Some photos from Norway

At the start of the month I visited Norway for the first time ever, and was astounded by the beauty of this fabulous country. I arrived in Sandefjord on a damp and drizzling Sunday afternoon, but even the rain couldn't hide the majesty of the scenery around me. The top photo was actually taken on my mobile phone  which really doesn't do justice to the place.

And, of course, there were millions of boats, so I was happy :)

After the conference in Sandefjord, I headed up to Oslo for the weekend. I was kicking myself for only bringing my little Polaroid digital camera because the city is absolutely stunning. Amazing architecture everywhere and the harbourside is just beautiful. I didn't take that many photographs in the end because I was too busy trying to take it all in myself.

The top photo shows a beautiful ship that was docked in the harbour. Underneath that is the original Viking ship Gaia which has been completely reconstructed and sits in the Viking Ship Museum in Bygdøy. And the bottom photo is the view from the Royal Palace, looking down Karl Johans Gate at dusk.

Definitely have to go back to Oslo with my Canon SLR :)

Bristol Cathedral at dusk

On Saturday night, whilst sitting in The Parlour at our exhibition, I noticed that the sky behind the Cathedral on College Green looked really dramatic, and so went outside to snap a couple of photos.

I'm still trying to figure out all the settings on my camera, so was just messing about with different exposures, but I think these photos turned out pretty well. I have a manual at home for my camera, but I've been too lazy to pick it up so far. To be honest, I quite like not knowing what I'm doing and just experimenting; mostly I get a nice surprise when I upload the photos later. In these ones, I love the contrast between the dark blue sky and the orange of the streetlamps. But I think I just got lucky. Maybe I should start studying the manual to learn how to replicate these effects when the meteorological conditions aren't quite so kind :)

Opening night of the exhibition

Last night, we held a wine reception to officially open our exhibition. We had a really good turnout and at one point the room was actually packed! I mean, it's a small room, but there still must have been about 30+ people crammed in there. I felt all sorts of proud!

It was a bit of a struggle to drag myself in this morning to open up, but we had another great day with lots of people coming in, really good feedback, and a lot of interest in the group.

Tomorrow is our 1 year anniversary, and also the last day of the exhibition. I'll be sad to take it all down - it feels like a lot of effort for just 3 days - but it's been an amazing couple of days so far and it's been worth it. Already thinking about the next show... :)