Norway Wrap Up
I am back in Oslo, just hanging out for a few days waiting for my flight back to Colorado. It’s been amazing to fulfill my dream of seeing the mountains and fjords of Norway, but now I am really excited to get back home, see my friends and family again, and go through all my photos from the trip. I’ll be awaiting my film from the photo lab like a kid on Christmas morning!
During my six Norwegian weeks, I took about 150 large format 4×5 photos, and about 48gb worth of digital photos with the Olympus E620. It will probably take me 2-3 weeks to go through all these and get them scanned, processed, and posted on my website.
I ended up driving from Gøteborg, Sweden as far north as Tromsø, Norway, and back again, with lots of side trips along the way, for a grand total of about 8600km (~5300 miles)! This is roughly the equivalent (according to Google Maps) of driving from Denver to Juneau and back, or from San Diego to Miami and back! A lot of driving.
So now all that’s left is one last evening in Oslo, then 20+ hours of sitting in three different airplanes and airports, then I’ll finally be back home! Can’t wait!
Postscript:
In the two weeks since I’ve been back home from Norway, I’ve taken the dive head-first back into work-mode, including the fun but tedious process of sorting and sifting through the thousands of photos I brought home. Believe it or not, getting back to work on the computer hasn’t been all that bad; in fact it’s been almost a welcome change after six weeks of pushing it in the mountains of Norway. I think I got my fill of hiking for while; in fact I haven’t even been hiking yet since I’ve been back in Colorado! No, so far I’ve been perfectly content to just be lazy and hang out with my friends again as much as possible.
Though I did a lot of hiking in Norway, I also had a lot of downtime, whether tentbound in the rain or driving endless hours on winding roads. The hiking and photography were no doubt amazing, but I often felt an overwhelming boredom and loneliness during those downtimes. Sometimes I felt like the trip was characterized more by the boredom and solitude than the joy of hiking and photographing the mountains there.
A funny thing has happened though, since I’ve been back. In my mind, all those stretches of boredom have been condensed into minor moments, while all the spectacular hikes and mountains and vistas I experienced are standing out as shining unforgettable memories. In fact now I can’t believe I did all the things I did while I was there. This might have been my best photo trip ever… in retrospect! As a good friend of mine has said, “Memories are like a fine wine; they just get better with age.”
As for the photography itself, I can say that Norway is one of the most photogenic places I’ve ever been. Not only are the mountains incredibly unique and full of character, but the weather was usually very dynamic. And of course the 24-hour light and long sunsets/sunrises are an absolute blast for hiking and photography. My photographic style already tends to heavily favor the “grand scenics” – the big landscape shots – and Norway offers more of that than I could handle. So you won’t see any artsy “intimates” in my gallery… I was too busy trying to fit the landscapes into my wideangle lenses!