Mr Ryan McArthur.

I've got such a huge headache right now. Thought today would be a chill unwind day after a week at work. Spent the whole day running around sorting my macro financial crisis. I hate banks, I hate signing papers, I hate explaining myself in Norwegian, I hate money. On the other hand though, I love being creative, I love getting possibilities to work with other creative people. That happened today too. My buddies at Spætt Media offered me a spot to shoot on one of their productions on Thursday. Looking forward to it.

One of my other creative friends is Ryan McArthur, who apart from being a walking, talking BBC comedy series is bass player of note. I think me and Ryan played in a few bands that lasted for 1 exclusive practice and then changed members and names within a few days.

Needless to say, the dude is way talented. At the moment he is playing with some other friends of mine, namely Dom Otto in a band called Peachy Keen. And I'm sure he has a couple other side projects on the go. Here are some shots I shot with Ryan the same day I shot Dom. Thoughts? Love 'em? Hate 'em? Leave a comment and I most probably won't get back to you. N.

Saturday Jam.

Word up.... I write this sitting in the most warped heasdspace ever. I wont go into the details now, but look out for a post im planning soon titled: "A word of warning". Anyway, currently dealing with heartbreak of many kinds, lost a girlfriend of 2+ years, lost of a friend of ummmm, a few weeks... Even, you basterd. Dude, you were such a vibe!!! COME BACK TO TRONDHEIM!!! lol. Anyway, being out at sea in these trying times makes things more trying, but I'm alive, well fed, on my way to buying my first property, not on the rock, and surrounded by friends and family that love me. That might sound a bit gay or whatever, but at the end of the day thats actually what matters most. For real.

Im busy editing 4 different series of shots at the moment, so things are a bit hectic, especially after being  at work for 12-14 hours a day. They will be rad though, trust me. In the mean time though, thought I would share a rad track with ya'll. Been a while since I posted some D'n'B, such a summer tune!!! Good times to come this year! Enjoy.

Schmoetswink!!!

Here is my edit of the pictures I shot of my good friend Dom. Quite possibly the most interesting headshots/portraits I have ever done. I love them and I love the B+W. Was very tempting to process some of the others in the same colour palette I used on the one. Just does'nt carry as well, if you know what I mean. B+W just snaps for me. Tickles me better than colour for this set of photo's. I started at 170+ images and worked my way down 8. It was literally like shooting my own children in the face. I hate selecting the "good one's". Eventually I said, stuff it, and how I figured out what gets posted and how it gets processed is completely based on: Do I absolutely love that photo? If there was any doubt, it  gets pushed aside. So these shots are the one I absolutely loved. Im not going to buzz on about anymore  arb crap. Here's Dom. N. 

Those of you that have the pleasure of knowing this stunning young woman will also know what noise she is making here.

Add caption

My favourite out of the lot.

17th of May.

Yeah, 17th of May. As you're reading this you suddenly realise you've now questioned your self as to what day of the month it is. Its the 19th of June. But where were you on the 17th of May? What did you do? I was at work on Transocean Spitsbergen eating ice creams and hot dogs and singing with all of the crew on board.

Kinda crazy to be celebrating something out at sea. I mean apart from the fact you're alive and that at some point you will go home. The 17th of May in Norway is a big deal. It the national day. Its like the day Mandela was voted into office, but every year. Again and again and again. Nationalism hey? I think this something maybe Norway should lay low on for a while. Just a quick one here, who was the last dude you heard about that was stoked on nationalism in Norway? OH! Who? That dude. Yeah.

Here's a little tip to Norway, next year on the 17th of May, instead of doing anything, just chill. I mean do what ever you want, eat the hot dogs and ice creams and wear the viking costumes, personally I would really think out the box and something completely new. Like get a little "recreational" and do some speed. Think about it, when was the last time you celebrated anything by doing class-A narcotics? Yeah, exactly. Change the name, I thought the combination of crystalised methamphetamine usage and "Quickly Day" had a pleasant ring to it. Or "Sweaty Day" or "Oh-My-God-I-Cant-Stop-Eating-The-Inside-Of-My-Face Day". Whatever, you get what I'm saying. Nationalistic ain't the coolest thing to be in Norway right now. Here some pictures I forgot to post on the 17th of May. More goodies coming soon. N.

Good vibes on deck with all my Norwegian colleagues.

Transocean Spitsbergen, 17-05-2012

Drillfloor gang on TSB.

Snapping, Crackling, Wiggling, Bouncing and Stomping.

Quick post here, I was out last night shooting two buddies of mine who are the electric duo known as Snap'n'Crackle. Banging out some rad tunes that totally  remind of me Fiction back back home in CT. I have been hassling these dudes for I cant remember how long to shoot a concept I have for them... Proving to be very difficult to get grasp on two dudes whose ADHD is on par with my own. Hopefully we will be able to shoot the concept some time this spring/summer before weather decides to go pear-shaped again.

Im still getting used this 5D mk2 issue with AF, therefore I was relying heavily on the 7D and fisheye combo last night. Also shooting on-camera flash non-TTL setting's. Frustrating as hell to rear-curtain sync dragging the shutter at +-4sec's with 4 dancefloor strobes going off at random intervals. Oh well. One of the challenges I guess.

Any how, if youre in TRD, and you like to dance until you cant dance anymore, I strongly advise you stick your head in the next Snap'n'Crackle show you come across. Here are some shots from last night. I was in my usual state of confusion with some of them that I couldn't decide what looked better, B+W or colour, the colour ones look a bit hipsterish, but every now and then, I can be a bit hipsterish too, I mean this is a blog after all? Laters, N.

Cant decide whether Even is the Snap or the Crackle of the two of them.

Snappin' and Cracklin'.

Whats an electro party with out cute girls to dance with?

Back from SA... Again.

Word up. Holy shizniz.... Its been like almost a full month since I released the opinionated, leftist, self-absorbed monster that occasionally takes pictures out in public. This can be explained. Ive been doing some hunting, fine tuning, complaining, and wasting my time with mundane tasks that fail to amuse toddlers.

First, lets get this one issue cleared up. Those of you that actually spend any amount of time following this nonsense rant space might have noticed my last post. The one about me actually being Jewish. I was slandered for being racist, condescending, and arrogant. Condescending and arrogant, yes, completely, in fact I always have sprinkle of arrogance with every starch I eat and a dash of *condescendingnessment* with every cup of tea I drink. Racist? No, no, no. I hate everybody. Case closed.

I just got home from a near 3 week trip back home where the weather was possibly worse than Norway. That part sucked, but of course it was awesome to see my friends and family and most definitely my dog. I want a dog here.

Now down to business. Lets see... I have been shooting! Very cool stuff as well. Really damn cool stuff actually. Unfortunately I'm juggling most of my time behind the monitor either editing, house hunting or playing Diablo 3. I hate that game. Not really. But I hate how is sucks me into doing nothing but playing for hours on end.

As soon as I'm done editing the headshot's, dirt jumping and portraits from my last session I'll post em up. Until then I can only give you a peek at a shot that I really loved and I couldn't decide whether I liked better in B+W or colour. Heres a heads up though, these are straight out of camera, obviously converted to B+W, cropped and resized, but no fiddling. 5D Mk2, when it works, it works damn well. Not often I do this, but it works here. Theres a reason I did this, but more on it when I post the rest o the session. Like the B+W better than colour? Leave a comment and let me know. Peace, N.

Dom Otto in black in white, although she is very colourful.

Dom Otto in colour.

New Inspiration

I'm still alive. Everyone calm down. It might have seen like I have fallen off the face of terra firma, but I have been scrounging for a while now. But fear not followers and passer-byers.

Today I had a meeting with a company in Trondheim called Spætt Media. I have an old friend that is one of the partners in this small but very creative and very dynamic company. We will hopefully be looking at co-operating on some productions in the future. I love working with like minded people and especially people that are in similar creative areas as me.

Im really glad I got to connect with these guys as it gave a little inspiration and motivation to get off my ass and start doing what I apparently love doing again. Im amped as hell again. Just such a damn shame Im going out to work for 10 days on Monday!!! Frustration.

As a photographer, or a videographer we are in very seperate areas, but we share alot in common, this why I look forward to any projects that involve working with people like the guys at Spætt. All of us have different perspective of seeing things and working together and sharing ideas is a great way to build up relationships and great art together.

We hope to put together something fun and interesting that can showcase our respective talents. Watch this space closer to summer. In the mean time, here is a little showreel clip from Spætt and a link to there website. I dont have any new photo's right now, because I havent shot anything vaguely interesting in about a month. But here is something cool anyway. N.

Please be sure to check out Spætt Media here:

http://www.spaett.no/

I take my hat off...

Long time no see... What have you been doing? Hopefully lots of good things and making yourselves happy? What have I been doing? Nothing. Thats right. Seems that I have acquired a horrible case of creative block. That coupled with general lack of enthusiasm and laziness has lef me bored as hell and not really motivated to anything new and fresh the last couple of weeks. Am I that worried about this? Is Jacob Zuma worried about the state of affairs in the country he "leads"? For my Norsk followers: Is Anders Breivik seemingly worried about the judgement he faces? Put shortly, No. I could be as phased right now as the ignorant wallowing hippopotamus is about climate change and global warming.

Can I blame others for my lethargy and unwillingness to create? Yes. But I'm not going to. I hate complaining and the miserable part of the unhappy population that sees fit to do so, so I will spare all of us the hypocrisy and self indulgent whining that all of the married men reading this have come to endure. What I can moan about though is the sheer uselessness of some of my intended clients. It seems that Norwegians have to much damn money or time or both. Why does no-one in this ice-blasted hell hole want anything for free? And how under God's scarcely seen sun can they drink so much?

Some of you may recall a post I made a while ago where I was looking for a job as a photo assistant? I offered myself pro bono, with no luck. I still struggle to understand how this didn't work out. At the moment Im trying (admittedly not too hard) to get more into entertainment photography, Bands, Musicians, DJ's and so on. Im also offering myself either free, if the work could potentially benefit my portfolio or lead to other paying work, or at a ridiculously low rate. How many callbacks have I got? mhm..... NONE! I cant really be that gobsmacked, considering the amount of effort that needs to be put in to make this work. Unfortunately the associating factors with musicians is the general lifestyle they lead. I know, I was one too. Thank God I gave up smoking bags upon bags of dope and drinking and railing lines before I was old enough to make the decision to be a muso as a career choice. Communists. Its seems like all the musicians I surround myself with are damned Marxist believers. Oh well.

This is where the actual point of this post comes in. If you are a photographer thats out there shooting all the time and being fresh and doing new things and trying new techniques and cranking out brilliant pictures, I take my hat off to you good sir(s) and madam's. I was under the romantic allure that my last creative nosedive would be abruptly ended when spring came back to the north. Spring has started batting her eyelashes, and Im still stuck. But why? Sun and warmth and all the things that my inspiration needs are coming back into place. And not to mention that you need somewhat decent light to take decent pictures. Some people just have it... The hustle, the gift of the game. Some people are the game, some people make their own game. Look at photographers like Peter Hurley, and his signature headshot business. I can even look 200m down the road at one of my friends, Elisabeth Jakobsen. I can see a picture of hers a mile away and see its here. Another friend of mine Linn Heidi also, she only shoots film, and mostly medium format. But she has this gorgeous look. All of these people are unmistakably talented and unmistakable when you look their work.

I guess the take away here is that the first thing is to be good at what you do, your particular style and your look are important too, but you need to be good at that. Being different helps too. These days with everyone basically remixing everyone else's work, being different definitely helps and will go along way.
The second part is the hustle. Just so you guys know, when I mean hustle, I mean how you sell your service or market yourself/ product. I dont mean shortchanging your client. This will comeback on you quicksticks and will cut out your future work possibilities sevenfold. You have to have hustle... You gotta know what it is you are good at and be able to understand how you can interest people in that. I can hustle. I could sell whale steak to Greenpeace. And Im coming up on the aforementioned side too.

Do I have anything recent to show that will make you eyeballs pop out of your head? No... Apart from an extremely gay sunset and some random snapshits. Which I choose not to show. However I do have a little collection of B+W pictures that have not seen the light of day. Speak soon. N.

The view from atop a grassy knoll somewhere in the lesser visited Eastern Cape

My old friend Bianca.

My new friend Dean

  

Vega Export Compressor.

Sunday afternoon and all is well. Finally going home tomorrow. Its about time. Cabin fever was starting to get the better of me. The weather at the moment looks pretty shite, hopefully it clears up for the chopper tomorrow though.

Last night was very cool though. I played a gig with some of my co-workers here on Gjøa for all our other co-workers. We are called Vega Export Compressor. Bit of an inside joke for those that work on Gjøa. Vega is the name of one the fields we produce from. And the Export Compressor part is, well... the bit on the platform that compresses and exports the oil/gas to land. Yeah.

Chances of getting a record deal with Sony or Virgin aren't looking that great right now. But hey, we actually played good  songs and had an awesome time doing it. Vega Export Compressor is comprised but not limited to:

Per - Rhythm Guitar.

Åge "Aleksandersen" Olsen - Lead guitar and vocals

Jan - Keyboard and Bass.

Me - hitting and kicking stuff.

We played some Pink Floyd, Clapton, and some other chilled tunes. What made it really cool was just thinking about what i was actually doing. Playing a show on a platform in the North Sea, the window behind my kit where we setup our stage was overlooking the North Atlantic. Pretty cool. I really enjoyed playing again as I havent played in over 3 years or something like that.  Hopefully when I get a bigger residence I will get a drum kit again. Here are some photo's courtesy of Edgaras Bira and some video footage courtesy of Pierre Lindberg. Cheers. N

Our official press release photo. Yip, should have brought the 5D with this time.
L-R: Åge, Per, TwoShoes, Jan.

Vega Export Compressor entertaining the masses.

Gjøa... 19days of gourmet food and shear boredom.

Hello people. I seemed to have lapsed a bit with finding cool things to put up here... Do not be afraid keen followers and random by passers (or bystanders if this blog has harmed you in anyway). I have been busy!
Alas it has not been my first preference of busy. Although this is a very close second.

Im at work on Gjøa again, if you remember, I was here last year for 14 days for the riser change out project. I love this place. I was just asked today to stay on the current project for an extra 5 days over Easter. On the one hand this is great for a few reasons. Im saving plenty money by not being on land for 3 weeks. Im also making good money, 3 days of holiday pay which is also overtime because of the tour extension. 200% O/T + 7,5 hours pay. Sweet. The food here is also mind-numbingly good. Tonight was mussels and pepper fillet with a dessert table the size of my apartment. (For those that dont know, I live in a box...). On the other hand, I might be going slightly befok. We have had one day climbing the last 9 days. The rest of the time we have been killing time with games, coffee, and plenty cigarettes. Hopefully there is a bit more in the next couple days. We have plenty to do, the weather just keeps on dashing our dreams of actually doing an honest days work.

The current job we are focused on and waiting for the weather to play ball on is an inspection and pre-build out plan for a replacement of a heatshield under the free-fall life boat station. The last one which weighed 760kg was ripped off during the big storm last year christmas time. The plan to replace it involves building scaffold, rope access, rigging and the north side deck crane. This is once again an awesome job on Gjøa.

Here are some pictures of the first days inspection. N.

Lifeboats 1-3. Notice the bottom left corner of the picture and you will see the lack of corrugated steel.

The original lux that held the frame for the heat-shield in place.

LARK.

Possibly one of the most underrated bands in SA, and also one of the bands that unfortunately does not fit the mould of radio-friendly pop. On one hand, this is sad, because they do miss out on a lot of potential exposure. On the other hand, I love it that only a handful of people (in the grander scheme of things) know about this little gem.

What can I say? They are South African, you wouldnt guess it, when you hear the majority of the other "music" we churn out. The trends have come and gone, and will continue to do so. We saw the angry kids sings punk rock songs and be pissed off and misunderstood, we are now seeing its cool to be redneck, cheesy and rap in afrikaans. (I actually like afrikaans rap.) One things that has always stood out for me about Lark, apart from the voice, sex appeal and on stage presence of the mesmerising Inge Beckmann, is the inability to put them into a category. Glitch? Electro melodramatic opera? Scandal? Melodic chaos? A rythmic gangbang? What the hell do you call music like this?!

Their new album is dropping soon, Im really looking forward to this one, Ive heard one of the singles which is rad, and similar to the last warmth and eccentricity we have come to love. Although the new video was slightly short of the mark in my opinion, I am excited none the less. Here is are two videos and some tracks that i loved. N.

Some tracks on SoundCloud:

http://snd.sc/Hf4edI

http://snd.sc/sVvLyk

Prince, not really, but his face.

Been a while, Im at work right now, have been for 3 days and will be until the 4th of April. So not much going on in terms of shooting and photo stuff.  I have some cool stuff though, so I will be posting it when we have some down time.

Although, before I left Trondheim, I shot something for some friends that run a cool little bar in town. They  are hosting a "Tribute to Prince" party next Friday. What is that dudes name now actually? The artist formerly known as Prince or The artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince? Dont know.

Anyway, they had seen or found a picture of someone creating an optical illusion of being Prince or the artist formerly known as Prince or the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince by holding one of his album covers over their torso. I wish like hell I had that picture now, so you could actually see what we did. Before and after vibe.

The shoot was fun and really easy because I knew my only deliverable would be one image. And we knew straight away when we had the shot. The look for the image was kinda voyeuristic, amateur, Terry Richardson-ish (not disrespect to him! But he has a very cool style that resembles this.) on camera flash style. But I always take my flash off camera as god intended it to be. Enjoy, N

Strobist Info: One hotshoe in a Lastolite 8-in-1 setup like a soft box (reflective back) with a choke/snoot on a white umbrella. Shot to camera left over shoulder. 

Dancing on a Saturday afternoon

Once again, something very different. I originally got inspired to shoot some dance orientated photography because of a couple reasons. Firstly, I love to dance. I dont know if I'm good at it or if you can even be "good" at dancing. Secondly, the movement of the human body is something that has always fascinated me. Whether it be sports, posing a model, shooting portraits, or taking snapshots, the body expresses a lot.

The natural shapes, angles and asymmetrical lines and forms are something unique with each one of us. I had never shot any dance photo's before today, its pretty difficult. I thought that I could use my 7D and just motor-drive my way through all the blur of the fast movement. But actually I want to carry some of the movement throughout the pictures. I shot this all on my 5D Mk2. Another reason aside from the full frame sensor is the better ISO performance. This camera does magic in low light, The ISO 400 - 500 files straight out of camera looked on par if not better than ISO 250 files out of the 7D.

I asked a friend of Elisabeth's, Vilde, if I could tag along and watch and shoot some frames while watching them practice. It was really cool to see the energy and movement that I had imagined come to life in a studio. Thanks Vilde and everyone else whose name I don't know.

Enough with the nerdy stuff. I hope to put a shoot of some sorts together in the near future utilizing the dance aspect to my advantage. I have some ideas and would love to put them into motion soon. Anyway, here are some pictures. There are a lot of them, as I was really not in the mood to make crucial decisions. Boom, N.

Happy feet.