Vetle Woxholt Photography

The woods just exploded into early summer last weekend. Over a period of just two short days the trees went from just a touch of green into intense green. In the woods the early spring blossom is at it’s peak. At the moment the Wood Anemone (Anemone nemorosa), or Hvitveis as it is called in Norway, are one of the most abundant species. It often grows in a carpet-like fashion between the trees and are among the first spring flowers to show up. The Wood Anemone is actually poisonous, and can create reactions on your skin if your unlucky or not careful. Anyhow, it is a truly welcome spring flower with it’s early promise of the summer to come. A small album with larger images can be found here.

All photos captured with Nikon D300, Nikkor 17-55 / 70-200VR (w/Canon 500D on some photos) / 105VR / Sigma 10-20

Every year nearby birk trees are cut down and brought to the cabin for cutting and splitting so that we will have enough firewood for the next season. The cutting (chainsaw) and splitting (with an axe) we have to do by hand, so this firewood heats at least twice. The fact that all the wood were snow covered and therefor had to be dug out before any cutting and splitting could start, didn’t exactly make the task easier. After a whole day of hard work, this is the (rather pity) result of my struggles…

Hopefully it will be enough for the next winter to come.  The firewood is left outside for drying and will not be stored in the shed before later this summer. It will have to dry out until late autumn or preferably next winter before it is ready to be burned. As there were too little gasoline for the chainsaw available in order to cut all the wood into splittable pieces, the rest (in the background) had to be left for the people in the neighbor cabin to finish later.

Not much time for skiing and photography, unfortunately, but I did have a little fun in the morning before I started the firewood work experimenting with zooming and long exposure times.

The picture above is a result of the inspiration I got from reading Bryan Peterson’s excellent new book on ‘Understanding Shutter speed’ the night before. The book is highly recommended.

I downloaded the new Lightroom 2 Beta the other day, and I must say I’m thrilled about some of the new features. Especially the new local corrections made my day. After playing around with this new function for a while, there’s no doubt there will be a change to how I process my images from now on. Below you can see two examples of what easily can be achieved.
The first photo is an ‘old’ (2006) Nikon D200 image from Crete, that I never thought any particular of. The original is rather dull and flat, even though the early morning light at the time of capture was interesting enough. Local corrections together with some other tweaks solely in Lightroom 2 Beta made the image more interesting, by introducing a S curve of light in the grass, and enhancing the important flowers.
Image with basic Lightroom processing:

After post-processing in Lightroom 2 with Local Corrections:

The second example is from a shoot of a rather tired tulip I did a couple of weeks ago with my Nikon D300. Backlight is from the window, while I used a reflector (gold/silver) to light up the shadows. The first image is with only basic tweaks, while the second image is with dodge and burning Local Corrections applied.
Image with only basic adjustments:

Image with dodge and burn Local Corrections applied:

Although the Local corrections changes I’ve made here is only for testing and is rather ‘brutally’ applied, I think the results are encouraging. I really hope Adobe will have Local corrections in the final release of Lightroom 2 when it appears.

Probably the best one week skiing trek in Norway is the route starting east of Skibotn in Indre Troms going south ending at Abisko or Björkliden in Sweden (by the Ofotbanen railroad). Eight nice cabins with gas and firewood, but without food or anything else, is available to the public along the route. Distance between cabins vary from 12-13 km to about 36 km, so with heavy backpack’s (or pulk) some skiing experience together with a good physical condition is mandatory. The route is not marked, hence also a good understanding about navigation is necessary. In good weather the navigation is pretty straightforward, but the weather change quickly in the mountains. Anyway, this years trip with Ellen, Ida and Mark was a great experience. Only two days of not so good weather and snow conditions. This was the 24th trip for me together with Mark. Next year will be a big 25 year anniversary for us!

The Easter holiday in Norway has more days off from work than what is the case in most other European countries. Many take the opportunity to get a few relaxing days up in the mountains during the holiday, including us. As usual, Mestøl in Suldal was the destination, where Ellen and myself had a good time together with Karin, Øyvind, Johanne and Asbjørn. Good food is always at the agenda when we meet Karin and Øyvind, and this year was no exception. The signature dish of this easter must be the Duck filets. But of course also the roasted Lamb, the Lasagna and not to forget Øyvind’s famous Bacalao deserves honorable mentioning.
Both Øyvind and I had our Nikon D300’s with us. I brought the 70-200 f/2.8 and the new 16-85 VR along, together with my Gitzo. For the first time, I experienced the dreaded empty battery fault when using the 70-200, so I have today ordered contact cleaning fluids which I hope will fix the problem. I hate to send in the D300 for repair because last time I sent in my D200 I ended up without a camera for 4-5 weeks. Nikon service seems to be quite slow in Norway… Also I discovered that the camera had a loose screw in the battery chamber. The lower screw that hold the metal guide for the battery had come loose, and jammed the battery when I tried to insert a new fresh one. It is now temporarily fixed with a piece of tape, but I will have to see whether it might need a repair since the screw still is in there (I can see it in the bottom behind one of the pins, but cannot get it out with normal tools). As I’m going for a week and a half of skiing in Indre Troms next week, there is no way I will be sending the D300 in right now.