Gamlebyen

Yesterday it was almost spring. Today its arrival has been officially confirmed by the people of Oslo. It still a little bit chilly but you can definitely feel the warmth of the sun now. So once again I grabbed my camera bag and headed out. I didn't want to go to the city center because I knew it would be full to the brim with people (I was right) so I headed a little further off to Gamlebyen (old city) to check out the ruins of a monastery dating back to the middle ages. Well I don't know if it was the thin layer of snow still covering the ground, but the ruins looked non-existent to me aside from the stone steps which probably lead to the main hall of the monastery. This is not I remember it back when I first visited this place several years ago. I guess nothing really can last forever, no matter how hard you try to protect it.

The extremely bright sunshine really puts ones camera skills to the test. It was a metering nightmare! It's a good thing I always shoot in RAW, I can always pull out some more highlights when some parts of a picture are underexposed. But one thing I do know is that the extremely bright and contrasty conditions can be tamed by converting the picture to black and white. It also alters the mood of the picture completely, so one still needs to practice caution when capturing images in black and white. In this picture, one of my few forays into the world of street photography (I will definitely do more of it soon). The black and white conversion makes the picture more compelling. If I may say so myself, this picture looks like it could have been taken by a Leica camera!

This is another picture which in color would be less compelling. The Oslo Hospital, for those of you who don't know, was an insane asylum for women back in the days of Edward Munch. He (Munch) painted one of his masterpieces, "Scream" at about the same time when his sister was admitted to the Oslo Hospital for depression. It was said that one could hear the screams of the insane women from the spot where "Scream" was created.

On the way home I stopped by Sjømannsskolen (an old building which was once a school for would be mariners). I wanted to take some panoramic pictures of Oslo, but it was really windy and I did not have a tripod with me. So I took a walk and studied the building instead. A bit of tonal contrast really brought out the fine texture of the pillars, giving the picture an HDR look.

Gamlebyen is one of the areas in Oslo I rarely get to visit. I am sure there are more worthwhile places to see and things to do here. But it was a good short trip nonetheless. I was able to come back with some pretty nice shots and was also able to experiment a little bit. I should actually continue in this manner and challenge myself by visiting places in Oslo where I am least familiar with. Then I will be able to keep my curiosity and creativity up, and improve even more as a photographer.