that today was a write off for our entire team, as Statoil's rules state you must have at least 6 hours uninterrupted sleep off-shift. So he has had a pretty shitty time and been trying to nap the entire day while I have been doing other bits and pieces, namely editing iPhone pictures. Here's the second installment of my Reykjavik Romance iPhone-o-graphy set. Have a good day internet. N

The view from the harbour.

My two Norwegian buddies; Jo and Harald, good dudes, good vibes.

Clowns

Icelandic lanscape

Blue lagoon.

Free show in the middle of town.

Lobster and tiger prawn pasta.

Sunrise after a days shooting.

The wall of fame at Elite.

The studio at Elite.

Wardrobe for the shoot, 500.000 Icelandic Kronurs worth.

Maria getting made up.

I did that. I mistook the little Chevy for my bakkie.

Kristin Lilja watching me dig the car out of the beach sand.

Good-bye Reykjavik, Hello North-Atlantic.

So you might have guessed I'm back in Norway, well more accurately floating on a towering steel monstrosity in the lower half of the North-Atlantic off the coast of Norway. Quite a drastic change from the metropolitan romance I had the last ten days. Everything is far less sexy out here. Definitely.

I thought I should just bring ya'll up to speed on what I got up to and the nightmare that has been my life the last couple of days. Lets rewind back to Iceland. The shooting, OMFG!!! I shot pictures like a boss!!! Really excited to get working on these and get them out. Something very different to what I usually shoot, but you will definitely see that I had a finger in it. The hair, the make up, the drama, the love, the stress, the beauty, the sweat, the stuck rental car on the beach at 2:00AM. All of it. I want it all again. I've been on a kinda low after all of that. And I know why. Its like Laird Hamilton (If you dont know who he is, just google his name and check the images.) said when asked what he does when there are no 30+ft waves to surf. " Its like if you're a dragon slayer, and all of a sudden there are no more dragons to slay, what could you possibly do that compares to dragon slaying?"

I am such a perfectionist with everything when I shoot, composition, exposure, mood, colour, texture, and overall feeling. I put myself under such pressure to get the shot I'm after, I get buzzed off it. I literally go into another "stealth-brainwave-ninja-monk" state of mind. What can I do that gets me off like that that isn't shooting pictures?

Anyway, heavily sleep and sanity deprived fearing for my sexual orientation after being surrounded by women for 3 days in a row. I returned to dreary Norway with the feeling that my heart was still on a bench on a busy street in downtown Reykjavik. I was absolutely destroyed from the last three days, so tired that my fingernails and my teeth were sore. For real, never been that tired before. Then a quick 24 hours back in Trondheim I jumped on a plane at 5:00AM to get to another plane to catch a helicopter to flip out to my home for the next 14days, Visund. Before I go on with the actual point of this post, I'm going to drop a picture of Visund right about here, regular programming will continue shortly.

To put it in perspective, its about 110m x 110m deck space. Pic courtesy of :fylkesmagasinet.no

Right, the actual point of this post was to show some pictures. Some different ones aswell though, for a change instead of walking around looking like every other tourist with a DSLR and monster telephoto lens, I decided to use my iPhone. And because I'm not a hipster and care about how far off the line the saturation slider goes, I didn't use Instagram! I just could bring myself to do it. I tried one, and the vignette and the grain and the white balance warmth came on in such strong bounds in leaps, I couldn't help but laugh and think how is it this become so popular? Maybe to some iPhoneographers I over stepped the line and actually used a legit editing program (Lightroom) to jazz my pictures. What you think? Should iPhone pictures be edited strictly on iPhone software?

Anyway, think about it for a while, here's some pictures of what I did when I didn't have the 5D glued to my hand. More to come soon. N

He actually managed to fit the pint glass in his mouth.

Possibly my twin Icelandic brother. And a newly made girlfriend Sigga.

Yeah, that happened.

Steak burger and double thick choc shake. Quality.

Live DJ's and MC's almost everyday in the park. Good vibes.

A fairly large duckpond in downtown Reykjavik.

Symmetry, kinda.

Cars and stuff.

JUNGLE CAT!!! saw this on the way to the OMAM show.

The other side of the duckpond

Belt sushi.

Islandsk førfest.

Birthday girl.

Foos.

Kim Jong is illin'.