The Accidental Sea

This mistake of mankind is stunning, you should watch it:

Across the universe of Göteborg

One of the photos I took this spring at home is very special. It is my spheric version of Göteborg (in the surroundings of Eriksberg), my own tiny planet. I have been inspired from skilled photographers, great tutorials and, of course, the beauty of Göteborg (Gothenburg) in dawn. I have used 33 photos merged together to a 360/180 panorama and then to a globe. This is the tiny universe of Eriksberg, Göteborg, cold and empty.

Listen to: Laibach – Across The Universe

or the original version of the same song by The Beatles.

Cats and rats

In order to get some system of my blog posts, I have chosen to divide the otherwise huge blog post below where I gave some background information to the photos of "Springtime in Sweden" to smaller separated post. Still, it is the spring pictures which are in focus.

I love animals and I do love my pets. During my time at home I photographed both rats and cats, as seen below:

Above and below, my pet rat Nils

My sister's cat Tina, nose against nose with M

The very same cat together with sister's fiancee B

And with He-Man. As I have written before, she is a very posh cat but she doesn't mind being in front of the camera.

Springtime in Sweden

Well, I have to write something constructive in order to give the photos above some essence and to give you a part of the full story. It has been a long time since I took the first of these photos, but still, they needs to be explained. First out, a self portrait of myself:

I have spent a fair amount of time with the post processing, I admit. If you want to take a similar photo, here is the way to do it:

The photo was taken with my Nikon D90 equipped with a 24-70 mm Nikon lens, working on f 5,0, iso 200 and a shutter speed of 1/25 s. The camera was mounted on a tripod and I used a remote control to take the picture. I took the picture as a standing format, so I have the camera and lightsource a bit on my left side. My flash was directed 45 degrees upwards, and since I have completely white walls and ceiling it reflected the light quite well.

Now to the fun part, the afterwork in my computer (I love processing pictures). I use Lightroom 3 and PS5, mostly the first mentioned program, for editing this picture. I made it black and white, adjusted contrast, blacks, brightness and maxed the clarity. I have made adjustments on my eyes (increasing the clarity even more) and on my hands. I masked away the background behind me and made it completely black, plus adding appropriate shadows so the line between my hair and the background wouldn't look that sharp. And yes, I blurred a part of my arms so it would put the focus on my quite photoshopped eyes.

Note to self

It is not advisable to buy tubes of toothpaste and face cream which looks very similar to each other. Trust me, it isn't pleasant to apply toothpaste on your newly washed face. Fortunately, I didn't manage to try the other combination. Yet.

The very last voyage for the ship Lisco Gloria

Lisco Gloria with tug Claus

Sometimes you see amazing things at sea, things that blow your mind, or things that are so beautiful that you know that it will just end up as half beautiful and half overwhelming as a photograph. This is not one of these occasions. This is very sad and take your breath away because of completely different reasons. This is not how a ship should look. As a seafarer on a Ro-ro-ship of the same sort, our meeting with the Lisco Gloria made you think of the importance of safety. How it could end up very wrong very fast if you got fire on deck. Because, what you see, is a ghost ship on her last voyage to the ship yard.

Look how you can see right through the ship's hull. This is not how a ship should look like

The story about Lisco Gloria goes like this: She was built in 2001 at Stettin Wharf Stocznia Szczecinska (in A. Warskiego). Her first name was Golfo Dia Coralli, her second name Dana Gloria. Under her third name Lisco Gloria, and under lithuanian flag, she sailed the route between Klaipėda and Kiel. On 9 October 2010 in the Fehmarn belt, under her way from Kiel to Klaipėda, an explosion sounded from the car deck. The fire spread rapidly and soon the fire had engulfed the entire ship. All the crew and passengers where brought into safety, three persons suffered of smoke related injuries, but there where no deceased.

We met Lisco Gloria on her final journey to Klaipėda, where she is to be completely scrapped, in the southwest Baltic sea, just some miles north of Rostock. The german tug Claus are towing her. More information about her last voyage can be found here: http://www.kn-online.de/lokales/kiel/218239-Die-letzte-Reise-der-Lisco-Gloria.html (in german).

Listen to: Globus – Sarabande Suite or

Gordon Lightfoot – Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

Colours!

Today we had a tremendously cold morning, but the sky was clear and the red light of dawn coloured Rostock port in amazing shades. After the sun went up, it started to feel like spring in the air. Even though we had minus five degrees Celsius according to the outside thermometer, the sun heated up both us and the deck. The ice which the night had left on the deck started to melt away and suddenly the summer didn't seemed too far away. I was longing for the true colours the other day, and today I got them. Just see for yourselves:

Deck covered with ice covered with sunshine

And if this wasn't enough with colours, the wheelhouse (the bridge) has turned into a greenhouse after the captain's decision of implementing a palm to the port bridge wing. A very much appreciated decision!

The newest member of the bridge team

Listen to: Abbey Road – Here Comes The Sun

(Preferable you find the original version by Beatles, unfortunately Spotify doesn't provide music from geniuses like them)