Something about needing to push myself...

I've through danish model website called "modelportalen.dk" and through my friend Nikolaj gotten myself some model contacts... I've gotten some ideas that i need to try out sometime... But i still got two problems... Problem number 1 is that i'm afraid of texting or calling them... Second problem is that i can't see the details in my ideas... I've gotten overall ideas about making something like "that"... But when working with models... You need specifics... Because they can't see what you're seeing... Gotta work on that... Gotta get those ideas out of my head in specifics... And i'm gonna have to take the plunge, and start booking... 

But then again i'm still location scouting... Maybe the specifics comes with the right location...  Well, i gotta keep on working... Gotta keep taking pictures... But most important... I'm gonna have to "man up!" That was after all one of the many reasons to why i took this job over here... 

About moving back to my little house... Having family and a good friend over... Learning to deal with stress... And running out of gas for the first time...

Moving back "home"...

I'm now finally where i'm supposed to be the rest of my time over here... Back in the little blue summerhouse in snogebæk... Uh... And guess what! I've GOT WI-FI NOW! Yes... i'm an internet junkie... But i'm not ashamed... No... That's how life is now... It's gone viral... I've accepted that like so many else... Yes, i was like a real junkie before i had wi-fi at "home"... Finding public wi-fi spots to "smooch" of... But i made sure every time to make a trip out of it... To enjoy the real life also... And i'm still gonna do that...

But now i can start to really settle down... 

And who else than family and friends could help with that...

Weekend after i moved in my family and Kath came over... Not the whole family... But grandma, mom and little brother Markus... They left little sister Martha at home taking care of our now 1! dog... 

We only have one dog now... And i'm PISSED about that... That some neighbor who's single goal in life is to get rid of our dogs... He's been yelling at my mom, calling her things, and threatening her and the dogs twice... Both times leaving her crying... Now she's to nice... Which shouldn't be a bad thing... But it is... I mean... Yeah you need to be nice in life... But if your'e to nice... Life's gonna fuck you over... But in the best interest of the two most noisy of our dogs she's gotten rid of them... But i'm not done... When i'm gonna get home... i'm gonna walk over to the neighbor have a calm and nice talk with him... None of us in my family want's to be enemies with our neighbors... We want peace... That's why i'm only gonna talk... And nothing else...

But in spite of those bad news... We had a blast... Visiting Hammershus... Eating at restaurants... Playing UNO... Uh and they brought my good freind Kath over... She was there for all the things... And then she stayed with me every evening... (Wasn't room for the rest... They lived at a hotel...) So at daytime we were all sightseeing... But at the evenings me and Kath, would be doing a little drinking, going to a: "Havnefest" in Snogebæk... 

And also one evening when me and Kath was on the way back home to my house... The car started loosing speed... And no matter what i did... It stopped... Me knowing what was wrong instantly... Started banging my hand on the dashboard... "NO! NO! NO! F**K!" No gas... Yeah... In my defense... I was trying to stretch fueling until after the 1st. ... So i could get my paycheck... And then fuel the car... So now i've tried that also... Luckily the first car that passed us, was a nice young boy, who drove us all the way to Nexø, and back out to the car again... That's nice... But not to nice... 

Little brother is not so little anymore... Reminds me of me... Just more troubled 

That's my "little" brother... he's 14, and almost as tall as me... And almost as strong as me... I still give him the occasional brotherly "wrestling"... And he's always like: "Mercy! Mercy! Merrrcy!" Then when i walk away... He jumps up, and attacks from behind... And then i have to put him down... Again... Hehe... Still the big brother...

That's Kath... And her cellphone... 

She sort a hated that i always had my camera with me... Something about me being like: "Oy! Pretty!" Down on the ground for hours... And then "click"... 

What can i say? I'm a photographer and an artist... When i see something that "catches me"... I try to tell it's story...

Like this church...

Look at the colors... I'm happy... Not my style... But sometimes... You gotta try something new...

Don't know this guy but i loved the whole scenario...
The curious explorer exploring what is new... To him...

Yes... Good times brings great pictures... Bad times can also bring great pictures... You just have to know how to get the feelings you have into the pictures... Good or bad... Because that's what photography is... TO ME... It's all about feelings and emotions... Getting something out... Telling the world who i am... 

And just as a finish...

When driving in tourist season

And can they move? NO! Just wish i had a plow ;-)

That's how the fridge looks after Grandma and mom have been visiting... FULL? Yes... Only had like 5 things in there before...  

Uh! And i've gotten myself a Bison Oxen... His name is Bruce :-)... And he's
gonna help me find his taller friends :-)... 

  

About looking for Bison Oxens... But finding anything else...

Weekend! Weekends are for exploring, and location scouting... And i was so hooked on finding Bison oxens today... So i took a little detour to work... Boss is going away the upcoming week... And needed his bicycle again... Ran in, gave him the Key... And of on adventures...

She's always a beauty... No matter where she goes... No matter how many scratches she gets...

Of to a good start... Threw some gas into the tank, and fired up for some AC/DC... 

Hit the country side with "Highway to hell" bashing through the speakers... When the first distraction caught my eyes... "flower garden 1 kilometer"... That sounded interesting... But i was on a mission... Then i saw a sign "Listed 3 kilometers..." Now i'd an old lady talk about a volcano near a city called something that sounded like "Listed"... I decided to turn the car around, and check out that flower thingey, and see if i could find the volcano... 

Didn't find the volcano... And didn't find the Flower thing... BUT i accidentally found the harbor... And because the sky was completely blue, and the sun was shining... It looked so beautiful i had to take pictures... 

Can't help it, i'm obsessed with textures...  

While i was down on the harbor, i spotted some rocks and stuff on another "bank"... And it  looked so interesting, that i had to see if could get over there and take pictures... 

Succes found out there was a path you could take on foot...

So i did... And...

Love the view... Love the "lonely bench"

I took that picture... A beauty...

Back to the car... Out finding Bison oxens... 

Now... According to my map... They're located somewhere around a "Racetrack"... And Uhh... The card says that the "valley of echo" is also located in that area... And... what's that... AN OLD CASTLE RUIN! Bisons... I'm sorry... Castle ruins are great photo locations... And here's one... Easy to get into... No one around to disturb... 

I was wrong... Apparently some sheeps had invaded the castle hundreds of years ago...  

The place was crawling with sheeps...

Relaxing sheeps...

Sheeps acting like photo models...

Even forrest Sheeps...

My guess is that the sheeps infiltrated the castle many years ago... Looking innocent and delicious... Only to take over the castle by brutal force...

 

Either that or the castle was given up for a never castle... and some farmer hundreds of years after that got the permission to have sheeps walking around and inside the old ruins...

After taking a LOT of pictures of some sheeps... I felt a feeling in my tommy... The feeling of diner time... I looked at my watch... It's already 17:00... So i had to give up finding the Bisons... TODAY... Going back out tomorrow... I'm on adventures... I want to see Bisons in the wild danish nature!!






   

Hard work, bicycling, and bomb threads...

Yep... There's a lot of things going on over here... First of all i started working with an old school buddy Nikolaj, because i'm gonna be substituting him when he goes back to the photography school... Nice guy, drinks a lot of coffee (more than me ;) )... So we've been 3 on duty this week... Me, Nikolaj, and the boss... 
That came in handy, when we had to move our old chemistry printer, and replace it with a new and even better Ink printer... (NO not the like the one you have at home on your desktop but a big MOTHERF****R...) The quality of the prints is simply amazing... Can't wait to start printing some of my own pictures on that machine...

So what else has been going on? Have we been using all our time on the new printer? NO... I've found out that the sentence "boss i have finished my duties, what do you want me to do now?" 
That sentence sent me down into the basement a lot of times... It needed cleaning, and also i had to take down some old air hoses that were once used to clean customers cameras... 
They were all filled with water due to a flooding in the basement some years ago... But luckily i'm used to do that sort of things... 21 years on a farm... Then you get used to do stuff like that... (Not kidding, been cleaning up electricity wiring in our workshop A LOT of times...)

What else... I've started biking a lot now... To Snogebæk... Nice little town... Free Wi-Fi at the local smokehouse/restaurant... 5 kilometers each way... For a guy with muscle dystrophy that's something you can feel... But i'm not giving up... I've grown tired of that muscle dystrophy SH*T... It's been a small annoyance for way to many years... A couple of them it actually broke me... But not anymore, each time i feel it... I just push myself harder... I'm gonna die fighting it, i know that... So i better put up a proper fight...

Also been out dining with the company and the old owner... That was a lovely evening... Good company, good food (they know how to cook over here... I can tell you that)... And to top of the evening, we went to see a play called "Bornholmer Revyen"... Hilarious play... I don't think i've laughed that much since the first time i saw a Dirch Passer movie (Danish actor... If you are a real dane you'll love him...) 

Did you guys hear about the bomb threads in Rønne and Nexø? Some guy sent e-mails to "danske bank" in Rønne and Nexø... Don't know why yet... But apparently going on adventures on Bornholm is more dangerous than expected... (I need to stress that there was no bomb... Just empty threads... So far...)     

I think that's pretty much what's been going on this week... I'm looking forward to next weekend... My family is taking the trip all the way over here. And i'm trying to sniff up the best dining places... And figure out what they need to see over here... It's gonna be exciting :)
     

The Winner...

So some time ago my boss lent me this old Kodak DCS 14n pro camera... And because it was form around 2001-2002 i thought i'd see how far digital photography had gone... I also wanted to see if it could beat my Nikon D700...

So will i have to swallow my pride as a proud Nikon user... Keep reading i'm not gonna give you the answer before you've reached the bottom ;)

First... The contestants... 

Nikon D700
Fullframe
Max ISO: 6400
Max Shutterspeed: 1/8000
Sync speed when using wireless triggers: 1/200
Frame rate: 5 fps

Kodak DCS pro 14n
Full frame
Max ISO: 1600
Max shutterspeed: 1/4000
Sync speed when using wireless triggers: 1/125
Frame rate: 1,7 fps...

There they are... two beautiful cameras... Notice it's the same lens on both pictures... that's because i've been using the same lens on both cameras... No converters the Kodak camera uses Nikon lenses which in this case is genius...

So lets start out with what i find most important... ISO

Many say that a good camera has the capability to shoot in low light environments... I'm one of those... And that's why ISO noise (when i don't want it) annoys the living @€%&/# out of me! So i tested the ISO... 

Nikon D700 ISO 6400

Now as you can see the Nikon D700's limit is at ISO 6400... And yes it's grainy... This is a picture that i've cropped so you guys can see a bit of it in it's original size...

Kodak DCS pro 14n

This is the Kodak... And as you can see... It's not doing that good... This is ISO 1600 and that's as far as it goes... So this round The Nikon wins. BUT if my boss allows me to keep borrowing his camera... Then i'm definitely gonna use it to take some of my destructive pictures... 

Point to Nikon...

Another important thing is the feel and the weight of the camera...

I was surprised here... I thought the Kodak with it's age would be more "metal" and less "plastic"... But even though it's an old camera... The feel of it was more like a new plastic camera... I later found out that it has a complete magnesium body... So i think it's light weight but can take some impact... (NOT gonna test that theory...) 

The Nikon D700 wins this round too... It's heavy and i've marks on the body that proves it can take some punches... And that is very important... Imagine that you are out on a shoot... You're 2 meters tall like me... The camera is in the same hight as your eye, because... Well you're taking pictures... But shit you somehow lost your grip... Then it's very important that you have a tough camera... I haven't yet dropped the Nikon from that height... And i don't intend to... But it would definitely have a bigger chance of surviving the fall than the Kodak...

Point Nikon...

Studio...

The Nikon has a higher sync speed than the Kodak... Which means that it can block out more "background" light than the Kodak... Therefor again 

Point Nikon...

Compitability with equipment...

Now i've only been able to test with what i've got... And in that case that was my Speedlight SB 910, wireless triggers, and my remote for long exposure... All under a year old... Both cameras accepted 100% of the features my equipment has... And that surprised me i thought the Kodak would be to old... But it's not...

Draw...

Start-up time...

I did'nt think this was necessary... But the Kodak took like ages before it was ready to shoot...  Software is simply to slow... Now i always turn my equipment off to save battery... So that definitely matters to me... The Nikon was spot on... Ready to shoot...  

Point Nikon... 

The last thing is the "accessibility"... (How easy is it to make adjustments...)

On the Nikon the vitals are easy to change... And you can do most of it when shooting... Where as the Kodak you have to go into menus for some things... Again the Nikon wins this one... I don't have time for that... My equipment is "advanced" enough... 

Point Nikon...

Guess a winner... 

Ofcourse the Nikon won... The challenge wasn't fair... The Kodak is a fine camera... But it's simply outdated compared to the Nikon D700... But i really wanted to see if the Kodak could Surprise me... But even though it's completely outdated... It can still be used for "art"... Wait and see... You know me... I already know how i'm gonna use the "bad ISO" ;)

THINK CREATIVE... THINK CREATIVE ... THINK CREATIVE... while testing camera...

So the last 2 days i've needed to be creative not only at work... But also in my little home... 

I'd originally planned on writing about a Kodak DCS Pro 14 body vs. my Nikon D700... But i came up with some more stuff that i wanted to test before i made my conclusions... 

One of those things "studio" use... Now i don't have a key for my boss's studio yet... And i haven't asked for permission to use it yet... So i had to come up with something clever... luckily i'd bought this long string that i wanted to use for drying clothes...

That's it yes... When in need of place to dry clones... Buy some strings... And tie them to the door curtains and the solar powered air-conditioner (if you don't have a solar powered air-conditioner be creative... Think of something else ;) )

But what does that have to do with a studio? Well... next picture...

Still haven't figured it out?

I used the string to hang a white t-shirt... Then i tilted my speed light by attaching it's tripod to a chair... So i could get i further down then the Tripod allowed me to... And by the magic of wireless triggers... I was able to fire of the flash into the T-shirt... Creating some kind of "diffuser"... That spread the light so i wouldn't get a to contrasty light... Brilliant! :)  

This is roughly how the pictures are gonna end up looking... I'm still editing...

So that's how it goes with testing the cameras... 

And how's work? 

I still love it... Today my boss had to go to a meeting... And he left me and his wife to look after the store... And even though she knew less about the store than i did... It went pretty well... Mostly because i'm starting to settle down... And i now know how most of the stuff works...

Now i just need to start making friends... Which somehow seems to be a little harder than i expected... Mostly because i don't have the time to meet new people... But actually when i was writing this... Sitting outside photocare to get the magical life giving Wi-Fi i met some people telling me that i should go back to a bar in "Snogebæk" or take a 40 minute drive to "Rønne"... And i thought Kølkær was far away from everything... Well the adventure goes on and someday i need to get to know "Rønne" better... Tomorrow will probably bring more adventures... So everybody out there... Have a nice evening... And remember be creative... And have fun while being it... I sure had a lot of fun making the "studio :)     

It has begun...

Hello internet my name is Jonas... And i wanna be a photographer... 
I actually want to be it so much, that i've moved away from my home in Jutland, Denmark. To a small danish island called Bornholm... 

That's my grandmother packing some food for me... She doesn't like when i take pictures of her... So don't tell her about this one ;)...

Bornholm for me is a challenge for me... Because i only from the start knew 2 people over here... My boss Niels and his photo intern (an old classmate of mine from Viborg...) Nikolaj... And i've never been really on my own before... I've either been living at home, on a continuation school, Højskole, or even on a college... All these places have 2 things in common... There's always people around you... And some kitchen staff who cooks the food for you... So you're never "on your own"... But on Bornholm i am... I only know 2 people... And i'm now learning how to cook... First day i tried to make meatballs from scratch... it ended up tasting like twist-bread... Don't ask me how that happened... it just did XD

This is where i'm gonna be living most of my time on Bornholm... It's my boss's "summer house"

I was supposed to live in the house above all the time, while i was over here... But my boss had promised it to some others... (I knew that before accepting the job) So i've only been living there for 4 days... 
As you can see it's a VERY small house... In the kitchen i have to kinda bend my back a little bit to avoid banging my head in to the sealing... But i can stand up and move around normally in the living room, and my bedroom... 

That's the temporary place... My... Goosh i really need to tidy-up that room...

So that's where i'm gonna live for the next 2 weeks... A small room on the harbour in Nexø... It's actually not as bad as it sounds... And i actually like living there :).

This is where i work

And it's a very nice place to work... One week and i'm allready crying when thinking that i'm only gonna be here till December... 

Also my boss have actually made me help voluntarily yesterday and today... Even though i actually weren't supposed to be working... But Saturday when i was over getting somethings from the fridge... He walked towards me, while he was carrying this Canon 1DX camera (A REAALY NICE CAMERA!) He only managed to say: "Jonas will you take the camera..." Before i stood with it in my hands... Nodding: "YES, YES, YES!" Like a little boy who'd just gotten a new toy from his father... So i took 10 minutes of my saturday, and spent them on taking pictures of something that was happening on the square in Nexø. 

Sunday again i was over there getting something from the fridge and some batteries for my Nikon F3 (my analogue camera)... When he started unboxing a GoPro camera... Not to test it sadly :(... But to learn about it... But i'm curious by nature... So i helped him, and we discussed and talked about all the features, trying to figure out if it had microphone built in, or not... We agreed on that it didn't... 

So it's a good place, i like my boss and hopefully he also likes me :) 

Harbor "festival" / some kind of small tivoli thing...

Friday to Sunday (today) there was this harbor party of some kind... I was only over there Friday and Saturday... I figured that was a great place to meet new people... But i didn't meet anyone... Their loss, i'm just gonna keep my eyes peeled for opportunities to meet new friends.

THE WRONG BLUE ICE CREAM TRUCK!

Thats right those sneaky bastards! That's not the real ice blue ice cream truck... That's some phoney trick! Found it when i was out driving looking for: Abandoned houses, historical landmarks, and beautiful photo locations this Saturday.

Rasmus the Barkeeper

After not having any success meeting new people or friends at the harbor thing... I decided to try a bar... I only found one... Grand something... Small bar only old people (40+)... But they were freindly so i started talking to them... And the one i liked the most was the barkeeper Rasmus who originally came from Vejle... He even gave me a free beer... Now that's what i call a real bartender...

An old wierd but nice man

Another person that i also met was this guy... I couldn't understand most of what he was saying... He was speaking with this old mumbling drunk "Bornholmske" accent... But he was originally from a little town called Søby on Ærø... Didn't know that existed... I only know one Søby and that one is on Jutland... 

One very weird tree...

Now please note this tree... i'm gonna use it for my next BIG photo experiment... Where i'm gonna use both my digital and my analogue knowledge... 

I think this is all for today... Now i hope i'm gonna be able t write something here everyday... While the "adventure" goes on... I'm not gonna write this much... This was 7 days cooked down into one post...

Now i gotta return to the adventure... And everyone remember... Your life is also an adventure... You just have to live it! :)

Love the adventurous photographer on Bornholm :)