all week monday-itis

The procrastination I mentioned yesterday, continues. I realise it is not just procrastination, it is also a case of all week Monday-itis. Instead of fueling up on a healthy meal to get energy to continue "working", I just stuffed myself full of marzipan. I am on a serious sugar high and I have a deadline tomorrow. All I want to do is repeat last night; The Devil Wears Prada on my big screen and a (big) glass of Cointreau on ice. (The photo above is from the movie, found on imdb.com.)

Anyone know what I am talking about?

I think I have mentioned this before, but it is worth mentioning again. So beautiful.

Also, I played a little with Picnik today. Finally I can easily do fun and good looking stuff with my images, other than auto contrast and auto levels in Photoshop Elements 2.0.

life after vacation

I am hit by a terrible case of procrastination. It is very inconvenient since I have too many deadlines coming up. It is so hard to get back in real work mode after the 9 fantastic days in the mountains. Adele's song "Chasing Pavements" is spinning in my head and I have love and celebration on my mind. Yesterday I booked the hotel for our wedding night. Yay!

Photos for my state of mind: 1. my favorite, 2. cutting the cake, 3. Lovers dream., 4. 67366

I added a few more photos to the Svalbard set. Soon I will start posting photos from the amazing trip I had to Finnmark in the beginning of March. But before that there will be photos from the Easter vacation. So, there will still be a lot of Norway and nature in my Flickr stream.

I am going home soon to cook something nice, pasta maybe, and watch a movie on the huge screen.

By the way, have you seen this and this? Love!

cabin life

I am off again. Not for work this time. We are spending the Easter holiday in the mountain cabin seen in the photo above (photos taken by Sølve during Easter last year). Here are some more photos from the cabin. I am really looking forward to more than a week of cross country skiing, good food and wine, and playing board games with our friends.

Enjoy the holidays friends!

skål

Yesterday the Norwegian Design Council handed out the annual Award for Design Excellence.

The Award for Design Excellence is the leading award for design in Norway. It's purpose is to stimulate the industry to use design as an important tool in product development and market communication. The Award for Design Excellence is a recognition for design quality and a visible proof that companies and designers jointly have developed a good product. Good products are distinguished by the consideration of it's functional, technical, economical and esthetical aspects, in addition to marketing and environmental considerations.

One of the magazines I write for, no, was given the Award for Design Excellence in the category visual communication. Read what the jury says (in Norwegian). Halvor Bodin and Claudia C. Sandor are the magazine's designers.

Another company that I work for as a copywriter, Haltenbanken (mentioned in this post), was also given the Award for Design Excellence in the same category, for the visual profile for the accountant firm Vassdal & Eriksen. Who would have thought an accountant firm could look this fresh and cool? It might explain something that the firm was established by a guy who loves skating, snowboarding and music, and that the firm's customers are mostly in the music, film, design and architecture business. Read what the jury says (in Norwegian).

Congratulations and cheers to no and Haltenbanken!

break

This post by mav today made me order three magazine subscriptions; Bon Appétit (I too want to read more of Molly's great work), Gourmet (as a foodie and food writer how can I not want a regular portion of this mag?) and finally Vogue (I need a regular dose of great fashion too). Happy days for the magazine addict. Good thing that the dollar exchange rate is really good now compared to Norwegian kroner. Thanks for the inspiration mav, and also congrats on your new blog.

My recent travels to the north have been very inspiring, and I have a lot of photos that I will share with you in my Flickr photostream. The photo above is from my second day at Svalbard. We had just started the day's snowmobile trip, and took a break just to see the sun rising over the mountain. Our guide told us because of the polar night it was the second time he saw the sun for the last four months.

winter and spring

March is officially spring, so I have changed the blog header to get in a bit of spring mood. Although my mind is still very much set on winter. I had a truly amazing weekend at Svalbard. I have never before experienced an Arctic winter so far north. It is so exotic and unique. It really took my breath away. I am going north again for the weekend. On Thursday I fly to Finnmark, close to the North Cape.
The Svalbard set will be filled with more photos when I get the time to sort through them. And I will of course bring home lots of photos from Finnmark.

Here are a few projects I am really excited about. Be sure to check them out if you don't know them: Lines & Shapes - before and after - 44 times two

I also want to welcome Nicole back to blogland. Welcome Nicole! And finally, check out this. A lovely meeting between two people I admire; Jenifer of Nectar & Light and Matt of MattBites.

I'll be back in this space next week with new bits of inspiration.

winter wonders

Hei guys!

I'm leaving the wet, grey, 10 degrees celcius warm life in Bergen for some days, in change for winter; snow, magic artic light and some 20 degrees below in polar bear land. I'm going to Svalbard on a work trip. Yay!

Here are some winter inspiration from around Flickr:

1. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, 2. Unstad, 3. #1, 4. snow, finally, 5. Untitled, 6. biwako #4, 7. Untitled, 8. silence, 9. winter im sielbecker moor, 10. white is the colour, 11. Untitled, 12. Frost on the window of my grandparents house, 13. Untitled, 14. Hallingskarvet, 15. Lone Horse, 16. Graphical Aspiration of a Tree (2), 17. Fence, 18. barn dusting, 19. first snow part two, 20. Untitled

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

fishy

A little bit of inspiration from a few Flickr favorites.

1. elves among fish, 2. DSC01641, 3. Fish, 4. Koi

Mosaic created with fd's Flickr Toys.

everyday life published

I have always been an eager photographer, and I have lots of albums filled with snapshots and great memories of things I have done in life. Digital photography and Flickr have made me see things in a diffenert way. Before I got my first digital (slr) camera in June 2004, I would for example never photograph a plate of grapes, the evening sun light or magazines like this. I guess I saved the film for capturing my family and friends having fun, and not just for remembering ordinary things. As time went by I started noticing these mundane things and moments in life, and I started photographing them. I also created a group on Flickr called my everyday life. It's a place to collect these mundande things and moments in life, almost like a photo diary.

As of today the group has 865 more or less active members. So it seems, I'm not the only one fascinated by everyday life. Karen is one of those people. She is not a member of my Flickr group, but she publishes a magazine - Karen magazine - made out of the ordinary. I don't remember when and where I came across Karen's magazine, but I was happy to find a personal note from Karen when I recieved the magazine by mail (you can see it in the photo above). See more photos from the magazine here.

Karen magazine has been mentioned in several publications, and it has been nominated Britain's best kept art secret by a journalist in the Observer. (I know several photographers on Flickr that see everyday life as art, here is one example.) Recently D2, the weekly glossy magazine published by one of Norway's financial newspapers, Dagens Næringsliv, published an article about Karen and her magazine (in Norwegian).

Read more about Karen magazine here, that's also where you can buy it.

funkle

Cool pillows from Norwegian design team Funkle.

beauty

It's fun seeing what you stumble across when doing research online. While doing research for some upcoming articles today, I found the blog this is glamorous and a post about Carla Bruni. She is a Italian-French singer, songwriter, supermodel and wife of French president Nicolas Sarkozy. I have never heard of this beautiful woman, but I fell in love with the photos, taken by Bharat Sikka (who currently has no working website). I thought I'd share it with you.

my favorite

This chair, the Egg by Danish master Arne Jacobsen, is my all time favorite chair. It was designed in 1958, so this year it celebrates its 50th anniversary.

This is what the producer Fritz Hansen writes about the chair and the anniversary:

Developed for the lobby and reception areas at the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958.

The Egg originated in Arne Jacobsen's garage - cast in plaster. Today the synthetic shell is padded with cold foam and covered with fabric or different types of leather resting on a star-shaped aluminium base.

As a special anniversary model, we are introducing a beautiful and unique Egg. This Egg will only be available in a limited number of 999 Eggs. Each Egg will be numbered, a brief text about the Egg is printed on the back of the cushion and for those who buy the Egg we offer a book about the Egg and Arne Jacobsen. 999 books, i.e. one book for each Egg will be sent from Fritz Hansen.

Visit a Fritz Hansen dealer to see the unique Egg upholstered in a smooth chocolate brown Wild Elegance leather on the front and soft suede on the back. The base is hand-polished browned bronze.

The top photo is the leather model, which is my favorite, and the bottom photo is the anniversary model.

hoss intropia

More beautiful fashion photography. These images are from Hoss Intropia spring/summer 2008 catalogue. You might remember the Spanish brand from this post in September last year.

sally scott

Such lovely photos from Sally Scott (via mav port2port).

silence

Nothing is as silent as snowfall. Maybe that's the inspiration for the name of this rug - silence. So simple, so cool. I like it a lot. Norwegian designstudio Permafrost made it.

whyred

More Swedish fashion inspiration found while working. These images are from Whyred.

hope

I'm in love with this photo. And I quite like the dress too. It's from the Swedish fashion brand Hope. Found it while working on an article for no magazine.

my Moscow experience

Remember I told you I was in Moscow in September? You might have seen some of my photos on Flickr. I was there for work, and now you can read my story - in English - in the new international issue of no magazine. My second article in the magazine is about visual Portugal, mentioned here. There's a sneak peek of the magazine on the website.

The first international issue of no magazine was published in June last year. I'm not sure if any of you actually found it - did you? I'm very curious to hear if you find it in your part of the world this time. Let me know, will you?

Have a great weekend guys!

cup love

I love the simple yet fun shape of this cup from Danish Normann Copenhagen.

baby you can ride my bike

This morning while eating breakfast, I flicked through an issue of Australian Donna Hay magazine (thanks so much Deborah!). I instantly fell in love with this bicycling story. Such a lovely summery feeling. And so different from my own bicycling experience today. One word - snow...

I'm off to the mountains to celebrate a friend's 30 years birthday this weekend. Have a fun weekend - whereever you are in the world!

PS: Click on the images to see them a little bigger.