Another great day at Østensjøvannet

Stopped at Østensjøvannet on our way home yesterday. Great evening with lots of birds and almost no people.

Here are the results so far:

Landing Grey Goose Coot walking on water Black Headed gull in flight

First bird shooting with flash

Duck Hunt

Duck Hunt, originally uploaded by Bernt-Inge.

Had a fun evening at Østensjøvannet testing out flash photography on birds :D Here is the evenings favorite :)

Snakes, crocs and reptiles

Nice sunny day here in Oslo, so why not go to an even hotter place :p headed downtown to the Reptile park and got some great shots.

Camouflaged Lizard Veiled Chameleon Rough Green Snake

Fiji Banded IguanaGreen BoaGreen Tree Monitor

Green tree monitor Spectacled Caiman Veiled Chameleon

Even got to hold one of the snakes. Amazing creatures.

Bernt-Inge holding snake

Bernt-Inge holding snake

Troll Wall

Took these photos on the way home from Easter break, lots happened on the trip so haven´t had time to post them before now ;)

Trollveggen

Trollveggen

Graduated ND filter used to get the clouds exposed right.

The Troll Wall (Norwegian: Trollveggen) is part of the mountain massif Trolltindene (Troll Peaks) in the Romsdal valley, near Åndalsnes and Molde, on the Norwegian west coast. Troll Wall is the tallest vertical rock face in Europe, 1100 meters from the base to the summit at its tallest. At its steepest, the summit overhangs the base by nearly fifty meters.

The rock is gneiss, and its large formations are shaping a broken face of huge corners, concave roofs, and crack systems, topped with a unique series of spires and pinnacles parading the summit rim. The rock is generally loose, and rock fall is the norm in this immense north facing big wall. A series of huge rock falls swiped the wall in autumn 1998, radically changing the character of several climbing routes.

The Troll Wall has been a prestigious goal for climbers and BASE jumpers alike. In 1984 Carl Boenish, the “father” of BASE jumping, was killed on the Troll Wall shortly after setting the world record for the highest BASE jump in history. BASE jumping from Troll Wall has been illegal since 1986.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_Wall

Bert Stephani Workshop

Attended Bert Stephani´s workshop this weekend, great workshop with lots of fun.

Day 1
First half of the day Bert went through the lighting basics and showed examples shots. After lunch he started taking photos of the model for the day Linnea. The results of his shoot can be seen here:

http://bertstephani.com/blog/?p=133

Day 2
We met up early at the Tiger in front of Østbanehallen, most of us still half asleep :P
The first location we went to was Gamlebyen Skatepark, here we started of by finding a good background with the tricks Bert taught us. Then we lighted the subject with one flash in front of the awesome background ;)
Results of assignment one:

First shot Kristian starting to wake up

Taking off Ã…smund

Second up we played around a little with “overpowering” the sunlight to catch the cool clouds on the sky.
results:

Kristian Kristian

Bert then gave us another assignment, main-light is natural and background lit by flash.
results:

Sun main light Sun main light

After hours of play at the skatepark we went for lunch at Sultan just down the street before we changed up the location to Middelalder parken. As usual the park was pretty packed with people barbecuing, but that did not stop the 25 photographers from crawling and climbing around with expensive gear and lots of light.

We started shooting the “find of an old viking crown”, we played around with the story and tested lots of lighting setups but ended up with one of our first shots as the favorite:

Digging for the Viking Crown

Then Bert suggested us to give a tribute to the national sport of Norway – barbecuing:

The National sport of Norway - Barbecuing

A great weekend for us all, weather was great and we had lots of fun. I think I speak for all of us when I say this is worth doing again. Thank you Bert for a great workshop, you are an inspiration to us all for your dedication of giving back.

Berts work and blog can be seen here: http://www.bertstephani.com/blog/

Contact him for information on how you can make a workshop in your area.