I brought the book with me everywhere I went and showed it to people I met. They all liked the product, and they all liked the photos. Their favorites differed, but they all enjoyed it in general. The book is for sale in the blurb web-shop.

Have a look at the preview below and order your copy if you want to.

Læretiden | Rune E. Kolvik by Rune E. Kolvik | Make Your Own Book

I learned a lot about making a book throughout the process. Things that I wouldn’t have thought about had I not changed my mind about the layout and design several times. And I bring this knowledge with me when I start anew with my second book tomorrow. I will write about that in a new post.

I thought about it for a while and then it occurred to me that most of my images are from when I was an apprentice. So the idea then turned into creating a book with my work as an apprentice. Hopefully the book will show a novice photographer growing into an ok one. The hope is that the creative process of this bookmaking will spark the creative parts of my brain and start working on more of these book projects. Then maybe the ok photographer could become a good photographer.

As I am typing out these words I am thinking about a second book I could do from my pictures from my smartphone, but that’s for later.

Fist things first.

Seeing as I will mostly use the tab for internet surfing this will not be a major issue. A bigger issue is the keyboard. With the larger area and larger “buttons” I am concerned that I will have to stretch my thumbs way to much, as I have a tendency to use my right thumb more than the left. I probably will have no problems adapting though.

The investment is an issue. Considering I have a smartphone that does all the tasks I want the tab to do, and that I have a laptop that does all the tasks with more power. The only thing the tab offers are large screen and a small total size.

What to do?

After a few weeks of vacation, I am getting a bit bored with having so much free time and need to occupy myself in some sort of way. I was hoping to shoot a lot now that I have all this time off, but something is holding me back. I really want to shoot. I just don’t. Really annoying. Ohh yeah.. And I need to get a new job.

Sitting there writing in my journal I felt very centered. I actually felt a bit like a writer. I felt that I am moving in the right direction. And in small steps. I have a lot of goals set out for myself. I just have to face the fact that it is going to be a lot of hard work, and that it’s going to take time. But I am on my way. While taking a brief break from the journal, sipping my coffee, I posted this to twitter:

“Feeling content with knowing that I have some turbulent times ahead. I’m ready for it. #bringiton”

When I had finished my coffee I got a text from Irene that she was on her way, so I walked to our rendezvous point. We ate some dinner and talked for a while about the goings on of our lives. We tend to talk a lot, and time usually flies. When they started turning off the lights in the room, we took the hint and made our way home. It was midnight after all, and I had work the following morning.

Before the room got to dark I took a picture of Irene:

Irene for "Fifty on the five"

I had been waiting for this day for several months, and after last years festival where I saw Marc Ribaud and Elliot Erwitt, I had high expectations for this years line-up. The names I was most looking forward to was Erwin Olaf and Albert Watson.

We picked up our third travel companion Lena Katrin Bye Mikkola, and we were off. The 4 hour drive seemed like only an hour with good conversation and a bit of catching up on the goings on of our lives.

Upon arrival in Kristiansund we checked in to the hotel, and started our day of planned gallery visits. We saw lots of exhibitions in a few hours. (Albert watson, Vee Speers, Ervin Olaf, Helene Fjell, Student work from some of the Norwegian photo schools, and local camera clubs. We saw the awarded photographs from the annual competition in the National association for professional photographers (Norges Fotograf Forbund, NFF). All nice work, but the best by far was Erwin Olaf’s large, beautifully mounted magnificent prints.

The planned lecture by Erwin Olaf was sadly cancelled, but he promised to come back next year. So there is something to look forward to already.

A bit bummed out by the news about the cancellation we had some time off to relax and have some dinner. We ate a beautiful meal at Kaikanten Brasseri. All the tables was reserved but the manager made room for us. Thank you sir.

After a nice dinner it was time to go see the award ceremony for the NFF yearly competition, and to find out who had won the “photographer of the year” title. After a lot of prices had been awarded we had arrived at the crescendo of the day. The NFF photographer of the year was…  Jens Haugen.

We had a few drinks in the hotel bar and got into bed early to be well rested for the next day of lectures.

The last few years I have hardly touched my cameras.That is, I think,  mainly due to my job. Working at the lab with the pictures of other photographers have in a way drained me creatively. Seeing the same pictures over and over again, thousands of them, have made me look at the pictures in a kind of assembly line like way. You don’t really look at the product but you notice when there is something not right about it.

I can remember a time when all I wanted to do was to make pictures. A time when I was eager to try new things. When I tried it all. I want that back. I did a lot of horrible pictures, of course, but I also did some good ones. But at least I made my own pictures.

I have a lot of things I’d like to do photographically in the future. I have a few long term art projects in mind that could very easily turn into exhibitions and books. But in the near future I need to hone my skills. I need to work the technical aspect of photography back into my blood. I need to make it second nature. I need to work on my communication skills to easily convey my wants to models. I need to work on artificial lighting. I need to work on creative editing. I need to practise it all.

That means taking my trusty 5D with me at all times, but more importantly using it every day. I was considering going old school and shooting polaroid on my medium format Mamiya RZ67, but there is no way i am going to carry that with me everywhere I go. Also there is no light meter on it. I could use my handy Sekonic light meter, but I get all this in the 5D. Built in light meter. Manual exposures. Instant feedback. And it is not as large and heavy.

Updates to come.