Photos

Yet another picture scanned from a slide retrieved from a dusty box in the loft!

This one was taken by myself in the summer of 1970 whilst on a university expedition to East Greenland. Our main base was at Syd Kap in the higher reaches of Scoresby Sund and we travelled about the fjords there in a clinker-built 16-foot wooden boat equipped with a puny 4h.p. motor. Here we are at the Bjorn Oer, or Bear Islands, not far from Syd Kap, looking towards the low sun which never sets at this time of year.

After we came back from this trip, I used to give the odd slide-show to interested folk and always ended firstly with showing this, to show the peace and tranquillity of the place, then finally finishing with a picture of Piccadilly Circus to show the turmoil and stress which so-called civilisation has brought to us.

For nature-lovers who might be upset by the sight of the shotgun, it was only once shot in anger (not by myself) to fell a goose of which we made very good use. We had also taken it as a form of self-defence against polar bears who often frequent these islands: thankfully, we never encountered any of those - I think a 12-bore shotgun with small shot would do little other than irritate such a beast.

Taken with my old Edixa Prismat on Kodachrome 64 and subsequently scanned. I have found (following advice on this site) that the blur tool is much quicker and more effective in removing dust artefact than the clone tool. Auto correction in Photoshop Elements 2 and sharpened slightly.