In Norway, school starts in August. For me, this time of the year, there is the feeling in the air that I live a life far from the madding crowd. While I worry about my books, somewhere far away, on an island in the middle of Budapest, someone is weeing next to a tent. The weather is hot, his skin is covered with paint and mud, and he begins to wonder how he can still carry on after day one, two, three, four . . . up until he reaches the Fairtrade tent to grab a cup of tea for free. He pretends to be a foreigner and wonders how he managed to acquire fluency in French in one day. I am talking about a festival, of course.
In contrast, I worry about school stuff and the fact that the sun will soon disappear and the next time I see it might be next year. It is bad as it is, but do you know what it means for a photographer? It means noise! It means you either have the best camera on Earth or you go artsy. Because noise will happen in the darker season.
So, when I looked out of the school window in September, and I saw the sun shining, I knew I barely had some time left.
Meanwhile, in a concrete building in the 8th district of Budapest, someone takes their 7th cooling shower of the day . . .
So, on that September day, I answered the call of the sunshine – the free flooding of the light that reminded me of home. I decided to capture the mood of school start with colorful double exposures. I used a Kodak Ektar 100 film and an old Explorer camera. While the film is coming from a world-known photography brand, this little unknown camera had to suffer the ridiculing laugh of a photo store employee downtown Oslo. But I just closed my eyes and thought of my my cameras made of shoe boxes, and tried not to start a conversation that seemed useless. It's not always about the gears you guys :)
So with the Explorer camera and the Kodak Ektar 100 film, I captured the OsloMet Pilestredet Campus and the way from Campus to Nationalteatret. At Nationalteatret, I went back and forth between the flowers in the Castle Park and the silhouette of the National Theatre to create interesting double exposures. It is always satisfying to combine silhouettes - such as the shapes of trees and buildings - and texture - like a flower of beds or the pattern of cobblestones on an old street.
Finally, I took a shot of the Royal Castle over the shot of the Karl Johans avenue to merge the views of the two opposing ends of the same street.
In a way, when I look at these pictures I don't think about the hangover August man at the music festival anymore, but think about the colourful school start of a colourful university in green, yellow and magenta capital city.
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