Oktoberfest

On Thursday night we made the rather spontaneous decision to head down to Munich on Saturday to checkout Oktoberfest.

“Have you been to Oktoberfest?” is a pretty common question asked, which I can now finally answer ‘yes’ to.

“Are you going to go again?” Probably not. I’m not really a “crowd” person, so I don’t find too much entertainment in streets packed full of drunk people. The beer is overpriced. The lines are long and you’re lucky if you can get into one of the brewery tents (though granted, we were there on a weekend which makes things worse); we never did. Germany really has so much more to offer and way cooler festivals that I think it’s unfortunate that Oktoberfest is the thing to do in Germany for visitors coming here. Though I guess its a good thing to at least have seen once.

And remember: Oktober fest is in September. if you show up in October looking to party, you’re a bit too late…

German travel stock photo: Hands holding Munich subway map. Cody Duncan photography

German Festivals: 2008 Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany. Photography By travel photographer Cody Duncan

German Festivals: Augustinter-Brau beer tent, 2008 Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany. Photography By travel photographer Cody Duncan

German Festivals: 2008 Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany. Photography By travel photographer Cody Duncan

German Festivals: 2008 Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany. Photography By travel photographer Cody Duncan

Isle of Mull

The hour was getting late, sometime around 9:30 at night when we crested a hill. The view:

Stock Photo: Isle of Mull, Scotland sunset panoramic. Cody Duncan Photography

I’d been looking for a good place park the van for the night, but this sight led me to race down the single lane roads at all too fast of a speed to try and somehow get the the coast.  The sky was one of the most brilliant colors I think I’ve ever seen.  But after nearly 30 minutes of looking for a way to the coast, the light was gone and this was the only shot I could get.  Maybe next time…

Wanderings: Vestresand, Lofoten, Norway

April, 2007:

After a couple days of hanging out in Stamsund I got the itch to head off to Henningsvær for the day. Not especially far, distance wise, but with the Norwegian speed limit making a snail look like a formula 1 racer, it would be a few hours journey. I was lucky to catch ‘the boss’ as he was heading into Leknes, so that saved some time walking along the road trying to get a ride; I’ve made it half of the 16km on several occasions before getting picked up; not much traffic during April in this part of the world. Once in Leknes I didn’t really find a good spot to catch a ride, so I headed a few km down the road and waited at the pullout of a bus stop.

Now, in the Arctic, April can still be considered ‘winter.’ Though the Atlantic gulf-stream keeps the islands surprisingly mild for their latitude, one will still want a good jacket or two or three when outside. Anyhow, after sitting around for a bit, an old couple stops to pick me up. In my poor Norwegian I tell them where I’m headed and am told they’re going about half way there, cool! I hop in the car and immediately go from Siberian like temperatures (ok, only around freezing or so) into the Sahara desert which was their car. Having on several jackets and layers of pants, I immediately started to feel myself cooking. So there I was, cruising down the highway at 37.2 mph thinking that my plans for the day maybe weren’t so good after all and how could I get out of this overly hot car.

25km and an hour later, I say my thanks and happily hopped out and into the (refreshing) cold.
At the rate things were going, I figured I’d be hard pressed to make it to Henningsvær and back, so I figured some random wandering would have to suffice. Across the lake was a cool mountain I could go up, but it seemed to be a little more effort than I was interested in. I could also continue walking down the highway and hope to get another ride, but not having a map, and no longer really sure how far Henningsvaer was, I decided to head back a few miles along the road and out to the coast on the north side of the island. Plus, it was sunny there anyhow.

Cody Duncan Stock Photo: Lake Steriropoten, Alstad, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Cody Duncan Stock Photo: Lake Steriropoten, Alstad, Lofoten Islands, Norway

Another two hours later, I walked into the tiny village of Vestresand. Still being winter with the grass still brown, it really looked like a place that had been all but forgotten. I though about stopping into the only store I saw and getting a bar of chocolate to cure my grumbling stomach, but decided against such an idea when I calculated what the markup would be out here in the nowhere lands on top of the already steep Norwegian price for chocolate (and everything else for that matter).

Cody Duncan Stock Photo: Cliffs above village of Eggum, Lofoten Islands, Norway

The Lofoten economy runs on basically two things: German tourists in the summer and cod stockfish in the winter. The Lofoten islands are the winter breeding ground for Atlantic cod and Norwegian fishermen have come to Lofoten every winter for a thousand years to fish for them. In the summer, one sees the empty wooden racks, called flakes, that are used to dry the cod. But during the winter months they are filled with fish in various stages of drying. It is a rather unpleasant experience to walk underneath a rack full of fresh fish and be ‘dripped on.’ I wont go into details, but the seagulls seem to follow you after such an occasion, even after several days and washings of the clothes. Most of the fish get shipped off to Italy, Spain and Portugal, while the leftover heads are bought by various African countries.

Back to my wanderings: Vestresand seemed like some quiet ghost town out of a movie. Hardly a person around and nearly perfectly quite. I spotted some old drying racks covered with some old netting at took a wander for some photos. The winter of 2007 was a poor year for stockfish in the old ways. A combination of depleted fish stocks, commercial trawlers and a large processing factory in Stamsund (which also imports cheaper cod from other countries, so I’m told) meant that many a cod rack was left empty. And in Vestresande, this seemed especially true.
Cody Duncan Stock Photo: Old netting hanging from unused stockfish drying rack, Vestersand, Lofoten, Norway

Cody Duncan Stock Photo: Old netting hanging from unused stockfish drying rack, Vestersand, Lofoten, Norway

By now, the day was getting late and I figured I better walk back to the highway to start making the journey back. Even though the days of late April are quite long, the traffic (or rather, the 15-20 cars per hour) declines pretty quickly after about 5 in the evening. Luckily, I caught a ride pretty quickly and made it to Leknes in one trip. Now the hard part. It always seems like a black hole of cars while trying to get to Stamsund. I’ve stood on the side of that bloody road for nearly two hours in a horrible storm while car after car passed, and nothing (though I can’t blame them, I probably wouldn’t pick me up eithe,r being completely soaked and looking like a wet dog). I find there’s always a psychological element to hitching as well. I think its much easier to be on some deserted road and get passed by 5-10 cars in an hour as opposed to standing on a busy road and get passed by 100’s of cars, which can be utterly depressing at times. Anyhow, I resorted to walking back to Stamsund and after about halfway I finally got a ride into town and relief for my tired feed. A few days later I would try again, and make it to Henningsvaer.

So Much For Global Warming

Bloody hell is it cold right now!

Rainy window pic is from the other day, but represents the current conditions pretty well.

Stock Photo: Rain splashing in window. Cody Duncan Photography

Is Bigger Better?

You may have noticed I made a few changes to the blog and increased the size of the pics. How does it look? Opinions appreciated!

Female walking along sand dune, Death Valley national park, California

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Photoshelter Collection Closing

After less than one year in existence, PSC – Photoshelter Collection, is closing its doors on October 10th. It sounded like a good thing, a stock agency which gives 70% to its contributors and not the reverse, which is all to common today (even as low as 20% to the photographer in some places. An insult). But it would seem that they set sail with a poor wind and never gained enough momentum to make the numbers work.  At least they gave it a shot.

Unfortunately, I now have to think of all the hours I spent to upload and process the 1,300 images which I currently have represented with them.  But, thus is the business.  No different than traveling halfway around the world and having sucky weather the whole time you’re there.

Official Statement: HERE

Statement on the Blog: HERE

PSC - Photoshelter collection stock agency closing notice on front page

A New Start

Cody Duncan stock photography: Spring wildflower in desert of Baja California, Mexico

As of last week, I’m a student again. I’ve signed up for a 6 month language school to get me fluent in German. Class is 5 days a week from 8:30-12:45, so I’m up at 6:30am M-F. Only problem is that I only have weekends free now, so no travels for a while. Welcome to the real world, I guess…

Cody Duncan stock photography: Spring wildflower in desert of Baja California, Mexico

Cave

Yesterday I was given a tour of a super cool cave in the nearby area.  I’ve never really done any “proper” caving, so it was a pretty cool experience and I’m looking forward to heading into some more, as the area is full of them.

Germany caving photo: Limestone cave, Franconia, Germany.  Cody Duncan Photography

The descent into the cave involved a 50-60 foot rappel, fun going down, but not so nice on the way back up.

Germany caving photo: Limestone cave, Franconia, Germany.  Cody Duncan Photography

Remains of an unfortunate animal.  Without a rope, there is no escape from this place.

Germany caving photo: Limestone cave, Franconia, Germany.  Cody Duncan Photography

The texture of the rock was so cool.  It looks like it should be all slimy and slippery, but it has a texture more like sandpaper.

Germany caving photo: Limestone cave, Franconia, Germany.  Cody Duncan Photography

Germany caving photo: Limestone cave, Franconia, Germany.  Cody Duncan Photography

In the center of the cave is a huge pile of debris from the surface world, and much of the floor of the cave is littered with quite large boulders.  We were wearing helmets, but one look at the average size rock made us think that our helmets wouldn’t be of much use!  While waiting to ascend back up, I heard a rush of wind and then the smashing of a rock a few feet away from me, sent a shiver up my spine.  And the cave is pitch black, so no chance to see anything coming towards you…

Germany caving photo: Limestone cave, Franconia, Germany.  Cody Duncan Photography

Germany caving photo: Limestone cave, Franconia, Germany.  Cody Duncan Photography