torsdag 26. mai 2016

Light in the end of the tunnel?

It's a lot of back and forth these days, and people in this industry wondering about the possibility they might not have a job anymore when they return for home. 
I read today that the price of oil has rised a little bit, and every newspaper at least over in Norway felt the urge to call a few "experts" to find out if the crisis is coming to an end soon.
Well, I think it's fair to say that the replies they got had quite a span to them from careful optimistic to not optimistic at all. Just as you would expect if you ask a bunch of people who should know what they're talking about. 

Well... as you see it's a kind of a tunnel of trees. A few million snaps has already been taken of stuff similar to this, so I probably should stop doing them. Sometimes I just can't hold myself back, you see. I have no particular idea about which camera or lens or anything, but it looks kind of wide. Might be a 24mm, which means it's most likely one of the Nikon's. FM2, FE2, F3... whatever. 

This ship had it's final day at work on the west of Shetland workskope today. A 13 years, as I told you all about a few days ago, job is finished, and a new ship is taking over from here. It's a bit sad, and a bit as any other day. We got enough to do with the ship during the days and weeks to come, so I can't say my focus has been on the past during the day. 
Besides, one should look ahead to try find the light in the end of that tunnel instead of thinking to much around the past. That's my thoughts about it right here and now, anyway. Then I know there will be days when I miss certain aspects of the job, such as being tied up in Orkney around yuletide. We have had a lot of fun up there, as you might imagine. 

Same concept but different. This is in Lerwick, Shetland. The path you see is a quite steep hill in the middle of town. No driving up here, as you might already have figured out. Up there close to the end you got the same thing. Tunnel of trees, you see. I like this one a bit better than the norwegian version, I have to say. This is definately Nikon. F3P for "press version". When you go for a longer walk with that camera you will remember it for a few years...

I shall forever remember the christmas eve of 2013. We were moored in Kirkwall as usual during winter gales and such, and all the norwegians had the ship to ourselves as the weather had been bad for quite a while. The scottish lads had just gone home for the celebration and stuff. I will hasten to mention that christmas eve is the big day of celebration for us norwegians, and the atmosphere at the time were joyful and merry. 
The entire marine crew were sitting in the messroom after dinner relaxing, talking and having a good time we were. Suddenly the captain got a call on his radio from the security guy on the pier. The police wanted to have a word with the chief engineer on board. I remember the old captain we had back then started to yell at me and wanted to know all about what I had been up to lately, which was nothing at all even though I really tried to figure out if I might had managed to do something bad no matter what. Couldn't figure any out.
Well, I told him we should better go talk to the cops just to find out what I might would get accused for. 
When we came out in the hallway they were already inside the ship, two very polite police officers from Kirkwall Police station. The captain still red in his face from his outrage towards me tried to find words to greet them, but I had to do the talking as the old man had a not very fluent english when it came to the spoken word.
Well, to make an end of the story they wanted to know if I had lost a camera. You see someone had found something the officers repeatedly refered to as a "quite expensive camera" somewhere in town, and dropped it at the police station for them to figure things out. As the police officers obviously had read the news lately, The Orcadian newspaper as it happens, they had seen printed there a picture taken a few days earlier from on board our ship. The photographer of the snap was duly mentioned by both title and name, and the officers figured I must have owned a "quite expensive camera" to have managed to take that rather unsharp grainy snap of some very, very bad weather hitting us like a hammer a few nights earlier. 
So, I had to dissapoint them in some kind of way. I knew for sure I had my digital Nikon safely stored inside my cabin, and neither was I in short of any other camera equipment. They tried again, and would rather see me walking up all them stairs to fetch the thing for them to be absolutely sure they could tick me off their obviously too short list of people in the Orkney likely to own a "quite expensive camera" which even would take pictures during a severe gale. I told them I had taken a few photos just a couple of hours ago, and that they could be absolutely sure I would not show up on the station the next morning missing a camera anyway.
They then gave me a nice smile, shook both me and the captains hands and told us how sorry they were to interupt our celebration and all. But we also had to agree that the matters were very important to solve, sooner rather than later. 
On they went, into the black windy night to search further for doors to knock. 

I must say that the police up there take their job quite seriously to actually do things the way they do. Or maybe they were just curious to see what was going on inside the ship on christmas eve. I never will find out, probably.
The captain fell asleep quite early that night...

2 kommentarer:

  1. Great story Mr Karlsvig. It's funny when people jump to the wrong conclusions, as your Captain did. It would make me wonder exactly what are his opinions of me, to have such a reaction. But at least you didn't end up in Kirkwall jailhouse for the festive season :)

    To be fair to the Kirkwall polis, they must have done some serious detective work to identify your good self as the 'prime suspect' who might have lost the camera. You see - your reputation was already in the making, back then in 2013!

    SvarSlett
    Svar
    1. So true, Michael. I was really impressed by the police and the way they handled things with the lost camera and everything.
      This was probaby back in the days when my reputation as a coming photographer was at it's peak. A couple of weeks later I threw my pixelator into the corner and started to use my old cameras again, and that was the end of my career I think :))
      Nowadays I don't bother too much, as you all know

      Slett

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