San Diego

The planes were coming in low. They appeared silent at first, almost ghostlike through the jagged outline of San Diego.

It's a strange place to be anchored. We had a huge miltary base behind us, and every now and then we could hear the thumping sounds of distant helicopters. I watched as five grey choppers took off like a pack of wolves, following each other suit over the low rectangular buildings.

I rowed the dinghy to town. I walked with the camera, trying to be open for something new. Planes were constantly coming in at the airport. I could hear the short squeeks of rubber and sudden roars from thrust reversals. It was a noisy place. Cars and trains added to the constant buzz of modern infrastructure. But the high-tech buzz would not give anything away.

After awhile I realized that this place was forcing me to accept photography as something else. I had to stop lying.

Glass doors

She said her children was quite picky when it came to food. Children's strict likes and dislikes are apparantly connected to their identity. "Later we realize that we're no one, and can't stop eating."

Weapons of Mass Deception

The past and the future takes place right now, in our minds. It's possible to get away from it all. Not by death but by living.

Night photography

Our stay in Nome, Alaska, was way too short. I walked around for hours every night, trying to photograph as much as possible.

Then it struck me that houses really looked different when people sleep. The houses seemed more vulnerable. There was even intimacy. And the more intimate it felt, the creepier I become. 

I wished people somehow could project their dreams on the walls outside. But I just snapped a pic- ture and quickly moved on. 

Searching for a boat

Last week I took a flight to London and embarked the night train to Falmouth. In that way I didn't have to pay for a hotel. I arrived early morning. There was a lot of seagulls in the harbour. I felt fine for a while.

I met the broker and had a look at the boat, a Heard 28. It's a lot of hype around British built boats in Britain. After half an hour I had enough.

I walked around in Falmouth town for the rest of the day. I felt a cold coming and the seagulls was getting on my nerves.

I took the night train back to London and again I saved money on not having a room. It was damn cold, or maybe it just felt so cold because I hadn't slept two nights in a row.

I walked around Paddington station. I kept drinking tea to keep my warmth. Later it got sunny but I was still freezing. I sent an email to Nina saying the boat was no good and that the cockpit looked like it was created by a drunk designer.

I took the tube to Victoria and walked around in the area. After an hour of this I returned to the airport. By now I was feeling really sick. I couldn't stand myself. 

Beige couple

There's an elderly couple in front of us. They're talking about her going to the hospital. Everything is going to be alright, he says.

She's silent for a while. Then she asks: why do I have the feeling that you are talking about the car? 

Brown horse, brown cow

We're walking into the green foliage. I have a feeling that Fatu Hiva is one of those destinations where no one really have been.

 

I suddenly want to get online but there's no such thing on the island. Why sail halfway around the world to go online?

  

I start to think about Thor Heyerdahl. He arrived on Fatu Hiva in 1937, hoping to escape civilization. But he didn't get along with the locals. Eventually he and his wife took shelter in a cave, anxious to get home.

Fiji

After eating at a restaurant we're walking through the park in Suva. I'm feeling incredibly happy because I didn't have the fish. Then it suddenly strikes me: I've become an old worm.

Samoa

I'm walking in downtown Apia, the only city on Samoa. It's a rather conservative place. Walking with a camera and tripod I get the feeling that most people view me as slightly insane.

But now it's festival week. I figure most people will take it for granted that I'm photographing the fire dancers.

After eight years of travelling it's pretty clear that I'm not a good tourist. I'm almost never interested in the sights and events that's being presented.

Fear eats the soul

We often hear that sailing a 26 foot sailboat without an engine is brave indeed, but this is not even what I would call risk taking. 

I'm actually a rather nervous guy. And I'm back in Norway to sort out some health problems. It seems like the nasal spray for allergies involves steroids with severe side effects. 

Now the anxiety is really getting to me. I'm having feelings and sensations so cold that they can be taken for thoughts.

Lakeshore Loop

I kept coming back to this neighborhood in Wasilla, Alaska. Although it wasn't really a neighbor- hood. Not yet.

I've always been slightly afraid of old houses. I guess an old house is somewhat associated with the deceased.

But this was different. It was as if I felt uneasy about the future, and everything that will take place in the years to come.

What kind of people will be living here? How many kids will grow up, and what kind of people will they become? What will their memories be?

At the bookstore

"I saw this beautiful woman at the bookstore, and — afraid of being looked upon as too old — I looked at her with disgust."

Vancouver in the dark

I still wonder why the Chinese were so afraid of me taking pictures. They ducked their heads as if they were dodging bullets. Or they picked up a phone, letting me discreetly know that steps were taken.

I kept riding. I had borrowed a bike from some friends and in the dark I could stop wearing that damn helmet. 

La Paz, Mexico

I had walked for hours under the blistering sun. Brown and sand colored dogs were sleeping in the dust. They looked like dead dogs.

Then it was getting dark and I walked into a loud crowd. A stranger offered me a shot of tequila. The noise made it difficult to hear. It somehow came across that I was driving.

We tried to speak for a while. I told him about our boat and said that it was maybe a month sailing to Marquesas. I could tell that he had no idea what I was talking about. I wanted to know everything about the crowd and the tall pointed hats, but didn't want to be perceived as too much of a tourist. 

Now that I've cut down on my drinking I've come to appreciate the alienated inebriation of ignorance. 

Anger in its nature

I'm wondering why people living close to wildlife often develop anger towards certain animals. During our prolonged stay in Canada I've heard people bad-mouthing wolves, coyotes, foxes, snakes, gray jays, crows, ravens, rabbits, mice, pack rats, squirrels, porcupines, skunks, bears and eagles.

Sometimes the anger spills over to nature itself, as some kind of evil that has to be beaten down. It's a constant battle. There's too much of everything.

I know this attitude from Norway - and it's still going on, even though the wilderness is long gone.

Going south

One of the things I love about photography is the way it turns around a boring situation, like waiting for the bus in the early morning.

It was 6.30 in Fort St. John, and people were still in a state of slumber. But maybe they didn't see any point in waking up, since most of them were heading south on a very long bus ride.

In the middle of nowhere

The Greyhound bus stops in the middle of nowhere. Or so it seems. The passengers have become kind of careless about all these places. Canada is a vast country, and the distances involved can wear your interest down. So on this stop I see only a few heads turning, like 'how can anybody live here?'

Most of the passengers go out to stretch their legs or have a smoke. I'm eavesdropping quite a bit. We've been on the bus for hours and I'm bored. But then I feel slightly uneasy when a couple of guys starts talking about the beheading some years back. That was also on a Greyhound bus, leaving people in a state of shock on the darkening Trans-Canada Highway.

I'm puzzled when my fellow passengers somehow find it likely that the victim must have pissed off the guy. I guess they have a need to think away the randomness, but does it make the beheading more likely?

The bus continues through vast areas of dead pines. It's the brown beetle infested woods that's been around us for hours. 

Stress in the city

 

In Vancouver we bought an expensive herbal tea. It tasted like rotten grass but was supposed to have a calming effect. After five cups of this I realized it had no effects whatsoever. Thinking about the price I even got a bit upset.

Green orbs

I took three exposures of this house, all within a couple of minutes. The exposure time varied from 2-8 seconds. I didn't see anything strange, but later I realized that all the exposures had these green orbs over the house, at the exact same spot. 

Of course, I could have made those orbs in Photoshop. It wouldn't be difficult. But the thing is I didn't, so I'm a bit puzzled. You can click on the image and see for yourself.

Apparently the UFO sightings are numerous in Alaska. The theory goes that aliens are interested in gold, which again merge with the conspiracy revolving around the US government and a sudden devaluation of the dollar. You may wonder why the American currency should be under attack from outer space. Is it a more plausible explanation than budgets out of balance?

However, we shouldn't be so occupied with intelligent life in space. We should rather look for intelligent life on earth. It may not exist.

A global view on architecture

I've always felt that Nome is one of those places on the edge of the world. It's just about to tip over. Some of the houses have tipped in their own ways, standing on stilts that have sunk down in the summer melt.

But new houses are also being built, and for some reason these facade-like boxes seemed to be in fashion.

 

I mentioned this to a guy from the lower 48. We were sitting in Polar Bar and there wasn't really much to talk about. There's a lot of strange houses here in Nome, I claimed. He'd probably done some traveling because he had this theory that houses got stranger the further north you came. What's more, you could see the same tendency south in the southern hemisphere – meaning that all houses, and architecture in general, got weirder towards the poles. I asked if it would mean that architecture was at its best at equator. I doubt it, he said.