Sunday quiet (Oslo Travel Log #2)

It’s Sunday. It’s still rainy in Oslo. It really feels like I travelled from summer to November in a day.

I need to go out an take some photos instead of staying in the hotel room. I get showered a few times, but that’s Oslo for you. I’ll walk generally in the direction of Aker Brygge.

It’s not always easy to make square frames not too static. I like to include round shapes to lead the eye and contrast with the frame format.

The mix of languages is amusing here.

When I saw the black curtain behind the glass door, I decided to be in this photo.

This is a technical photo: I was trying to build layers.

Is there a message here? I still struggle to move things in the centre.

I decide to cut through the park to walk under the trees. I should be drier there. Central composition with vertical symmetry.

Triangular composition with symmetry. Also trees: where is there not to like?

It’s really a struggle to have a slow camera and trying to catch people in the middle of what they do. When I switch on the Sony RX100II, I need to put it at mu hip, move the screen up, extend the lens to 44mm, frame, take the photo. That takes about the same amount of time I’d need with an actual TLR. You forget how fast and convenient modern cameras are until you use 70 year old technology.

People have been trained not to be in other people’s photos. Mostly because they don’t want anyone they don’t know in their shots themselves. But I want people in the right place. 9 times out of 10, they try to move away. That woman was going to cross the gutter and she would have been part of the symmetry. But she saw me and walked around.

The row of bollards was a good tool to frame people down the road, keeping the far background to create layers.

These two women, obviously together, were taking photos each pointing to one side, then swapping. They made me think of Charlie’s Angels. The frame is not quite symmetrical, but close enough.

That fountain made a great background to take photos of people walking in front of it.

I don’t know who the statue is. Holberg I think. A local hero probably. What attracted me was the 3 woman echoing the 3 statues in front of them.

Dandy.

On Aker Brygge is the Nobel Peace Prize building. That’s where it is delivered. A lot of people take a photo of that building.

When the rain starts getting too heavy, I stop for a rest and something bad.

Taking square photos, I can’t always resist to trying to compose them like I do 3:2 wide angle shots. But it’s really hard.

Trying to achieve symmetry.

Perspective, depth, and repeating pattern.

Symmetry achieved. Central composition. Slightly askew, unfortunately.

This building is a masterpiece of 30s brutalism. Also, Oslo uniform in the foreground.

We have umbrella down! We have umbrella down!

I’m asking you: why? Anyway, another attempt at creating layers.

You could think that the statues are on a pier but also suspended from the cables. But the cables are in the background holding a bell. I wanted to find a way to see the statues and the bell, but it was impossible. Even from the back since then the statues would face away from the camera. So I settled for the symmetry of the posts.