Notes From Underground

This I like. Spend time on the open sea. Since I decided last year to give my pro-photo life a siesta and seek new frontiers, learn new shit, see more stuff and just continue living life I have come to spend time in some pretty interesting locations. Went on a survey to a jack-up rig in the gulf of Thailand to check things out (won't go into details about the work scope of this). I finished what I came to do, then had all day just waiting to get a ride back to shore. Took a bunch of pictures, had about a gallon of NesCafe and finished reading my travel companion for the day, written 1864 (Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky…was thinking all the time that this must be Henry Rollins favorite). You would be surprised on how many avid readers of interesting literature I have worked with at sea.
Anyhow, you would also be surprised of how people in this industry live their professional lives, how "a day in" looks like for the people working out here. I was in the merchant marine for 10 years before I started photography and still dream almost daily about this "lifestyle" if you like (No Mom, it was not because I thought it was fun, it was the best option for a ticket out of hell!). The dirty business of tapping mother earth of hydrocarbon is different from shipping consumer goods and raw materials from one port to another, but the lifestyle, work ethics and environment is very similar. Like it or not, nevertheless, without it you wouldn't be able to read this blogpost on your slim iMac's.
It's a way of making a living and to experience what mankind is capable of in terms of defying a common way of thinking. Since I am too curious-for-my-own-good and a MF'ing pragmatic-thinker I more than often tell my self - how the fuck does this work!…how could some dude come up with this and make it work!?…by being a realist reading between the lines?!….anyway…good to be able to experience this. Gonna try to take it further...

Called a "Billy Pugh"...

Even the lunch comes in one...

Back to shore...

Cloudy sky, rain nearly breaking through. Clouds melt away under clear sky just to minutes later fill the gaps and give a filtrated grey-white cast over the whole scenery again. Tricky to shoot digital in this, but it gives some nice and strong contrasts to anything not being "grey-white" and "fluffy". I was shooting with my trusted G9 since this is my new "work" camera. It's though and is being treated really bad almost daily in environments the Canon technicians never would have though of putting it through. Give me a sponsorship Canon and I will put your gear to the test the blue-collar way.