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.