cph-ord

an eight hour dusk heading west as i was wondering how i was going to combat jet lag. looked out the window through the clouds then settled in for a woody allen film festival manhatten and vicky christina barcelona.

the nice man at the s.a.s. ticket counter when i asked if the seat was on the aisle as i not so subtly stretched my leg, said yes but upgraded me to a the better economy section. wish he hadn’t been so nice as the back of the plane was empty and while i now had lot of room as i was just behind business class, i was now sitting beside someone. when we were off the ground i slummed it in the back section.

heard someone say that reading while travelling was a waste of the view and i found that true with land based travel, didn’t think it applied to the air. thinking back it seems illogical as i am constantly looking at maps but i really had no interest what was below me until the plane was over the ungava bay. stupidly looked to see if there was a difference between labrador, québec and nunavut.

i was told that copenhagen is the height of labrador but with the weather suitable for biking and a sweater, i doubt there would be bragging rights with kennedy that i was further north than his trip to nain.

looking down on the true north, i was gobsmacked all that white, looked for any sort of habitation and found none. from the plane i could only differentiate land from water by the patterns of white. it was the expanse. there was nothing but white as far as i could see. i have flown over the plains but with the blatant patterning of crops and with points of habitation curtailed the feeling of being overwhelmed.

i wanted to explore so much so that i might even buy a winter coat to do so. followed the shore of hudson bay. where there were straight lines in the white now, ice roads or some sort of northern mirage.

from maps i scoffed at places like timmins - how could they call that north - but seeing it while heading south those first lights maybe i was wrong. maybe not north but certainly distanced.

dreams of driving to the klondike are awakened again - who can resist motoring along the top of the world highway?

an email from kmack who is just back from st. petersburg, russia and is off to fairbanks - just as i start the spring semester. curb the envy by thinking that she’ll flying instead of motoring.

i had eight rolls of film left.

i wanted to prove that on a day of a flight that i was in control and not the airline. i had a 15:30 flight. there is a direct train from hellerup. i reckoned that if i headed out when there was a hint of sun i could be ready to wander when light appeared i could do so for a good ninety minutes before heading back to gather my bags and head for the airport. i wanted to wander the streets around nyhavn. since i ran out of light last evening and i was hoping that in the early morning there would be less people about. it doesn’t really matter though as when someone enters the frame they seem to become suddenly handicapped to the point where they can barely walk out of it. last night wanting to photograph another køpmand around the palace, i had to wait while a family who acted as if they hadn’t seen each other in years caught up on the news and a woman who treated a melon as if it were an alien fingered it enough to turn it to pulp. time goes waiting for people to disappear.

the plan was clear up to station off at nørreport pick a street - not a main street - i hadn’t walked down to kongens nytorv then over to nyhavn.
things aren’t that easy as i have completely brutalised my klipkort i couldn’t get the machine i inserted it in to notch it. heard the noise though, hopped on the train and inspected it. didn’t look like it was notched but bent is telling me that there are never any inspectors on the trains - even though there has been one on every train that i have taken - i’ll get off and clip it there.

problem is a wagon away is an inspector, i get up and hope that i can get of the train at the next station before he gets to me.

hitchcock couldn’t have planned it better. the train pulls in as he enters the wagon. i hop out to clip my ticket which this time it takes - then hop back in the same train as he asks to see my ticket.

in the process though i lose a glove.

mornings are great even though there is the double traffic of copenhagen, machines and bikes, i fall into the what street looks interesting immediately as i walk to kongens nytorv. it seems that i am in the design media district. the buidlings were cleaner on the inside and the monitors were bigger. in one street one shop was handing out free coffee.

with seven rolls left i stopped in a street where construction is blocking façades at a six corners.

nyhavn was empty as i had hoped a few tourist walking about the place - one media type passed saying “nice camera”. we discuss the virtues of film v digital he has a canon d5 - i want a d-700 maybe. a lone tourist asks me to use her camera to photograph her - oh yes honey make love to the camera. she approves the snaps and moves on.i was afraid that it being early morning and thus most bars not open that they would have taken in their tables and displays. but no there they were in their abandoned splendour. was photographing one outside cap horn when the cook comes out and talks to me, more curious than suspicious. tell her how for some reason here in cph i have been obsessed with the fact that it winter and no one pays heed to it. funny thing about this though is that some dress as if we were in greenland - it was 4C. i also mention that since we have talked i have to make her snap make two she approves and heading back inside says when i want a cup of coffee stop in.

with six roll left i document with the mess of boats and the houses on the other side of the canal,

with five rolls left, i photograph signs - atget style - got a problem with that? - things left by the morning workers,


with three rolls left, i photograph vitrines in claus’s neighbourhood. nice asian shop. a café with nice lighting and time lost - was thinking about that coffee - as i waited for someone on a bike even to crawl across my frame.

more time wasted drooling over a camera shop that had two vitrines dedicated to film, old nikons, leicas and a rolleiflex the rolleiflex was only 2500kr.

of course i let time get away from me i wanted to walk back to østerport station and was making an effort to do so but kept getting side tracked.

did my reverse time subtraction. if i leave hellerup at noon i should be ok. that means getting to østerport station by 11:30 so that i can hop off the train at the station where i clipped my ticket to see if my glove is there. if i start walking to østerport in earnest in 15 minutes i should be ok.

but wait the coffee. if i take 10 minutes...

alas the coffee had to be for “next time”. pass cap horn to get the address, and start walking back, well a new way back, up store kongensgade.
only here just over a week and i am impatient. the next train north is not for a whole two minutes. hop off at the station head to the other platform where i am stopped by the police investigating a crime. there is shattered glass, say that i simply want to see if my glove is there.

it isn’t head back to the other platform when am stopped again - until the first officer says it is ok.

because copenhagen is so compact i am on schedule, pick up my things at bent’s they are both out for the day. race back for the train to kastrup it arrives as i climb the stairs.
hate myself as i am at the airport three hours early and even with a meal check-in, security and passport control i still have two hours to burn.

could have had that coffee after all.

an addendum:

am sitting waiting outside the gate getting ready to write this when buddy comes up two sheets to the wind and says he’s heading to bangkok. where was the flight etc. he then needs a smoke so telling him that i have smelled smoke coming from the lav he tries to find one. as he moves out of the way i look across the aisle as there is this voice in english that i seem to recognise.
there sitting on the opposite wall is anne a member of the fibroid department at the duke-dumb, returning from teaching in bergen.

...politely declined a lunch from bent and hobbled up to the train station.

my loose time table for the morning outing went three hours longer than i had expected and while i was quite happy with the potential outcome i still had things to do. i had planned to head into copenhagen around noon. it was now 2pm. i had less than 24 hours left in denmark.

this was a pure tourist trip, i could see myself saying that i was in the danish capital and answering in the negative if i didn’t see the tourist site. i had photographed the churches and things quaint but until yesterday when i passed the sign “den lille havfrue” i hadn’t realised that i had missed something that no tourist should.

got down at østerport once again and headed north around the castle grounds, past a misplaced inukshuk - looked homeless by a park bench dropped a few kronor at its feet - to the little mermaid. making a snap would certainly prove that i was here more than wandering sydhavn and nørreport wouldn’t. i simply followed the digital cameras. heading up the hill to the station in hellerup didn’t think i could walk at all, heading to the mermaid - definitely felt my legs for the first time this trip.

was accustomed to waiting for a snap in less busy areas than this so watching the light dim i waited until the brain kicked in and i photographed the people photographing themselves in front of the statue. much better proved that i was here and saved face as a real artist.

now that i was in tourist mode might was well walk down to the palace to make snaps of that straight line walking as the mauze and the late hour had dark descending quickly, around the corner to a shop in bredgade to better document a shoe sign walking quickly by the galleries i was in yesterday.


købmand shops were now the dominant light as i walked along nyhavn great light but too many people, made mental notes about to-morrow...light enough to photograph about 9am if i leave to be here at 9 precisely ... i’ll ask bent how long it takes to get to kastrup when i get back.

walk slowly make snaps while heading to the metro station stop at the theatre and make one more tourist snap scenic early evening.






back in hellerup, bent suggests that we head out to dinner at a indian restaurant up the road. he is sure that there is vegetarian fare there and it is my last night.
-we can walk.

to rådvad and bakken

this always happens i hit my stride to-day with one day remaining on the trip. this was the perfect day but i get ahead of myself...

i know that people think that i don’t appreciate the suggestions of places that i should see - especially after a day of wandering it seems that i never actually get to these places. i do appreciate their input and it does help not so much in seeing culture that they want me to see. heading to a museum on a perfectly nice day or a part of town with period architecture, are great suggestion and i do follow up on them - except for the museums - as any place is a new place. i simply don’t come back with snaps of what they sent me to see.

by now due to this the conversation starts you’ll probably not be interested in... but... the blanks were a gas bar done by a known architect up in bellevue. they were correct but i did lwant to head up the coast more and it was suggested as now they know what i am going to do that i might also like the fishing villages in the area.

sounded interesting as driving up to the summer home there were places along the way that i wish that i had more time for. but i couldn’t walk could i take the bike. kirsten offered me hers first but while it was in better shape i though it a bit small. i was also afraid i would mess it up.

bent’s was in that state of decay that was perfect.

needed to fill up tyres with air he said but off i went.

with the bike the outing was extended i was told about raadvad which was denmark’s first industrial town. mills allowed for textiles and armaments. it was in the middle of nowhere - actually it was in the middle of a royal forest and now with a bike i could make it there.

so as it got light out, there was no light on the bike, i hopped on found the bike too small and pedalled off to the bikeway north. i was being passed by everyone due to me not being able to straighten my legs but no matter i was heading up the coast.

the trip was a mini photographic culture shock. i had been dealing with urban areas. no grand vistas no infinity, every part of the image busy. now it was more quiet more empty, there was an horizon. i wasn’t quite sure what to do.

i was reminded of the british seacoast - the mauze helped. there were people out and about - bathers heading to the charlottenlund søbad. a group of young students enjoying a day at the beach in bellevue. in tårbæk a person thinking that i owned the shop that i was photographing asked when it would be open and was then impressed when he heard that i was heading to raadvad, there is a blind road there. i did want to start a coastal series again. think it odd that i don’t include the rock when i think of coastal series. due to the shock of what was around me i clung to what i had been photographing - shops, cafés, some formal ditties but i also started photographing situations - the problematic snaps that i make where people see them as sad as there is an empty table or a left chair. rather than what i tend to feel - the “be right back” aspect of the image.









bent gave me a map so that i wouldn’t get lost. despite the male stereotype of not reading maps, i left it at his place so that i could be lost. maps lead to efficiency and i didn’t want any of that. if i had had a map i would have found a shorter route to raadvad and missed some snaps as my way to the village had me north of it before heading west.

had to stop twice to open gates to the forest - jægersborg dyrehave - once to enter it again to leave it. one other person biking to the village, entering i hit recess at the school.

because of my inherent antisocial nature, i liked the village. it made woody point look like williamsburg as the entire town was along one street and then only on one side of the that. it seems that one would have to go out of town to get anything that wasn’t artesan related but then again i live in a suburb and this way of life is normal except that i don’t have the option of biking through a forest for provisions.

deep mauze, two people chatting at the fence of a house. pass georg jensen’s birthplace. photograph the lake, as i turn to photograph the town, hundreds of students descend and walk in single file pass the shops, i saw no bus and wonder where they come from. by now i know that waiting is part of what i have to do. wandering wasn’t an option as i could cover every street with no problem.

the place had stone carvers, blacksmiths, textile workshops tried to photograph the place without photographing the work.

kept to my decision not to retrace my steps out of town, headed into the forest again this time heading toward the hermitage, passing through a golf course with the greens covered.

the bike became a problem as i couldn’t make these minor hills due to the level of the seat. with each hill i wanted out of the forest but of course when i had the option, i chose to stay within the woods.

another serendipitous choice as i ran into the bakken, i was going to turn onto the main road when i saw this van heading toward than in an amusement park. my north american character had me wondering if i could enter biked in only to look, then only to make a few snaps, then left the bike - should have locked i guess - did thorough look see thought that i would have a look but each curve sent me further into the park. workers were getting it ready for the season’s opening which i hear is a big deal, bikers fill the road back to hellerup for the opening day.











left the park on the wrong road instead of heading south i was heading west, twigged when i went over the motorway to copenhagen. this a a bit of a setback, the small bike had my legs aching and with no map i had to figure out which way to go by the highways. left the forest and onto paved roads which helped my knees but not before i ran into another set of allotments. made good choices as i was on a diagonal that took me into hellerup just north of a park.

fell off the bike back at the house...

afternoon social

the afternoon walk couldn’t have been further apart ambient wise than the morning. on the way was proud that i could use the trains in a non traditional method. with the regularity of trains i can hop off at copenhagen central, use the rest room and catch the next one out refreshed and ready for another walk.
it was the afternoon where i had to try to be a social being as i was to head over to the galleries of those who were a the private view. off at the østerport station heading to bredgade without deviation. the galleries were along it someplace knew the names but numbers i forgot. an avenue of cafés hotels and posh shops mixed in with the galleries and not being a new yorker was shocked at the layout of them - large open plan rooms. usually steps up to different levels to the point where i felt that i should be in black tie as one felt more like entering one of the ante-rooms of the many palaces.

stopped at the usual places - cafés with places still outside, here the places had lit candles, købmand shops - think they should be called mr. købmand, but beginning to worry about my credibility of being here, also made snaps of the russian church and the marble church. of course tried to maintain my cool detached manner by forcing them into messy compositions. thankfully no one was in even though they said they would be, one gave me a mobile phone number which sealed his fate.

a problem with being a tourist who doesn’t speak the language. people are too polite. when asking directions to another gallery instead of simply being given a number - as in it is number 22 bredgade - which would make the search easier, i would get go beyond the little square and the gallery is right there it has beautiful light. needless to say i walked that section of bredgade three times before i found it.

but it was to the best as i went too far and ended up in kongens nytorv - which was an exciting visual mess, chairs gathered together for the winter with a statue of a man sitting in front of the theatre. photographed pølser stands with rolex adverts behind it. people eating in the café of the hotel d’angleterre the mixing of stalls with the street furniture and construction diversions.







rang - yeah yeah i know - claus from there as we were to meet up at the photographic centre. we were to meet at amagertorv in 15 minutes and forgetting how compact the city centre is i panicked. raced there making no stops along the way - well a couple at interesting street corners, well maybe more than that as it was duckish and the lights were equalising.

in my wanderings i had passed the building and we would do so again as the gallery was closed for a new hanging. headed over to a café in strædet.

how nice not to have to drink out of paper or plastic, great not to have to shout “for here” and still not get crockery, to not have someone assume that you wouldn’t sit but would take it to graze along the street.

chatted of the art scene, the link between my artcrap and his crapbooks.

dark, i needing to go back and prepare dinner and he having to buy a few things before the shops - sanely - close at 17:00 we walk back to the kongens nytorv metro station - trains every two minutes and their are driver-less. cool.