A classic Copenhagen land mark – The Little Mermaid. Often people complain she is too small. What did you expect? This is Denmark. We are down to earth and life size here – not larger than life 🙂
Copenhagen 9, 2013
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Tag Archives: Copenhagen
Eurovision Song Contest 2014 – 7
There have been many faces to the Eurovision Song Contest. When I was a kid, it was a singer or two on a regular stage with a camera, a spot light and a live band. Pop song made its entry into the competition with Abba as did major styling. Then came the years of trying to repeat Abba’s success and write real pop songs. It never really worked. The songs had a unique knack of being either emotional ballads of a kind that you will only hear in this contest or kitchy pop-like songs that you would also only hear in the competition.
In the 80’ies at least in Denmark you were in danger of becoming a social outcast if you admitted to liking the songs and for some years we saved our money and didn’t participate. Then slowly it turned. Year by year the love for the song contest has grown as has the number of participating countries until reaching the popularity of today. The winning country has huge budgets for hosting the event, the stage shows include ice skaters and this year around 180 million people are expected to be watching.
Images in this post are all from Basim’s rehearsal today – the Danish contestant.
Eurovision Song Contest 2014 – 5
My reason for going to the venue today was to capture an image of this young man, Basim. He is representing Denmark with a very catchy pop song that most of us can sing along to by now. I have no doubt the people in charge of the National Danish Radio hopes he doesn’t win. It is horribly expensive to host the international event – a task that falls to the winning nation.
The press was not allowed inside the hall today but I have a few images from the other days I want to share. I found myself immensely fascinated with all the heavy equipment around the stage. This is what it looks like in front rather than on the stage during rehearsals.
And if you look at the stage but not at the singers, you might see this sight…
Eurovision Song Contest 2014 – 3
Today was the first day the press was allowed inside the venue hall during the rehearsals. The stage as well as the 10,000 seats have been built especially for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
The site once housed a shipyard and the hall is gigantic but it doesn’t feel huge. It feels magical. I have never seen a space this amazing with so many dimensions to light and colour. I tried my best and I’ll keep trying but it’s impossible to capture.
First image is the Armenian contestant, Aram MP3 (not kidding).
Also from the Armenian rehearsal, discussing some of the details.
Latvia, Aarzemnieki, rehearsing.
Copenhagen 6, 2013
Here is the guard at the Queen’s residence. Every day at noon the change of guards starts at Rosenborg Castle where the barracks are. The guards walk through the city to be in place for the change at noon. It is not uncommon for people to follow them from Rosenborg to Amalienborg. I always feel very fond of my hometown when I accidentally come across the uniformed soldiers with their music corps marching along in the middle of the street.
Copenhagen 5, 2013
Time to play the tourist…
View of the Marble Church across the square of Amalienborg. You can’t call Amalienborg a castle though the Queen lives here. They are four identical but separate buildings that were not originally meant to house the royal family.
I like how there’s free access to the area. You can walk right up to the buildings, even drive across the square. All you’ll see is the famous royal guard with their bearskin hats in front of their little red houses.
Copenhagen 4, 2013
This used to be a news stand. It’s on Sankt Hans Torv – a great place to sit in the sun and drink coffee / wine / beer and eat brunch / lunch / croissants / dinner.
The square is within walking distance from the inner city (across the bridge from Nørreport Station) but the feel is very different. It is a multi ethnical neighborhood with many cafĂ©s, designer shops and ‘antique’ shops.
Copenhagen 3, 2013
Most visitors to Copenhagen never leave the inner city. It’s such a pity. This string of lovely, artificial lakes can be found only a few minutes from the main tourist route. They were created when the battlements were torn down, about the same time as Tivoli.
Copenhagen 2, 2013
Same location, same model – different camera…
This is taken with my Nikon D5100. Here I’m able to indicate the surroundings by blurring them and focus more strongly on what I really want to show – the young woman. A matter of taste. By using different settings I would be able to keep everything in focus as well.
Copenhagen 1, 2013
This is a fun little experiment. One day early in the fall I took a friend and two cameras to Søerne in Copenhagen. This is the result of a portrait taken with a Leica D-Lux4. It’s a compact camera without interchangeable lenses but it shoots RAW format and lets you adjust aperture, shutter speed or shoot manual if you feel the need. And it looks cool. So I bought it used without being completely sure what my plans were for it. I thought it would liv win my car so I would never be without a camera but that didn’t quite work for me.
As you will see when I post another portrait in the same surroundings tomorrow, there is a big difference between the images the Leica and the Nikon will produce. I’m sure preference will be personal. I really love my Nikon so I don’t use the Leica much (as in ‘hardly at all’) but I think it might well be a better choice for street photography – if I was to get into that at some point 🙂
Karins Fotos 