The weather is definitely looking up now, but it’s very cold. The roads are lethally icy after yesterday’s wet snow. We did a morning excursion to the harbour to shoot old boats, not really very exciting but very enjoyable to be out in that weather.
Since the light is so harsh during the day, we were going to spend the afternoon with post processing the pictures with Hans. We had barely started when Christian came with the news – the helicopter will not be available tomorrow as planned, so we have to do the helicopter ride today! This is really exciting… I have never flown in a helicopter, let alone shot arial pictures thru an open door!
We had quite a lot of waiting to do at the airport while they were preparing our ride. It turns out that this wasn’t the helicopter we were supposed to take. The original plan was to fly in a small helicopter which takes 6 people and do two trips (because we are 12) and everyone would have open door access all through the flight. But now we had a big Sikorsky which takes all 12, and only one open door where only two people can sit at any time. What it boiled down to was that Hans picked out a couple of interesting icebergs and then the helicopter flew around them six times, so everyone had a chance to shoot them. Christian picked me as his pair and put us in the last turn, which meant that we actually got to sit at the open door also through the flight back to airport, giving us much more shooting time. Let’s call that a reward for patiently waiting my turn… But it was so much fun! Because time was so short, I was shooting like crazy. Anything, and everything, short and long focal lengths. Horizontal, vertical. If 10 seconds passed that I didn’t take a picture, I was worried that I was wasting my time! This really was the most intensive pictures per minute session I have ever done!
There was also a big fright on the flight. Nothing related to the helicopter, but my camera. My worst nightmare came true – I pressed the shutter and nothing happened! I had been shooting thru the window while waiting for my turn, and everything was fine. Then a couple of minutes before I would sit by the open door, they put a safety harness on me so I stood there behind the people who were shooting at the moment. I had a narrow view thru the door and thought I would fire off some shots… and nothing. Nothing!! I switched the camera on and off, nothing. Removed the battery, nothing. But through my panic I had enough of a clear head to actually see what’s on the top display and realised that the aperture was not showing. So I pressed the lens release button and turned the lens, clicked it back in place, and the relief was enormous when the camera started working again. Somehow in the helicopter vibrations and the safety harness shuffle, I must have pressed the lens button and the lens got every so slightly loose. Lucky that the camera won’t fire without lens, it would have been a disaster!
In the evening the conditions were much the same as yesterday. The light was diffused and the wind was breaking up the reflections. I felt obliged to have a go at it anyway, and walked to the viewpoint. Took a few frames, but the clouds were getting thicker and the light didn’t work for me so I went back to the hotel. But I thought that there was half a chance that there was a gap in the clouds lower in the horizon so I stayed awake until midnight, sitting in front of the window and looking at the icebergs. The sun didn’t really come out, but there was some light through the clouds and I was happy. And that was the last night until July that the sun goes down!
