Leaving Greenland

leaving Narsarssuaq

Leaving is never easy, and it is more difficult when time has been altered by the experience of travel. I had been in Greenland for twenty-three days, but it seemed much longer - every four days or so had seemed like a month. So some part of me probably had assumed that I had moved here. There. You see, writing about it, I am back there.

The first flakes of snow were blowing on a very sharp breeze as I took my time boarding, then settled in my seat (last row, window again!). The large group of Russians from the airport waiting lounge were everywhere, including a man in the seat next to me. I couldn't help noticing he had a very large, up-to-date model iPod, that seemed to be photoviewer, games meister, mini computer, and whatnot all in one, with a large, sharp colour screen. I looked away in case I was about to be able to read his personal messages on the pin-sharp screen.

I was assembling my three cameras in preparation for the flight (Pentax K-1000 35mm, Mamiya medium format, and Olympus u-ju 35mm compact as backup - the Fuji FinePix digital was completely out of memory by this point) when a face appeared over the seat in front of me. It was one of the Russians, of course. 'I see that you have a window seat,' he began politely, holding up a compact digital camera. 'Would you mind taking some pictures for me, since I am not seated by a window?'

'Well...' I needed to be honest. 'I've been paid money to come here to take photographs. But I'll do the best I can. I'd be happy to.'

He thanked me very graciously, and I had a look at another nifty little piece of kit. The zoom lens was actually more powerful than my FinePix, although I suspected its outer range to be digital rather than optical. I took a couple of shots while we were on the ground, to make sure I could work the thing. And then, we were ready for takeoff.

more to follow...


I took these pictures with Vladimir's digital camera.









This last is one of Vladimir's photos, probably from somewhere completely different in Greenland, but I quite like it. But how do you know his name was Vladimir? I can hear you ask. All in good time... and I will look up his surname to credit the picture, as soon as I can.



photo by Vladimir Schuster, 2008