I apologize for the undisciplined posting. I've just spent the last week (and the last six months) staring at a computer screen from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. in an endless realm known only as Photoshop so I've taken a little break to explore the "outside world", also known as "living". It's a bit too much at times, the whole post-production/editing thing, but also addicting. I have self-diagnosed myself as a workaholic. But I got my CPR number (the card you get for free health care in Denmark; yeah, you probably wouldn't know about it) so I have access to an optometrist. Although I get this guilt, I mean, I've totally done this to myself....
This posting will probably be off a bit with the lapse of time, but then again so is being here...
Today I went to a flea market by the sea. It was pretty similar to any flea market in the States. They did have a "Western Store" that was pretty stereotypical. I took some photos but it was raining off and on. I met this very eccentric geologist, very interested in my breasts, my Spanish ancestors (I told him repeatedly I had none) and wondered innocently why I was going to the worst journalism school in the world. The exchange was quite amusing.
He carried with him bag upon bag of maps which he frequently pulled out, meaning they were in some order, to show me places he thought I should visit. Places where sunbeams break a certain way on the horizon, a vantage point that I could view Sweden from on a clear day. In fact I now hold one of the most unique maps I have ever possessed (and I really like maps). On a map he had of Zealand, a region of Denmark, he marked all the rocks thrown by giants in Norse mythology, specifically the ones Fin (from Finland) threw at Denmark ages ago. I have no idea if this is true or not, the locations I mean, but I really treasure it.
people. Everyday I try to meet someone new, get their portrait, something, someone. Language IS a barrier. Directions, conversations = multiple interpretations. I am a rare one here, the "Monolingual".
The other photographers/journalists here all seem very nice. I don't believe there is one female Danish photographer though. The critiques have been more than I could ask for. Seriously, we spend an hour on each take (eight students). In SF we would have an hour and a half for twenty takes. Everyone shoots so differently, it's quite interesting to see the processes. The Danes seem more lax with what is "photojournalistic", too. For example, I was talking with this Danish photographer, Tobias, about telling stories without people; just their environment, waste, architecture, etc... For my first assignment I thought I would try to incorporate some of that into three expressions of a place. No faces. Only shadows, silhouettes, "left" spaces (which I also define as spaces that the viewer expects/feels should have people but are empty such as locker rooms, amusement parks or stores after closing). In San Francisco this is unheard of. Kobre would have thrown his book, "On Photojournalism", at you and failed you ( ah! the masochistic reverie!).
My friend Ingebor, from Norway, had a potluck the other night and Paul and I made sushi. One girl had never had sushi before. I prepared a piece for her with a bit too much wasabi. The expression on her face while she chewed (very, very slowly, her cheeks bright pink, nose flared ) was priceless. She was so sweet too, saying "okaaay, it IS very interesting".
Food is expensive here. A cup of coffee is $3 on average. I have sort of given up on it - cigarettes, too. For me that's quite a revolution. And still the Danes consider themselves to have a cafe culture. In my dreams I am at a Stumptown or smoking cigarettes in the back of my house in SF. I'll just keep it all there, I guess. I figure here with the new beginnings and all I can just try out new behaviors (such as what to do with my hands in conversation without a cigarette, I didn't realize just how much I gesticulate).
Okay, pictures...
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