Shades of Brännö

Forgotten arms

The long Summer season we have had this year is about to pass the rudder control to the incoming Autumn. The air is still warm and inviting to walk outside or riding on a bike, here in Milan and there are no evident signs of change. Yet, days are becoming to shorter and shorter and subtle need for lethargy is spreading among us. I'm welcoming Saturday afternoons spent at home, kneading for a pizza or an apple-pie. I have to buy up time with my kids and wife. I can't say where I'm going to spend my next weeks and months. For sure in a distant place, much colder that here. This inevitably takes me back to the last winter season spent up there, in Scandinavia.

I took this picture in Oslo, last winter, walking along the harbour banks of the most expensive districts in all Europe. Someone had thrown these gloves out on the thick layer of ice grown in the water alleys of Aker Brygge. I fancied someone had fallen under before the ice hurdened and was no longer in need for his gloves. Funny.

Landscapes

Landscape photography is something that everyone, at least once in his life, has experienced. I always find very difficult to resist from taking the gears out of my backpack and snap a picture when mother nature offers its best to our eyes.
Apparently this video has very little to do with photography. Yet, the most experienced will soon recognize that this breathtaking clip is actually made of several still pictures taken from a standard (high-end) camera, mounted on a dolly with a remote controlled step motor that enables it to move the minimum that is necessary to make the resulting picture feel as if it was three dimensional. It's something worth being watched full screen and listened with an hi-fy audio system. Enjoy!

Quarter Frame Camera

Sitting at the window of an old pastry shop (Ahlströms Konditori) in Goteborg downtown with my friend Janus, just arrived from far Greenland. People outside come and go. Some stop and look inside the shop. I lift my tea spoon and make a sign of salutation. My slice of pie is finished: it's time to go.

Ready for launch

Goteborg, the Big Wheel on the Opera House square is the only "mobile" thing in town able to stand still under the strong winds of these days. Autumn is already here. The tail of a hurricane, born thousands of kilometers away, is crossing Scandinavia and I couldn't find a better moment for dropping my bones here.

The invisible watchmaker

Now that the echoes of the recent tragedy happened in Oslo downtown and Utoya Island, in Norway, are starting to fade and everything seems to be going back to normality, my thoughts go back to some days before those events, when I was there for my last time.

I fear there won't be any other chance to travel to Oslo in the coming years. The R&D centre I used to go is now closed and people working there have flown away, disappeared, pursuing their dreams to build a new better promising future. I can only leaf through my photo galleries and try to remember.

When I'm abroad I use to take a walk a lot, soon after dinner. I use those hours to be really alone with myself, to get intimate with some aspects of the town where I am that I never would be able to discover while rushing to office in the early hours of the morning and, needless to say, to take light-life pictures.

One block behind the square where the National Theater stands, not far from the City Hall towers and the turists' docks of Akerbrigge, if you walk past the windows of a "sexual gadget" shop, on the window of a small shop a sticker says: "Urmakermester".

I've seen this man working night time for year, but I never succeeded to stop by his window till the very last time I was in Oslo.

New ways of blogging

This is a trial post made from my office Outlook GUI. It could be an option not to miss too much time logging into Blogger, editing and sending my posts out to the world. Obviously this also comes handy for those who have a smart-phone with enough capability to snap a picture and a send it via e-mail.

I will also try to insert a picture I took during a visit to Goteborg's Hasselblad Foundation, two years ago.

Uhm ... the results are not so exciting. What you see above is just the restructured version of what I found once posted my e-mail. I forgot that the background is dark and that there's a limited set of fonts available. These can be easily fixed next time I post via e-mail. Yet, I fear that the image formatting will be tricky to solve.

I have to work upon that but it's good to know that it works.

Eternally connected

Looks like we have no more chances to find ourselves alone. Anytime, anywhere, anyway eternally on-line. Our minds are no longer able to disconnect from the continuous flow of data that crosses thru them and goes by, as silently as it came in. Minutes flow and soon it's time to stand up and queue: boarding begins.

Slow Hand is in town

Oslo, Frogner Stadion:
Eric Clapton has just finished to play his last hit, when some people start walking swiftly away from the mass that still lingers, crams and cries afoot the stage, wishing the old guitarist put his nose out again. I've got my couple of hours of music, standing with feet into a sticky mud, under heavy rainfall. I'm devastated. I'll throw away my jeans in a bin as soon as I'll reach my hotel room. I'll have to get back home tomorrow, before I do the same to my shoes. My watch says it's nearly eleven in the evening. Northern summer magic. I have to hurry: I could miss the last train to Asker.

One third missing ...

Two examples of imperfection

After all, rules have always been made for someone to break them.