I'm not even sure how to tell my stories from these days spent in Norway.
The days have been intense, the company superb, the food a delight, the weather ... all that I needed it to be. I've met lovely people and smiled often.
Today, after a session with some exquisite horses, Ren took me on a boatride out into the fiords here. No words but here I am, doing the 'selfie' thing while out there on the boat.
Ren Powell, poet and teaching artist, is my hostess here in Norway and thanks to her I'm having the most marvelously intense time teaching photography here.
She took this photograph in downtown Stavanger yesterday and let me play with it a little.
Thank you, Ren :-)
I love the amusing things I'm finding here in Stavanger, Norway. The big red supply ship, with the huge mouth and sharp teeth painted on the bow, parked in the harbour below. The hairdresser's sign in the photograph at the end of this post. And the graffiti ...the graffiti here needs a whole its own post. It's divine.
And Norwegians speak the most beautiful English. Ylvis prepared me for the English but oh... it is everywhere in this country I've not known until now. The interview I'm linking to, switches to English at about 1 minute but these guys were my very first introduction to Norway.
Today though, we were in the most exqusite teahouse I've ever had the privilege of visiting. Thank you to Selman, for his hospitality and kindess, and his truly good tea.
Rebecca and Karoline were such a pleasure to spend time wandering with, and I'm loving the light and the photography too.
It's like that.
I flew yesterday ... leaving the house at 3pm, arriving in Oslo at 9.30pm and Stavanger at midnight.
I have so many stories but I'll write later. For now, a glimpse ...
I grew up in a small town called Mosgiel, population something small, a place where people raised their families. Near a city (Dunedin) but not a city.
I grew up with aunts and uncles living 'away' but close enough to visit sometimes. I adored my Nana and Grandad (mum's parents) and often begged to go stay with them in their Invercargill house. 3 hours away in those days ... cars got faster, roads improved. It's not so far in these days.
My Grandma and Grandad were delightful too but that appreciation of them came later. When I was small, it was all about Nana.
My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer back in 1998, my Nana (her mother) slipped away before her, with undiagnosed cancer. Surprising us all.
These days, so many years later, I still imagine them alive and so I have these conversations with them going on in my head. Not 'voices'. I guess I simply talk to the memory of them. The memories of who they were, the memories of how they would react to things in my life now.
But I 'find' them via my senses too. There might be a sight Mum would love, or an experience I wish I could share with her, or questions I so want to ask her. And then I've wondered, in the years since losing her, if Nana ever wanted to travel ... but I never knew to ask. Who knew I was going to do what I did.
And, of course, I thought they were forever folk. We never considered that thing called Death while they were alive, there was no, 'this is last time I will see them'. And then it was complicated by the fact that Mum wasn't even 60 when she died and that she so very much wanted to live.
Fast-forward to Now and I was invited to visit Lake Como. I went, full of misgivings, knowing the Genova was the place that had captured my soul ... but curious to see what was there at this much-talked-about lake.
It turns out there was a whole lot of 'home' just waiting for me to discover it. The lake and the mountains there created a bizarre, and yet beautiful, split in my reality. It was so very like Queenstown, New Zealand ... and yet, not. The scent of lake rocks warmed by the sun, cleaned by a massive lake ... so very familiar. The early morning peace ... 6am lake-lapping, birds calling, and air so clean that it took me back home in the peace of it all.
But another 'experience' was the food. That first night Helen and I ate on the lakeside balcony of Ristorante Helvetia, in Lezzeno, and oh how we dined. We ate every course, unusual for us but we were celebrating the end of a first fantastic workshop back in Genova.
For me, the course of the evening was this incredible piece of pork, with cheese and ... other stuff. It took me back to those times, when I was safe in the kitchen of Nana, eating meals that comforted me at some deep soul level, even while she denied she could cook.
I wish I could share my journey with these women who formed me. I feel that they watch over me since dying, and I hope that they do because I miss them. My sister will come here one day and we'll travel for sure, toasting those women we loved as we wander. Those women who made us the creatures we are today.
But anyway, all of that just so I could post this photograph of a dinner that I hope to repeat sometime soon.
I have a new way of post-processing my photographs ... perhaps I should simply write, 'a new toy'.
It's so much fun!
And that's not written lightly. I woke at 4.30am after an early night. Well ... 11.30pm is early for me but sleeping before midnight seems to result in a ridiculously early morning wake-up. My mind was racing so I gave in at 5.30am, slipping downstairs, turning on the radio as the coffee machine creaked into action, as the toast cooked.
I sat awhile reading the new book about the granddaddy photo-journalist from way back there in the beginning. I cannot begin to tell you how much I am loving that book, sad that I can't take it to Norway because ... along with my camera equipment and laptop, it would be too heavy to take with me.
I wanted to write a blog post from the quiet of this morning but my mind was noisy and busy. I had a portrait session at 9am. Two lovely Canadian girls from Texas ... from Canada. And their cousins, the two girls from Belgium. The shot of the day ... the one that made us all laugh most, was the one where Cloe had them all doing the 'fishface' thing.
It was about 2pm when I elegantly face-planted on the couch and napped for a little bit. Oh those naps, they are getting me through. I'm thinking, when I get back to Belgium, I might have an iron test. It feels like it might be an iron thing, this tiredness. I'm 'that age' these days. And maybe some allergy tests too, as they're running out of control.
Soon though, I'm off to spend time with one of my most favourite poets in the world. We hope to create some beautiful posts/art/something unexpected during our days together in Norway. I'm curious. I've never been there before. But that's life, isn't it ... a big adventure.
I processed the photographs of the Air BnB apartment I spent some time in last time I was in Genova. I loved this little place where my bed seemed to float, up there on the mezzanine floor, with a view up the narrow carruggi somewhere near the ancient Chiesa di San Donato.
So ... a combination of photograph, of new processing tool, and some stories too, written from another humid and hot summer day here in Belgium.