There are lots of pretty photos in this entry. Feel free to scroll down to them if you don’t feel like reading. They’re not my photos though — but you get lots of those next week!

For the rest of the week you’ll likely get more highly interesting (or perhaps boring) posts on the Faroe Islands. If you didn’t know, or you’ve only just discovered the delightfully British realm of my blog, I’m going on holiday on the 13th July — next Monday! I have to admit, when I realised I was leaving in under a week I squealed with both excitement and worry. I think you’re meant to do lot of preparatory work before flying into a cold, rainy, desolate middle-of-nowhere island. A lot of preparation which I’ve kind of skipped doing so far. Oops.

I blame this blog! I’m writing when I should be cleaning my camera lenses! I’m shoving frozen peas down my shorts when I ought to be making sure I have enough clean jumpers (sweaters) to keep me warm!

Anyway, I have done a little research into what will be my home for 17 days (which is an awfully long time to spend in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, I tell you!)

First, a more detailed map.

If you’re wondering how big these islands are, the simple answer is ’small’; the exact answer is: from north to south  it’s 70 miles (113km) and from east to west only 47 miles (75km)! There are 18 islands which have a rather grand total area of 545 square miles (1400km²) — the UK, by comparison, is 94,000 square miles. And the UK is small (the USA is 3.7 million square miles, by the way — you think you have population issues…?) If you click the map, you’ll see where I’m staying — Klaksik — in the the north east, quite close to ‘BORÐOY’. It’s only about 20 miles as the crow flies from the capital Tórshavn but it still takes 50 minutes to drive it (look for the bridges and tunnels between the islands shown by dotted lines, there’s no direct route!)

So I’ll be spending most of my time in a town with a vast population of about 4,500 (the second largest in the country!) The address of where I’m staying is simply the town name followed by a number (’Klaksik 53′) — how cool is that?! If you’re nodding and saying ‘Cool!’ then good on you; that is why I chose the Faroe Islands! There are only a handful of locations like it in the world, and this is the only one that isn’t tropical.

Anyway, the people — they’re like Vikings, with all the braided beards, horned helmets and daunting tallness removed. I’m told I’ll be the tallest person in the country (…!) I will of course obtain photographic proof that they’re all really short (and cute, in the case of the girls, my host hastened to add). They seem to have kept their Scandinavian looks, but thanks to to the occasional rape-and-pillage by Portugese, Spanish and Turkish sailors there are a few darker-skinned and intense-looking people too. Mostly though, they’re just plain short.  Probably due to the inbreeding, if you think about it: 2,000 Viking settlers started it all and almost everyone there today stems from those original bloodlines. First cousins are considered ‘quite distant’ in Faroese terms…

(Incidentally, none of these photos are mine. They all come from Ólavur Frederiksen’s site, a fantastic Faroese photographer.)

There haven’t been any celebrities of International renown (except perhaps for Teitur, a musician) — perhaps on a local or Nordic scale, or if you’re really into ancient Norse texts, you might find some. They’re famous for fishing whales (and their wind-dried sheep) — that’s about it. If you don’t believe me, here’s a list of all their famous people. Leave a comment if you recognise any of them.

On the topic of whales, apparently, if I’m very lucky, I’ll get to participate in a whale hunt! Whaling is part of their culture, their heritage and their livelihood. There aren’t a whole lot of resources in the Faroe Islands; the sea is one of them and whales have provided valuable meat (and blubber!) for centuries. It’s a little sad that it has almost been banned, even though only 950 are caught each year. Is butchering pigs or cows any worse? They’re all mammals…

If only a bloody, sanguine-saturated sea didn’t make for such an awesome photo, eh?

(It was a toss-up between a photo of them jumping jovially through the water, or one of them dead on a beach…)

I won’t actually be killing any whales (I think) — it’s more of an involved process than ‘just’ killing them: there’s a sighting (probably by some ‘official whale scouter’); then the rallying of the whole town (really, the whole town takes part). Then they all jump into boats to hunt and drive them towards the beach. And then… I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to wait and see!

Talking of boats, we’ll have one to get around with. Which is how we’ll get to the tiniest and most remote islands (some of which have a population of… 1) and also how we’ll get to rocks (smaller and less grassy than an ‘island’) that have nothing on them but thousands of puffins. Puffins like these:

It can get a little rough at sea though, which is apparently why we have to stay very close to the coast. If you check the map again and find ‘Suðuroy’ (which we will be visiting), the following video is an example of what the sea can be like during the crossing:

I have a feeling that being able to tread water for 10 minutes might not be all that helpful if we capsize. Hopefully he has life jackets…

Back to the geography: the Faroe Islands are very low-lying (the highest point is only 880m!) but incredibly craggy. Black rock juts out of the short grass and almost nothing grows well there — except for sheep. There are lots and lots of sheep.

Also, I guess because of erosion by both sea and wind, almost every coastline is a cliff. This makes for some terrifying views which I am incredibly eager to photograph. Just look at this:

(Does your stomach flip a little looking down there…?)

And soon, in just 6 days, I’ll be there! Taking photos, hunting whales and eating puffin kebab! Remember, it’s not too late to buy your very own Personalised Faroese Landscape (but it’s probably too late to order in any fancy props, so bear that in mind).

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Is it a bit sad that my favourite bit of this photo is actually my hand at the top? It almost perfectly mimics Michelangelo’s David. Michelangelo wanted his David to exemplify the human form — he wanted his David to be perfect. Now, I won’t go as far as to draw all of those associations to my good self… but apparently I have quite nice legs. A few girls have said so now, over the years, including a few dancers! They can’t all be wrong.

This photo was meant to have me frolicking in our proper formal garden, the one with all the fancy hedging — it was meant to be full-frontal nudity, but blurred, with me in the distance, obviously having a lot of fun.

But it was frickin’ cold out and my original idea required a lot of set-up. Oh, it was raining too (you can see a few drops of rain stopped mid-descent if you look closely). So yeah, I stripped off, grabbed my mother’s Crocs (yes, they’re not mine!) and did a quickie. A quickie photo.

[More disgusting (but probably not as naked) too-much-information can be found over on Lilu's blog.]

(I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have ’shooting’ and ‘gasm’ in the same sentence. I can’t really call it a ‘meteorgasm’ for obvious reasons. Say it out loud… go on… Loud enough for anyone nearby to overhear you.)

Bit of a smorgasbord of photos this week. It’s winter, so everything happens really quickly — when the sun’s out, it’s beautiful, but five minutes later it can be dismal and grey and rainy. The sun is setting at 3:50pm or something crazy — when you wake up between 12 and 1pm, that makes the apparent length of days very short. Fortunately I have these blog-writing sessions to add structure to my life, otherwise I might hibernate or something…

I’ve been listening to Marvin Gaye again, almost non-stop. I think it’s turning into some kind of addiction, some kind of need – I haven’t put a song on ‘repeat’ since I was 16, but I must’ve listened to ‘Please Stay‘ 25 times in the last few days. It has only avoided tonight’s playlist because I’ve discovered another great album by Gaye called Here, My Dear. But I digress…  as I alluded to yesterday, I should have a (dare I say it) photo shoot with a cute girl at the end of the week. Little does she know just how easy these photos are going to be, because she’s stupendously beautiful and photogenic. But hey, I need the confidence-boost, the ego-stroking, so that in the future I can take photos of ugly people!

Big mish-mash of photos today then: the meteor shower of December 12-14 (Geminids), an ‘out-take’ from 52 weeks, and a couple of ‘geometric experiments’.  I’ve been trying to catch meteors for a few years now, but it’s hard here in south England. Lots of light pollution (I have an airport very close by). Then there’s the matter of clouds and full moons and all that jazz — this year was meant to be the best ever for Geminid sightings, but I was still hampered by cloud and sub-zero temperatures.

Yes, I stood outside for about three hours, and all I got was three photos. I couldn’t feel my toes for about two hours after I came back inside (it was the coldest night of the year so far… brr! ice on my boots!) They’re not even that great photos, but I’ve included a couple in today’s Shooting Stargasm.

The geometric photos are just… experiments. I liked the light, and I’m fast learning that I should just TAKE PHOTOS when there’s any kind of light to be had, otherwise I might not get another chance before another Tuesday Photogasm comes around. I’m also coming to terms with the fact that I might be a very good ‘available light’ photographer. It’s dawning on me that this may indeed be the case… (buy my photos, because I have a nagging sensation that they’ll double in price by this time next year).

Enjoy the photos! Think of me freezing my rapidly-gangrenous nuts outside just for the art.

As always, hover over each image for specific notes.

(Admire Canis Major on the far left! Two stars of Orion’s Belt are just visible)

Phew! That was a rather eclectic mix. Now I’m going to shave off my Hitler beard and think of something disturbing for Thursday.

I do hope that suffixing things with ‘gasm’ doesn’t become my catchphrase. I can just see it now… thirty years in the future, sitting on a couch, doing an interview for some crappy daytime TV show… ‘Go on, say it.’ — ‘But I’m here to drum up interest for-’ – ‘Say it! We’re not here to hear about your new book!’ — ‘OK OK… gasm. Gasm, gasm, gasm. There, I said it.’

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

I wonder what kind of phrases/quotes will be remembered when I die. I wonder if I’ve already said my greatest words of wisdom (what a sad thought…) The phrases you find online, one spoken or written by influential and important people, were they great at the time? Will something I’ve written in the past year come back in 50 years, without context, and sound far more pertinent or awesome than I ever intended?

I’m ranting, sorry. My eyes hurt because I’ve been either under or oversleeping — why do my eyes hurt when I oversleep? God knows. Also, my eyesight is failing again which means I need to get new lenses. I wish I knew for sure if this was just genetic (both my parents have poor eyesight) or if it’s the continued, excessive computer-use. Or maybe it’s both. How bad can it get…? I’m only -4 at the moment, and apparently I shouldn’t worry until I’m at -8 or so… but still…

This week’s photos come from New Year’s Eve. Just a few minutes before New Year’s Day actually. It’s been incredibly cold for the last couple of weeks and conditions haven’t been great for photography (and I’ve been sleeping at odd hours, which doesn’t help).  I think I alluded to a previous love of low-light photography — it was basically all I did at college, when I first started taking photos.

I’ve been out the last few nights trying to take some more photos, but so far nothing else has worked. It’s pretty hit and miss, pointing your camera at puddles (like yesterday’s 52), or into misty windows. If there’s any kind of photography that actually lies, it’s photos of night-time or low-light scenes. Photography is all about drawing with light (literally), so when there is no light it’s no surprise that the results are a little weird.

As always, you can hover over photos for my notes. Not much this week, but with Christmas and New Year celebrations, I think you can forgive me. I’m going to try and do some more night-time photography in the next few days, while the moon is still quite full.

(This actually looks really cool when cropped to just the end of the road… there’s some fogginess and some nice light… but I’m showing you the whole thing because of the MOON! There’s a couple of stars in there too, if you look closely…)

(This week’s 52 wasn’t a crop of this — they are different photos, from different angles. I love the light in the puddle in this version though!)

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And we’re done for another week! The last photo was actually going to be this week’s ‘19 of 52′, but I went with the ‘puddle of ink’ at the last moment. I still haven’t got my driving license… did you know that? I really should get it this year…

If you’ve been stalking me on either Twitter or Facebook, the next piece of news probably won’t come as a surprise. Truth be told, I’m going a little crazy here in cold, grey, snowy, dismal England. I don’t ever recall having this much trouble getting through the winter — something has changed within me, something is not the same. It’s like… the rules of the game have changed and I’m no longer satisfied with sitting here in front of my computers.

So I’m going to NORWAY, baby. Middle of March through until some time in April. I will experience the FJORDS and… er… I don’t know — cute, blonde inbred Scandinavian Übermensch? (That’s a Google Images link by the way — I’m not going to go and pick favourites, sheesh.)

(Photo not mine — just showing you what a fjord can look like…)

But yes, despite the brief moments of testosteronic superiority, the real reason I’m going is the fjords. Often described as the most beautiful natural wonders of the world, the fjords of Norway line the entire coast of the Scandinavian Peninsula and make up 7% of Norway’s total area. For some reason, Norway has one of the lowest densities in the world with only 4.8 million people in the entire country. Considering they have one of the best standards of living, and a huge income from oil, I really have no idea why no one lives there. Maybe there’s a disease (like the Faroe Islands), or maybe it’s the ol’ ‘it’s too damn cold for 80% of the year’ thing.

My friend in Bergen has a house on (by?) Hardangerfjord, which is one of the biggest. Have a look at Svein Ulvund’s photos of the fjord and nearby — insane, eh? March is when they’re meant to be at their finest, after most of the snow has been and gone. I hope I can do them justice — and I may need to buy a new camera before I go…

Anyway, I’ll be going to Bergen and Trondheim — here’s a map:

I actually had no idea they were so far north… Trondheim is further north than my trip to the Faroe Islands! At this time of year, there probably won’t be much sunlight — but by the time March rolls around, it should be at least 4C or 39F… so not that cold, really. Yet again I’ll miss the Arctic Circle by a few hundred miles, dammit!

We’ll try to drive around a bit, but I think only one of my hosts has a car — we’ll likely stay close to Bergen and Trondheim. Maybe they have skidoos that we can buzz around and churn snow with? Our plans are still in their formative stage, but I’ll be booking flights in the next few days… so there’s no going back.

If anyone’s been to Norway (Chele?), now’s the time to throw in any advice. And does anyone live in Norway? Maybe I can pay a fleeting visit!

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Because it’s Tuesday, I have photos; mostly alternates for yesterday’s 52 Weeks. They’re not amazing, but perhaps they’re interesting — you decide!

(You might not be able to see it on your screen, but the leaf is reflecting a pink sunset — if you can’t see it, trust me! It’s pretty!)

(Again, there’s some lovely pinks and blues in this photo, but you might not be able to see them! I chased the birds around for ages, but they finally settled down in the tree for a photo. So kind of them.)

The last two are obviously a bit ‘experimental’ — my favourite bits are the golden ‘halos’ where the sunset hits the water at an odd angle. Very cool.

I’m off to Norway in three days! Wheee!

I’ve now obtained a warm jacket (actually a snowboarding jacket — I’m so cool) and some very warm wool socks (again, snowboarding/skiing socks). Ostensibly, I will be walking — not a lot, but more than usual (i.e. more than none) — so the socks make a lot of sense. I actually need to get some new boots too — my current Timberland boots are 7 or 8 years old, but when a new pair cost something like £150 ($230), it’s hard to bite the bullet.

I have a scarf and hat (a deerstalker — still not sure about wearing it in public). The guys at the snowboarding shop said I should get a ‘buff’ — seriously, like a muff, but… buff. One of those neck warmer things. I don’t think it’ll be that cold or bitter in Norway though.

All that remains… is pants. I have none.

(Click for larger… though I can’t imagine why you’d want to…)

Both kinds of pant, British and American. I must buy some in the next couple of days (so that I have time to break them in). Do I go for the full, ‘long’ variety… or do I stick to boxer shorts? Do I wear denim and cotton (I don’t own jeans), or is there such thing as ‘warm’ trousers? I don’t want to wear plastic waterproof pants or trousers (for similar reasons). I have an old pair of wool trousers I think.

I mean, I have boxer shorts… not many, but some. A couple of pairs. And pants — trousers — I have… well, nominally two pairs, but I only really wear one.

This is the problem when I don’t go out much. It’s very easy to just whack on some underwear, slap on some trousers and a t-shirt, plonk myself down in front of my computers and while away 16 hours before reversing the process. Now that Norway is only a few days away and I’ll be spending three weeks in the presence of other human beings, I better get some more clothing for my lower half. (Incidentally, I recently bought an eight-pack of socks, they went through the wash once, and now only three out of sixteen socks remain — how lame is that?)

Anyway, other than that little dilemma, I’m all ready for Norway! I’ll be spending seven days in Bergen and eleven in Trondheim. There will be many fjords. And Nordic beauties — it’s about time a British emissary was sent to reclaim what was unlawfully stolen away by the Vikings! And… er… well, there isn’t a whole lot else to do in Norway. Their primary exports are fuels, machinery… and fish. They also love their woollen goods — so basically this is going to be like the Faroe Islands, but without the fuel or machinery. And without the dried sheep and whale.

I actually don’t know what we’re going to do, except walk and carouse. I’m staying with students in Trondheim, so I imagine that’ll be quite rowdy. But even then, I’m very curious to find out what people actually do in Norway. They’re not a standard ‘Western’ nation that deals mainly in services. There isn’t going to be a ‘downtown’ Trondheim. I guess it’s a more social lifestyle there? When 50% of the country’s income is from exporting fuel, life has to be pretty easy, surely?

The weather’s looking good, too. Bergen is a balmy 3C (37F) during the day, while Trondheim is a little bit nippier — freezing during the day, down to -5 (23F) or -6 at night. (Of course, if you figure wind chill into the equation it drops to about -15C, but who’s counting…)

As for the blog, I need to spend the next few days finishing preparations, and shifting obligations to other hapless victims/helpful friends. As before, I’ll put the blog into its ‘resting state’. It’s like cryogenic suspension, stasis, but not as cool. A new header will appear at the top of the blog to remind you where I am, and that for a month posts will be both sporadic^[1] and erratic. I’ll likely stick to early-morning updates, but it’ll depend on just how debauched and drunk I get. I needn’t remind you of what happened in Poland…

Oh, and if you want to buy some photos, I’ll try to get them onto Etsy in a timely fashion. I actually want to enable sales right here on this site, but that’ll have to wait until after Norway.

Bon voyage, or as they say in Norwegian: god reise — or, if the going gets really tough, luftputefartøyet mitt er fullt av ål!

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1. Did you know that ’sporadic’ comes from the same Greek root as ’spores’? As in, scattered far and wide.