Nordkapp

The Mysterious Mini Cooper

The mystery of the mysterious green Mini Cooper is resolved when our friends return from a long hike across the cliffs of Cape North to take some selfies and discover that our little green friends used the mini to speed up their way to Cape North with yet another clue to the quest for the Northern Light.

Shelly finally meets our little green friends

Shelly is the first out on the cliffs of Cape North to welcome our little green friends and they spent quite some time talking (*) before they join all together for a group selfie here on the commonly referred most northern part of Europe (**).

A quick group selfie on Cape North

Once the selfies have been taken and everyone did a quick check in on their social media of choice (Cape North has a free WIFI zone, special thanks to one of the largest telecom operators in Norway) our little green friends give Julien an import clue that it is not Tutti Frutti on the inside of his life jacket, but actually reads Hurtigruten and the final harbour of the Northern Voyage may very well contain another passenger for the Crew ...

Without further ado the Crew packs up their photo gear, heads back to the Camper and starts their travel East ...

(*) Will Shelly reveal what she has been discussing with our little green friends out on the cliffs ?
(**) The steep cliff of North Cape is often (mistakenly) referred to as the northernmost point of Europe, located at 71°10′21″N 25°47′40″E, about 2,102.3 kilometres (1,306.3 mi) from the North Pole. However, the neighboring Knivskjellodden point, just to the west actually extends 1,457 metres (4,780 ft) farther to the north and this is where our friends where hiking when they were considered lost or abducted by aliens.
Regardless, both of these points are situated on an island, which technically means the northernmost point of mainland Europe is in fact located at Cape Nordkinn (Kinnarodden) which lies about 5.7 kilometres (3.5 mi) farther south and about 70 kilometres (43 mi) to the east and another beautiful location for photo hikes.

Checking In

I for one have not been lost these past few days, I was merely exploring a different rabbit hole. I am back and caught up on our current adventure. The photos by +Me2 have been incredible and I am excited to see even more as our adventure continues.

Pirate treasure, aliens in hot pursuit, mystical Sjaman and of course our wonderful traveling companions; have all made this a trip of a life time. But how will it all end??

~ xxsjc

Have you been enjoying the quest?
How would you like to see it end?
What images should we ask Me2 to take for us?

Image by +Me2 

Fjord is not a Ford

Waiting for a ferry to cross the fjord

Geologically, a fjord (/ˈfjɔərd/) is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by glacial erosion. The word comes to English from Norwegian, but related words are used in several Nordic languages.

There are many fjords on the coasts of Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Alaska and British Columbia.

Fjords are not to be mistaken with fords, which are normal parts of the roads in New Zealand and a completely different type of water way and sometimes mistaken with a car brand.

Crossing fords is easy, while crossing fjords may be a slightly different adventure all together.

Ours is clearly placed in Norway where the Crew explored quite some fjords today in their big hike up to Alta.

Fjords are impressive (and that is an understatement).

They are the tell tale signs of continents tore apart ages long gone.

They show the pure power and beauty of Mother Earth in her full force.

They remind us of the age of Frodo.

They tell us that we are just another pebble in the big play of things.

And sometimes a ferry is an easy way to avoid hours of driving across the fjord to just make it to the other side, which feels like it is a stone cast away

When waiting for one of the many ferries on our road today some of the Crew could not resist to take some selfies ...

Selfies

Have you ever visited a fjord ?

Ifso, let us know below what you thought of fjords ?

The Traveling City

The Crew Buss in Kiruna City

Another epic day is coming to a close.

We found the moving city of Kiruna, we got the whole Crew™ certified on being polar circle explorers,  we found snow on the mountains, we talked shop, we had great food, we sang some Dwarvish songs, we closed the gap to the laponian gate and we ended the day with a fantastic photowalk down the slope.

Each and every topic deserves its own post and both me and Shelly made a mental note we will explore some of the topics in more detail (walking cities, talking shop, photowalks, Dwarvish songs...) long after the epic adventure has come to a closure and is part of our shared memory (read history).

On the way out of Kiruna some of the Crew decided to take a quick selfie before hitting the snowy mountains and luxury key resorts ...

A quick Selfie in Kiruna

Stuck in the dungeons ...

The coming weeks will be silent from my end.

From secret meetings rooms without smartphones to underground sessions in non disclosed locations will make it a challenge to post long and deep posts here.

I will however try to get out a daily #selfie out.

Footnotes to self:
Day XVII in my personal challenge.
As always, stay tuned and leave your view in the comments below or on your social platform of choice ...    
  

Kodak

Yesterday I posted a quick #selfie from the 2012 archive showing me with some classic Gevaert paper from my grandfathers collection which triggered Shelly to ask for your influences in a very strong post (do read the full story on the buffalo posting as it gives a great insight in the political inspired photo work that also this generation is not afraid of).

For me one of my key foundation influences is that I grew up in a family of passionate photographers and spent quite some time in supporting developing film in the dark room or long afternoons in diapositive working sessions.

So photography has always been there as a medium and became a natural language for me.

A language which further developed into a way of expressing myself.

Me2





Footnotes to self:

Day 9 in my personal challenge (soon we are in double digits)

This is only the first post in who influenced me, but for sure Kodak and Gevaert did contribute like a toddler gets formed by kindergarten games.

As always, stay tuned and leave your view in the comments below or on your social platform of choice ...

Gevaert

It has been hectic this week.

All three winners of the Easter Egg Hunt have been announced on IG (no more pink posts today) and the proof printing has been succesfully completed amongst others.

No big, long or deep posts from me today (I think I may have a few interesting topics lined up for next week) just this old #selfie from 2012 which really felt right to close this weekend from my end.

Old and new paper coming together.

I will leave the deep thoughts for Shelly post later today ...

Me2


Footnotes to self:

Day 8 in my personal challenge.
As always, stay tuned and leave your view in the comments below or on your social platform of choice ...

The Flow - Part I

Last weekend I was stuck in a small city called Leuven exploring some of the secret portals they have hidden in plane sight and I was really struggling with my on the road workflow (hence the reason I did not post a blog or a quick selfie on instagram) as there is more to the flow than just point, shoot and post ...

So this morning, back in The Studio, armed with a cup of coffee I decided to upload Stargate™to Flickr when my happy flow and the rest of the day was ruined.

Flickr and Yahoo decided to have a battle with my identity provider and no longer offer a trusted sign on with Google (and Facebook) or at least a big pop up told me that soon my login would no longer be possible ...

And so my early morning post on Shelly stealing topic and some of my on the road workflow musings got canned and this posting turned into a little rant.

I can understand the need for Yahoo (who owns Flickr) to try to regain a piece of the identity puzzle, but why they have to enforce this on the existing (paying) user base is beyond my understanding and I don't understand why I am forced in a yahoo email address.

There is no incentive, no clear explanation, just the need to register yet another email address I will never use. 

I do like Flickr, and I stayed away from uploading my pictures into Picasa (the Google Flickr) but given the road Flickr and Yahoo have choosen (removing the blogger integration, removing the Google Identity integration, ...) it is clear that Flickr wants me to choose between the Google ecosystem and theirs on the long run.

A choice that may not be in favor of Flickr after all ... 

Pink

Here is a quick #selfie of Pink, our makeup artist who did a great job in keeping our crew and actors alike animated and refreshed during the shoot. Not only with her make up brushes, but also with her great voice.

Her favorite song yesterday on the set was the old time classic of Meridith Brooks

I'm a bitch,
I'm a lover,
I'm a child,
I'm a mother,
I'm a sinner,
I'm a saint,
and I do not feel ashamed.
I'm your hell,
I'm your dream,
I'm nothing in between.
You know you wouldn't want it any other way.

And that is true, we wouldn't want Pink any other way !