Duplo's blog

Hi All,

And welcome to a hopefully long awaited Duploworld update.

I have been away for quite some time again, not necessarily because I wanted to, but the real world has been keeping me so busy that updating this blog has been difficult.

Fair to say though that since my last post, my life has been turned upside down, pulled inside out and I am currently feeling better than I have done in years

A large part of that reason actually grew from my visit to the peak of Sermitsiak, but I will save that particular story for another day

I have been hiking extensively, travelling both in Greenland and an extremely beautiful part of the US, not to mentioned passed over Denmark a few times, so I have been a busy and happy boy for a couple of months now

The US story and the trips to Deer Prong Mountain and Qingaaq, I will save for another post later this week, The focus of this post will be to share a round of summer photos and stories from the very beautiful Ilulissat.

The most beautiful place in the world?

Ilulissat, may or may not be the most beuatiful places in the world, but The Icefiord, where above image was captured, sure must be among them.
It has recently been included on UNESCO's world heritage list and that fact alone tells a lot about the unique nature of this place and the stunning beauty which can be experienced here.
Golden Ice

A visit to this area during daylight, impressive as it is, is nothing compared to what happens here when the last days of the midnight sun, starts its game during night.
It gave me a whole new meaning to the term "Golden hour", here it is a powerful and 2-3 hour long experience where colours are changing rapidly in an aboslutely amazing display.
Iceberg

I have never made a secret out of my fascination with this area of Greenland and each new visit seems to bring with it a better understanding of its truly unique nature and stunning light.
Summer is a fantastic season to experience this area, as is winter, autumn or spring.
Amazingly enough there is so much more to this area than shown above....
Fin Whale

Another popular sport is whale whatching, there are an abundance of different whales up along the Greenlandic Coast. the Fin Whale shown above (estimated to a little over 20 meters by the captain) is somewhat rare to see and extremely fast. from a visual point of view it is impressive, but not as fun as the humpbacks, as it rarely shows its tail. But an amazing experience none the less.
Oqaatsut (rodebay)

Oqaatsut is a small settlement a couple of hours (by boat) North of Ilulissat and having the chance to stop by there was an interesting experience, save for it being an odd location for a gourmet lounch restaurant during summer, it is a native fishing and hunting comunity and probably one of the most relaxed places I have ever been.
By the soccer field

The people living here, lives by the hand of nature, hunting and fishing from either boat or dog sled.
It is a settlement so small that no roads exist, there are small trials from the harbour to the houses and dog yards, but aside from that it is basically a small number of woodenhouses situated in the middle of nothing but amazing Greenlandic nature and the Disco Bay.
Nattoralik, by Sermeq Kujalleq

Sermeq Kujalleq or the Icefiord Glacier, is a stunning and dangerous place.
Only way to get there is by helicopter and the ride in there is an experience that I am not likely to forget ever, a truly stunning display.
It is however a glacier that one does not want to walk. more than 7 kilometers wide and moving at a speed of 20 meters per day, means that Sermeq Kujalleq calves off approx. 20 million tons of ice daily and makes it responsible not only for all the icebergs in the icefiord, but also 10 percent of all the icebergs in Greenland.
Sermeq Kujalleq

To understand the kind of force it takes to move all that ice is almost impossible to comprehend, and the endless view amazing. the photo above really does give no clue to the size, but i was simply unable to find a way to display its massive size and beauty.
What an experience it was though:)

Well that comcludes some of the impressions from the trip to Ilulissat.
I am in the process of updating the "Greenlandic Summer Photos 2009" album with a bunch of images as this post hits the blog, so go there if you have not had enough already.

an unusual iceberg

Above is th final image in this post and with that I will head for some sleep.
More posts to come over the next days, both from "Deer Prong Mountain", "Qingaaq" (another mountain) and my trip to the US. So do stay tuned for more in the days to come.

Thank you for reading and do take care:)

Thomas

Hi All,

And guess what? Another Duploworld update already, seems I really am on my way back to a regular posting pattern

Just a summer sunset

Well sunsets like the ome above is a signature of summer in Nuuk. This particular one shot just after midnight Friday evening.
I spend the weekend along with a group of friends, deep into the fiords around Nuuk.
The real goal was in part to see what you see below.

Narsap Sermia

A tiny glacier hidden deep into the bottom of the fiord, but also just to enjoy the ice flakes swimming in the fiord this time a year and of course to do some hiking. Nothing like hiking the mountains here during summer, so different from the winter views and because the mosquitoes has not really caught on yet, it is a real pleasure to be outdoors

A random Ice flake


Now after having spend all Friday evning and Saturday morning watching ice flakes and all Saturday hiking, we decided to head toward a small closed down settlment that now serves as a summerhouse area called Qoornoq. Beautiful place and with a wounderful view to a muontain with a rather telling name

Bird Mountain at sunset


Now sunday was spend walking Qoornoq and the old fish factory. Wathing a lonely whale for a while, until it was time to head into the dense fog and try to find our way towards Nuuk.
Now the fog totally swallowed the mountains and barely a wind blowing made for a quite empty feeling.
a felling og sailing into nothingness.

Foggy waters

The photo above is a humble attempt to convey how it felt.
I will come back sharing a few more in a later post, but the above quick writeup will need to do for now, I still have some post processing I need to get done.

Have a great weekend all and do take care

Thomas

Hi All,

Well actually did not intent a Duploworld update at this late hour, but tonight has quite simply been nothing short of amazing.

Sometimes all it takes to experience a moment more magic than ever, is crystal clear skies, -15C, a one hour snowscooter drive to 800 meters altitude, strong wind and just a tiny bit of luck.

All of the above made for what is probably one of the most magic moments visually in my life.

Pure Magic

Now, I wrote in my previous post that life is good sometimes, tonight it was pure and unrefined magic. Nothing more, nothing less and above photo sums it up perfectly I think.

Thanks for looking and do take care

Thomas

Hi All,

And welcome to what is perhaps the first real Duploworld update in quite a long time, the reason for my absense is very personal and I do not think this is the place to share it in any detail, nor do I think I am quite ready for it anyway
Knowing that I am slowly recovering from it and that I am slowly getting my energy back to actually blog again and share my beautiful surroundings and adventures with you will have to do for now

Greenlandic Sled dog

Well as some may recall I did write a fair bit about the dogs themselves during my summer adventure series, but to recap a few things about this rather unique breed of dogs.
They are working dogs and they are the only breed of dogs allowed above the arctic circle in Greenland.
This alone may seem odd at first, but there is a reason for it, for many of the drivers these dogs are a way of life and their life may well depend on the these dogs and have been bred almost to perfection for countless generations. Beside bringing a regular pet dog close to these dogs may very well end up by the pet dog ending up as food for the sled dogs. In fact one a warned that these dogs are wild animals when visiting dog territory. They are usually not dangerous to Grown adults though, but there are incidents with children being attacked or killed every year.
Just as you regularly see stories mainly in danish medias about maltreatment of these dogs.
Now I am not claiming that no maltreatment takes place and I admit that at first glance the treatment of the dogs seems both extremely rough and unusual.
resting in the sun

But during my two days with a number of drivers and their dogs, I also came to reexperience the extremely close relationship between dogs and drivers, how much the dogs seems to love what they do and even got to try my hand at assisting a driver in getting dogs and sled ready for a ride and getting the dogs bag to their respective yards after the drive.
Getting these dogs in and out of their harnesses requires both strength, practise and a bit of guts.
Man meets sled dog

Now the temperature these two days were in the -20C to -30C range and anything from windy, foggy, snowy to a couple of rare hours of sun, and as you will see from the clothing that calls for quite extreme clothing, not to mention that it put my fingers and the camera gear through quite a test too.
Luckily the people arranging these trips knows that turists will need to borrow clothing and has a plenty supply of seal fur clothing to put over what people usually think is clothing enough, which it never is
Crossing the lake

Now these dogs are fast, very fast, each sled has 10-20 dogs in front of the sled and you do know the terrain here, it is not exactly as flat as in the photo above and the ride i not exactly smooth, but extremely fun. I was there to shoot, thus had the additional challenge of often hanging off to the side of the sled inches over the snow and rocks racing by us or even trying to stand up on the sped at full speed to get some shots, but even without it that additional challenge the ride is quite a thrill as you are basically sidding on a wooden sled 15cm off the ground at very high speed
going Down hill

The rides up often measn running along the sled, but downhill is another story entirely.
Here the driver is behind the sled standing on a chain padded belt to creat friction while the dogs are behind the sled to act as breakes and still we were going down hill real feast, fast enough to send the sled flying at times and if asked politely the drivers can give you a really thrilling ride
Overlooking Nalluarsuk

Now why do trip lik this one might ask, well the photo above, which is from a viewpoint over the Nalluarsuk fiord, is one.
Nalluarsuk is a side fiord to the famous Ilulissat Ice fiord and an impressive view indeed, but most of all it is a chance to experience the traditional Greenlandic way to travel, the Greenlandic Sled dogs doing what they love and were born to do and above all it is good fun

Now I have uploaded a whole lot more from the trip in my Greenlandic Winter Photos Gallery, I really do think they are worth a look I have even added a few additional winter photos, just to make sure that I had something interesting to show you all:)

Thanks for reading and do take care

Thomas

Hi All

And welcome to the las duploworld update in 2008.
The family Christmas tree

Christmas has been wonderful, it has been amazing to be allowed to spend time with ym family again.
Now Christmas this year has been different than the years before, there were only seven of us, so only the very closest family was gethered.
Chritmas Girl

Above was probably one of the upsides of being back in Copenhagen, I have been spending a lot of time with miss Duplo, definitely not a bad thing. As you can see above I even talked her into letting me grab some photos of her
No Seriously it has been amazing to spend some time with her again, so no complaints
Winter by the lake

Now weather in Denmark this Christmas has not been all that great. It has been humid and way too warm.
Hower a single day changed that completely. One day when I woke up it was foggy, temperature a touch below 0C and everything covered in frost. While it may not sound like it, it is actually near perfect photography weather I think. Above photo is just one example.
a Danish winter scene

To me it is all aout contrast and colour, I simply adore the slightly moody, subdued colours one finds in this kind of weather. Another thing I cannot help to like about such weather and the frost in particular is what it does to flowers, leaves and branches. this simly look amazing when covered by fine frozen crystals.
thus making the weather perfect for winter macro work.
frozen leaves

And with that I will shut down my laptop and return to the New Year celebrations around me
Happy New Year to all of you and do take care

Thomas