House by the Lake

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Holmane, Norway

After checking into one of our less than optimal accommodation choices (there was only two for the whole trip 🙂 so our strike rate was pretty good ). I had some time to check out google maps to see what was around, interestingly we had visited a few Glaciers on the way down to this point, all which come off the Jostedalsbreen National park area and I noticed a little back road up to a southern access point to this place, never seen any images of this place, but it was only 30 kms away so a little drive was in order.

Now, I really bang on about these Norwegians and their darn tunnels, well this little drive really galvanised it for me. This road up to Veitastrond, which is a village of less than a thousand people has 3 tunnels with a 4th being constructed, now these are not tunnels to punch thru mountains but simply to avoid having a bit of windy road on the lake 🙂 ie just cut thru the edge of the hill. We here in Oz struggle to get a freakin tunnel in our largest city to service…hundreds of thousands of people, yet here I was driving thru tunnels (each a few kms long), albeit single lane ones, to a village that has only a few hundred people… mind blowing. What was also really cool was that the tunnels had no lights and were full of fog.. very very cool 🙂

This was just one a few really nice houses sitting bit the edge of the Veitastrondavatnet .. yeah try and pronounce that 🙂

3 shot panorama, each shot in the landscape orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 70-200 mm f2.8 @ 82mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 5s
ISO: 100
out front: epic house location

Climber

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good help is hard to find 🙂 – what is with kids when they get tired, rather winding down they (well ours) wind up, after a full day of walking around and smashing some castles, museums and crown jewels she still has the energy for some climbing before dinner

Scott Monument

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sweaty palms

I must really be getting old – i paid 5 quid to walk up this bunch of sandstone bricks built in 1840 with gale force wind.. ok maybe not gale force, but when your on a staircase that is 2 foot wide in the fresh air it feels like a gale force 😉

I would have done this in a heartbeat when I was a kid – and that is what Chaos did, she had no problems, just successfully scaring the crap outta dad by hanging off the bars 🙂 I really considered turning around and going back down 🙂 now before ya'all judge me, the stairs on the last platform are really small in height, width and depth, mjusta been designed for midgets, me, being slightly larger (height) then the average dude with size 14 shoes it was abundantly clear that they did not think of me when making this spiral staircase, i had to squeeze out the top of this stair case (like a cork coming out of a fine scottish whiskey bottle) to get to the top viewing platform.. did i mention those gale force winds…? and the fact that this thing is over 150 years old…;)

The tower is a 200 ft and 6 inches tall, the fact they include that 6 inches is kinda funny 🙂

The walk down is not much chop either. I lost another 1000 brain cells as I hit me head on each spiral staircase … really they could have just added another foot to the height of the staircase 🙂

What would be cool tho is to get a sheet of mdf and sit on that and go down the stair case.. that would also sort out the traffic issues and right of way problems 😉

Swedish Turbine

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So, in Sweden they have a mix of energy production with the majority being hydro, kind helps when you have all that water handy 🙂 they also have a few nuclear plants one of which is pretty large, the other source, which i think is about 5% of their power, is wind turbine, in southern Sweden around Lund where we stayed the countryside was completely dotted with these turbines. I would have to recommend that certain Australian politicians (and ex pollies) not to visit here since they are so significantly offended by the sight of wind farms 😉

I quite liked the sight, these tall slow turning towers to me simply represent a low impact renewable energy source, it was really cool that all you could see is a tower and a slow turning prop, all the electrical cables are buried under ground. The noise is well.. almost non existent.

I do like my lone trees in a paddock or on a beach, so it was cool to spot this lone tower on a late night drive on the first night in Sweden. The sun had just gone down (11pm ish) and the pascals had come out.

3 shot panorama
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 mm f2.8 @ 50mm Aperture: f7.1 and Shutter Speed: 1/2.5s
ISO: 250
out front: Lee 0.6 Graduated Filter

Ben Nevis Waterfall

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After camping overnight at this spot myself and my best photographic buddy for the holiday, aka chaos, walked the 20 seconds from our campsite to this little stream, which by the way was an excellent watersource, never tasted such pure fresh water in all my life.

We both clambered over the rocks and made our various compositions and I was particularly proud with chaos for chasing down those different views, I can't wait to see her images from the trip 🙂

6 shot panorama, each shot in the landscape orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 5s
ISO: 100
out front: pure mountain water stream

Trollstigen

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So, the Norwegians love a good tunnel, but.. it appears from time to time they like a good windy road, maybe its the joy of watching people cycle up these or something to keep the motorcycle population happy, in anycase, this one (Trollstigen) is certainly a cracker, even in our little stationwagon punching on up this road it was pretty hair raising, especially when a bus came the other way!

The viewing platform up the top is neat, but I think I need a bigger camera, i could not fit all those norwegian hills in 😉 even at 16mm and 9 portrait frames stitched together I could not get all of the big waterfall in 🙂

The bottom of the where the windy bit starts is about 300m above SL, this spot here is 700m above SL, not a bad hill climb.

It would be awesome to do a night time shoot here and get the car trails in the frame, however for me with the sun not really setting until 12 midnight there was no hope, I'll let that go to the keeper for the next visit 😉

6 shot panorama, each shot in the portrait orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f10 and Shutter Speed: 1/80s
ISO: 200
out front: just a few hills and a windy road with buses, summer skiers, mountain bike riders, campervans and motorbikes 😉

Morar

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Beachside in Scotland

So its summer in Europe at the moment apparently, however I think our friends on that side of the equator kinda need to have a think about what that really means, we spent our last day in Edinburgh where the summer temperature was.. 13 degrees, we flew back to sydney to the heart of our winter and it was 16 degrees… 🙂

Anyways onot those beaches, yes in Oz we have some awesome beaches and we take it for granted, however we did find a place (thanks +John G Moore ) on the west coast called Morar which had sand which was an excellent excuse for a beach 🙂 truth be told it was quite nice and we (particularly the kids) were pleasantly surprised.
Anyways, i went for a stroll after chaos and tickles were asleep and checked out the surrounding area for a seascape or two, not finding much ringing my bell, i headed up into the hills to see what was there, not much either, but I did find some sheep, lots of wet boggy pastures and some other crazy nuts out trying to get a photo, hence this shot 🙂

Its a 6 shot pano, which had some nice colour in it, however I could not quite get it to represent what I saw on the day, and it seems the BW brings out the nice texture of the clouds anyway..

6 shot panorama, each shot in the landscape orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 70-200 mm f2.8 @ 120mm Aperture: f5 and Shutter Speed: 1/500s
ISO: 100
out front: boggy hills and some crazies :).

Nordfjord

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I think one of the best things about holidaying with ya family (other than all the quality time you get to spend with one another of course 🙂 ) and doing photography is that it forces you to be very opportunistic rather than being able to plan everything around a shoot, this was certainly one example.
Let me paint a scene for you here (forgive the pun 🙂 ) we decided to divert our route to check out one of, if not the oldest Monasteries in Norway at Maloy and consequently checked into one of our best airbnb in our Norway trip (thanks Trygve – even though i can still not pronounce your name, sorry mate). This airbnb was located 10 kms out of Nordfjordeid in a farming area and was an old, yet amazing farmhouse with, in my opinion, an amazing view, not one from a pre-canned location or lookout, but a true-blue style view that this little village of about 5 homes shared. The place even had one of those really cool old telephones, the ones with the windy handle!

I took this shot a few times over the two days whilst sitting at the window opposite a warm wood fire, this particular one was about 11pm-ish as the sun dissapeared from view – there was no hiking, no sitting in the cold, just chilling out with a cup of tea, my tripod and camera whilst the children slept 🙂

I'll be sure to post a few of the others from this spot, which have a very different feel, it was amazing how much the scene could change with fog and rain rolling in.

5 shot panorama, each shot in the landscape orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 70-200 mm f2.8 @ 155mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/800s
ISO: 250
out front: no filters, just another epic landscape.

Rampestreken

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Located at Åndalsnes, Norway, this particular spot is 580 metres above sea level.

Apparently I was meant to take a selfie up here, since that seems to be thing to do there 🙂 however I was not gonna spoil this view with my mug – this scene pretty well sums up alot of Norways scenery, f-off huge. The walk is classified as a moderate walk but it does, for me anyways, have a few ball hugging spots, the Norwegians are not big on handrails it seems 😉

#Åndalsnes

10 shot panorama, each shot in the portrait orientation
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f69 and Shutter Speed: 1/160s
ISO: 200
out front: no filters, just some epic landscape.

Looking for the perfect wave

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Norah Head

Norah head is a spot where I have seen on the map and wanted to check out, its also a popular spot for photography and you can see why, it was pretty freakin' cold here on this morning and I had just swung by to take a look, basically some reccy for a future trip 🙂
The great news is that there is a nice cafe right here on the beach and its a very popular spot for surfing.. i even saw one dude heading out with no wetsuit.. balls of steel i think 🙂

If you in the area be sure to check it out, its really accessible and the rocks are right next to the carpark.. this particular image was taken with a favourite old lens of mine, the nikkor 135mm f2.8, super compact, manual focus and very sharp.

D750 coupled with Nikkor 135 mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/250s
ISO: 100
out front: no filters, just a nice wave and a cool lighthouse.

Swans

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During the hustle and bustle of a weekend away with a bunch of kids and friends, i did a sneaky sunset session by the lake at Wyong, no time for tripods, all handheld and needed to get back for dinner, marshmallows and more chaotic kids 🙂

Its a really lovely little lake and the sunset was pretty with pinks, pastels and a perfectly timed pair of swans sailing on by.
Its a 4 shot panorama, handheld

D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70 mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f6.3 and Shutter Speed: 1/160ss
ISO: 320
out front: no filters, just a tree and some swans.