Tales from a creative soul

Hazy black & white lines and more

Kjersti Lier — Thu, 16 May 2013 22:50:49 +0000

I was out on a photo trip a while ago. Only half of the photos I took were processed and posted here. Now I finally got around to process the second half. Since I loved the hazy black and white look my previous photos, I decided to give these the same treatment.

Im off to Krakow this saturday with my co-workers. Hopefully I will be able to take some photos while I’m there. Maybe my next post will show lots of lovely photos from Krakow?

Stay tuned!

The return of a ghost

Kjersti Lier — Sun, 05 May 2013 20:53:34 +0000

I said in my last post that I hoped I slowly would blog more often. That didn’t work out as I planned. What happened? Work exploded in my face so to say. From working two or three hours overtime a year, I had two weeks where I worked two – three hours of overtime each day! I even worked six hours last sunday. That has happened once before the elleven years I’ve worked with this company. When I’ve come home from work, I’ve been so tired that all I managed to do was to make dinner and watch a little bit of TV. For some working around the clock is normal and enjoyable, but I know now that it’s certainly not for me. There are people that has it like this all the time and think it’s ok. I don’t. I love my job, but not that much.

In addition to working my ass off, I had two days of Springsteen mania going on. Springsteen and the E Street band kicked off their second leg of the Wrecking Ball tour in Oslo. Two concerts. For those who know me, knows that I’m a huge Springsteen fan. I went to both conerts and had a blast both times. I got to hear songs I’ve never heard live before (like Better Days, Leaf of Faith, Downbound Train, Saving up) and that is always fun! Two nights of rock ‘n roll, took it’s toll on me.

I’m slowly getting back to where I was three weeks ago. Energy is regained and head can once again be filled with something else than just work.

I did manage to get on a photowalk a eight days ago, but I haven’t had time to process them. I looked at them shortly earlier today, but it was too much to go through. So instead I dug out my wide-angle lens that I haven’t used in a long time and took some photos from the balcony and a few haning out the window of my kitchen & bedroom.

While thinking of blogging, I listened to Springsteen and he sang about ‘the edge of town’. That made me want to post some black and white photos. For a long time now, I’ve been wondering how to get my photos a ‘hazy black and white’ look. It turned out not to be as difficult as I had thought. A few adjustments while post processing them and voilá. I got the result I was looking for.

I really want to do more black and white stuff. Maybe that’s gonna be the goal for May?

Back in bizz: more bikes!

Kjersti Lier — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:04:32 +0000

Oh boy! It’s been a long time since I blogged. Way too long! I am not surprised, because my blogging is like a yo-yo. Sometimes I blog a lot and then there are periods where I hardly blog at all. I put my lack of blogging on my ‘being-uninspred’ account this time. I hope I can, with this post, slowly come back and blog more regularly again.

Quite often I feel like I’ve captured what there is to capture of Oslo. I know that’s not true, because there are still parts of Oslo I haven’t photographed. There are still things to see that my eyes haven’t catched yet. Knowing this, still I’ve felt a bit uninspired. One of the reason is that there isn’t anything new and grandiose to photograph. It’s the same old things. There isn’t any Eiffel Tower, Golden Gate, Brookly Bridge, La Familia Sagrada, Spanish Steps etc in Oslo.

What I seek is something new, something spectacular to photograph.

I think that will change this summer! Last fall I had a ten years anniversary at my office. That resulted in a 5000 NOK gift certificate from a travel agency that needed to be used within a year from mid September. I could’ve spend all of it on one trip somewhere far away, but I chose to do it differently. In stead I’ve spent it on two trips:

The Netherlands: 6 days trip to Holland visiting my friend and going see Springsteen! Woot! Will spend a few days in Alkmaar where Chantal lives and then a few days in Nijmegen.
4 days trip to London with my friend Bjørg. We will stay in a apartment hotel in Notting Hill. It’s been like 12 years or so since I was in London last time. It will be great visiting London again!

In addition to that I’m going on a 3 day trip to Stockholm to see a band called Gyllne Tider with my friend Linda and a bunch of other people. Chantal is also coming to Norway and then we’re going to go to Gothenburg and spend some days there.

I migth go to Krakow in a months with some people from my office. It’s not decided yet, we will decide tomorrow. I’ve never been to Poland and Krakow. If we go, it will be very interesting!

So I think I will have lots of opportuneties to photograph new stuff this summer. I’m so looking forward to it.

Well, I’m none of those places right now. I’m in Oslo. To get my inspiration back, I turned to what I love – bikes! Bikes always makes me smile and cheer me up. Seeing an beautiful, old bike makes me giddy. No kidding!

So here they are, today’s bikes. Enjoy!

day

The croft pt. II

Kjersti Lier — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 20:33:42 +0000

Last weekend I was back at Lierfoss. This time to visit a friend and just relax at the countryside. My sister and her family came too, which was nice. We spent most of sunday together, eating good food, playing and being outside making a snowman.

I had some time to get out my camera too this weekend. I went back to the croft. My parents are spending a lot of time there, cutting down unwanted trees and bushes. It takes a lot of time. Dad went there with my uncles tractor and I drove my mum there. Mum wanted me to help out, but I said I couldn’t. I had more important things to do, I needed to photograph.

The weather wasn’t as good as last time I was there photographing, it was a bit more foggy, but I still managed to capture some of the beauty of that place.

Enjoy!

Wintery Lierfoss

Kjersti Lier — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 21:16:22 +0000

Here are some more photos from my winter walk a few weeks ago. These photos are taken around Lierfoss, where I grew up. The sun was shining and the weather was gorgeous. I love winter days like that! I hope it will be more winter days like that in the near future.

The croft

Kjersti Lier — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 13:55:03 +0000

Last saturday I went home to where I grew up, to visit a friend. The weather was really nice, so I took the opportunity to photograph some too. Dad took me to this place, a piece of land that my uncle ownes. My parents have been working there; tiding up, cut donw trees and bushes. Long time ago, like 50 years, this was a croft. Many people has live there. My grandfather had a farm and needed help to run it. The people he hired lived on that croft. Apart from working on my uncles farm for at least 8 hours a day, they had to work when they came home too — just to take care of the croft. It was hard life.

Dad told me all this when we were there. He is a great storyteller and know so much about all sorts of stuff. He always has a story to tell when we visit places. I like to listen to those.

These photos might now be so special to you, but to me they carry something extra since there’s a story behind them I can relate to.

Enjoy!

Winter scenes from a bus

Kjersti Lier — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 22:23:16 +0000

The weather the day I left my friend in Elverum was absoutely wonderful. It was cold though, – 24 C when I got up at 08.30. Brrr. It was real sunny when I went on the bus. I knew beautiful landscapes would fly by as the bus set its destination towards Oslo. The beautiful scenery passing by, I couldn’t let that pass without photographing. Even though I was on a bus and it’s not always easy to photograph when you’re on the move. When I entered the bus, I tried to find a seat with a clean window. I also wanted to avoide the windows with stickers on it too.

The two hour long busride started great, with sun and blue skyes. It wasn’t one cloud in sight and it was oh so beautiful. As we came nearer Oslo, the clouds rolled in. You can see that on the very last photograph. It was all grey and almost foggy outside then.

I have more winter photographes to show you all. Yesterday I was out photographing again. When the sun is up and the sky is blue, it’s hard to sit inside and watch the beautiful weather. You’ll see those photos later this week. I still need to post process them and it’s quite a lot to go through. I hope you won’t get tired of all my wintery shots. You’ll see something else, like in March or something, when the snow is gone ;)

A cold and sunny winter day

Kjersti Lier — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 11:00:07 +0000

So as I told you in my previous post, I visited a friend last weekend. She texted me the day before I was coming telling me to bring some warm pants, so we could be outside. That was a very good idea, because it was cold outside. It is always much colder where she lives than in Oslo. It is also much more snow. Here most of the snow rained away two weeks ago. We did get some new snow, but it’s not that much. In Elverum, there were quite some snow as you will see on the photographes.

It was really sunny on saturday. It gave me the perfect light to work with while I was photographing outside.

Bjørg brought out her kicklsled (seen on the top photographes). You can read more about it here, if you want to know more about it. Seeing a kicksled brought back so many memories. I used to have one when I was a kid. You can walk pretty fast with it and downhill it goes very fast! I always had fun with the kicksled. There was no time for me to use the kicksled on saturday, I was too busy photographing.

I really hope there will be more days like the one I had on saturday.

…and we have more bikes!

Kjersti Lier — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 20:27:30 +0000

This weekend has been cold, really cold. On friday I went to a town two hours away from Oslo. It’s called Elverum. I got a friend living there and went to visit her for the weekend. When I came there friday evening, it was about -18 C outside (0 Fahrenheit). Saturday the temp. was stable on -18 C., but this morning when I got up, Bjørg’s husband told me the temp. had dropped to -24 C. (about -11 Fahrenheit). That is friggen cold. Thank god it wasn’t as cold as that when I arrived Oslo today. It was ‘only’ -15 C (5 Fahrenheit). Have any of you experienced this cold weather?

It has been perfect winter weather to photograph in. Yesterday we were out on a hourlong walking trip. It was so nice, even though it was cold outside. You only need warm enough clothes, and then you’ll be good to go. I took some photos while walking. You couldn’t walk outside and not capture that lovely winter day. I have used my camera today too. First on my way back from Elverum. I took photos from the bus.

When I arrived Oslo today and I walked out of the Bus Terminal, I saw a pretty bike. I knew I had to photograph it and in the next second I found out I wanted to go hunting for bikes. As you know, I can’t get enough of bikes! On my adventure, an old guy spotted me standing on top of a concrete brick trying to photograph some stairs. He was going down those stairs and blocked my photo opportunety. When he saw me, he stopped and stared at me. I turned around to photgprah something else, because I could sense the guy wasn’t happy. After a short while, I turned around again and took a glance at him – he was still there. Then he pierced his eyes into me and yelled ‘YOU’RE A SPY’! Then he walked away… I had to bite my lip not to laugh ;) Have you ever experienced such things being out photographing?

After nearly two hours outside, I came back with quite some bike photographes. I had to search extra hard, since it’s wintertime and there isn’t as many bikes outside as in the summer. On my walk, I saw some bikes I’ve seen many times before. Some bikes are definitely abandonned.

Here are what I found today:

Next time I will come with the winter photographes from this weekend.

Stay tuned! :)

Let’s start the year with bikes

Kjersti Lier — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 15:07:55 +0000

I ended 2012 and started 2013 photographing some of the things I love the most; bikes! It wasn’t planned by me, it just happened. Well, the photo trips were planned, but not that bikes would be my focus. It’s not a big surprise though, since I love bikes. I’m thinking that I have to make a book full of bike photographes some time. Well, I have that thought about many things, ‘that needs to become a book’. So far not many ideas has turned into books.

Maybe these photos one day will end up in a photo book. In the meantime, you’ll just have to watch them here.

This is the first post of 2013. Lets hope there will be many more in the year to come. That is my plan at least.

My next plan, photo wise, is to finish my book with 2012 photos. I started on it right after I finished the book of 2011 photos. Sadly I didn’t take that many photos the last months of 2012, so there won’t be that much to add. Anyways, it has to be finished and sent off to be produced. I make my books over at Blurb.com. I can highly recommend it! The quality of the books you get is very high. My uncle got a book with photos from Christmas and he loved it.