“One man’s dream is often another man’s nightmare.”

One man’s dream is often another man’s nightmare – I saw this the day I brought along my good friend Joe Steinfelds, an American expatriate directly imported from California to brew delightfully local beers, as I was explaining that we were paddling over a sea more than 80 meters deep. Ever since I remember, the feeling of being floated by a bottomless mass of water has been – to me – a source of the deepest inner peace; Joe was not on the same page, and upon receiving this piece of oceanographical information he paled, and couldn’t wait to get back to safe ground asap.

Norwegian seagulls are bigger than average and healthier than most – in a place like Ålesund they can grow old on fish. They’re fierce and fearless and not easy to impress. I was floating about letting the sun go down on us, enjoying the disconnect between the action inside the boats, where all my fellow humans were, and the calmness of the sea changing gear for the incoming night

It is more fun to photograph in the water around larger fishing vessels, because there’s more action and fishermen will gut the fishes and throw the entrails in the water – promoting instant zoological commotion from all directions. While fighting each other for the better bits, seagulls become immune to my presence. In this photo, I was allowed to swim right up to them and get personal, while they fought for a very large piece of entrails that was floating about. I chose a slow shutter speed to show the dwindling sky light, the warm lights of the city, and the fierce fight. Immediately after the strobes went off, the water swirled darkly and the entrails vanished, violently. 

I only had time to have time for nothing – a flicker of confusion instantly followed by retracting my legs, in a foetal position, protecting my own entrails, and thinking “what on earth am I doing here at this time of dusk…”

“promoting instant zoological commotion from all directions.”