Stockholm at Night

The gamla stan (old town) of Stockholm is a very interesting place, especially at night. The old cobblestone streets are narrow, cold yet cosy, and deserted. A few confused backpackers like myself, some Swedes hard at work navigating to the right place to party, and... well, solitude. It was just me and my camera, and a whole lot of freedom, as I was sitting on a bench in front of the royal palace, pondering anything and everything, and smoking a fine cigar.




The moment I've entered the departure hall at Bratislava airport, a terrifying finding dawned upon me: I have forgotten the tripod packed in my room. It may have been a good thing, partly, because my experience is that lugging a tripod on board of a plane is often a huge problem with the security. Perhaps you could use it to beat someone to death and then mount your camera over their body to get the perfectly stable shot!

So yeah, in case you noticed that there is some noise and blur in the photos, this is the reason. These are certainly not praiseworthy from technical point of view, but I think they capture the scene pretty well and I like them anyway. :-)







Swedes are very kind and enjoyable fellas, and never hesitate to share a story and a drink. This is the reason why I, merely few hours after landing outside the city, managed to find a bunch of nice guys who I could spend some time with. I found them trying to get over a fence from their party place to the old town, and my paparazzi side took over for a while, so I was photographing them secretly, not to spoil the moment.


Then we talked and had a great laugh - although I was worried for a second that they would not appreciate it, they were amused, and invited me to come with them. I really enjoy meeting foreigners... there is always something special about those moments, especially the part of me that misses Erasmus in Trondheim, or even Chicago, got really sated that night. If you guys are reading this, here's one huge thanks, it was really lovely and you're welcome in Bratislava or Brno anytime. :-)



And a little toy photo to conclude. :-)

Vigelandsparken

Sunday in Oslo was all you would expect from a day of such name, the weather was completely different from the boring clouds of the day before, and our first part of the day was spent on a beautiful autumn walk around Vigelandsparken, a lovely sculpture park, part of (my very own ;-)) Frognerparken, where all the famous and, admittedly, somewhat crazy statues (made) of naked people are. :-)








Monolitten is a breathtaking creation that took no less than twenty years to design and build. I really appreciate how dozens and dozens of bodies entwine together. According to wikipedia, they are rising towards heaven and represent man’s desire to become closer with the spiritual and divine. It portrays a feeling of togetherness as the human figures embrace one another as they are carried toward salvation. Whatever, it's just a massive phallus built of naked people. ;-P

The panorama is created in hugin, a very handy and powerful open source tool I've decided to try thanks to the love it gets from Linux.com and Yenya.



What a gang. :-D


And finally, the old man who looked down on us for Eva and Zdeněk climbing on one of the statue pedestals. There are a lot more photos of them on my Facebook album for the trip, give it a click. :-)

Los Oslosos (HDR)

I haven't been to Scandinavia for a month and, well, I missed that place enough to get back there. This time it was Oslo, made easier and cheaper by the fact that all it took to persuade Zdeněk to let us stay at his place, were twelve bottles of booze. The weather on Saturday was as Scandinavian as it gets, so all I could do to prevent my shots from being dull and boring was resorting to HDR yet again...






I had little time to prepare or compose the shots, as the others were impatient and restless, and I'm not very satisfied with the results. Then again, Oslo is not a very photogenic city, definitely not as nice and cosy as Stockholm or Trondheim. Eva, however, was enchanted, so if I don't post anymore, she'd probably strangled me. :-)




It was a wonderful experience overall, I saw a lot of things I always wanted to see, got to eat a lovely dish of whale meat, relaxed a little and spent some time with my dearest. Can't wait for another trip such as this!