In July the missus, I and a mate went for our “big” holiday. Basically he got the chance to rent a cabin at a ski resort high up in the mountains almost for free (damn, those railway union folks have some nice benefits!). No snow there in the summer time, but it was a chance to get out of the asphalt jungle. So we spent five days there, played a lot of cards, drank some beer and went sightseeing true tourist style. It was a nice week with good company, although it rained for most of the time, can hardly get any better than that! :)

Skeikampen itself is basically a very large rock, pretty much ideal for downhill skiing. It’s at the upper end of a long valley and sort of at the edge of the wast mountain plains (mostly 700m above sea level or more) that constitutes much of the area. Here and there deep, narrow valleys cut through the landscape and that’s where people live. There’s not much farmland and there’s an old tradition to let livestock (mostly sheep, but also cattle) feed on the mountain plains during the summer. If you did not know, most of Norway is mountainous and hilly with very little decent or accessible farmland.

Regardless of the unhabitable nature of the plains during the winter, the flora burst forth during the short summer, something man learned to utilize a long time ago. Here and there in strategic locations, old farm buildings, some as old as the 17th century, still stand tall. These buildings where only used during the summer time, when the the milkmaids moved up from the farms down in the valleys to tend the cattle and produce dairy products. However, the resources of the alpine landscape have been harvested for a thousand years or more. For instance people carried live fish to the many lakes as early as the Nordic bronze age, with the obvious intention to create a future source of food.

Across parts of the mountain plains, 60 km worth of winding dirt road stretches, given the fairy-tale name “Peer Gynt” after Henrik Ibsens play and lead character. It was built in the 1950s with the intention to bring tourists to the region. The road makes it possible to drive across and behold the views of the alpine plains in a unique way. The only reason it was possible to build is that this specific area haven’t got many peaks literally blocking the path, it’s relatively flat and often marshy. The flora and fauna is however typical for alpine regions in Norway. The Peer Gynt road is only open during summer time.

These selected shots are all shot with a 35mm 1.8 prime and a Nikon D90 (I only used this lens for this trip). Sort of a compositional and photographic experiment, limiting myself to one focal length to see what I was able to create. 35mm on a crop sensor DSLR equals little more than 50mm on a classic 35mm film camera, or full frame in digital terms. I think this exercise turned out quite well and I really feel there’s something to all that talk about “the nifty fifty”. It’s a versatile focal length that can be used for a lot of purposes.

Ps. The reason for the cow and sheep-focus in some of the pictures is simply because I like cows and sheep, they are nice, mostly agreeable animals and taste good ;)