The video above captures a broadcast of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute’s radio forecast for the coast of Vestland County, as recored on the island of Bulandet, on Thursday August 8th, 2024, at 7:59pm.
Amongst other weathers, this particular broadcast foretells…
Friday afternoon, Southwest light gale, 12.
Up to a strong gale 20, East.
Rain later. Rain building.
Expression of thunder…
Gales in exposed places.
And yep, that was accurate, because I do remember that the wind on the Friday got handsy and gregarious, causing us to abandon a cycle trip and head back to the hut.
We were on a family blow out, an adventure in Norway, discovering what I think is Brexit’s only known benefit - that prices in the famously expensive country of Norway were less shocking to us due to inflation at home caused by our European exit.
We’d decided to head out to Norway’s Westernmost fishing village. As well as being Western, it’s pretty Northern too - on an archipelago just below the Faroes, and it took three seperate boat trips to get there. The third boat trip was on the post boat, and we stopped on the way at the postman’s sister’s island for pancakes and coffee.
The video above is one I find myself watching quite often, not because of any biff bang pow production values - it’s badly framed and wobbly - but because of how it makes me feel.
I’ve written before about what Vermeer’s View of Delft (below, 1660-1661) means to me, or rather how that painting makes me feel, and how I seek the calm that it gives me in other artists, notably Vilhelm Hammershøi and Pieter Jansz Saenredam. And now I find that the video at the top of this post evokes in me a similar calm to The View of Delft
Although I’ve watched the video clip a few times, only this week did I notice a kind of self portrait in there, as my reflection floats into visibility at about 1 min 20 secs, for 30 secs or so, then floats out again, like the changing weather.
The video works to calm, not neccessarily because of the artfact itself - although you tell me, maybe it does - but because of the memories I associate with it. I am coating the thing with a biographical calm not provoked solely by the thing itself.
Much more likely to emit calm inherently themselves I think are the photographs of Bulandet below. Just due to how things have fallen with family convenience etc, my wife’s photos and my own get swirled in together and I’m not 100% sure who took the ones below. Although I do remember standing at each of these locations and making images, my wife is a better photographer than I am and I would guess from the strong composition that these are hers.
These pictures seriously calm me. Clearly I have a thing about clouds reflected in water, and about architecture seen on a far shore. Is this a common thing shared perhaps with you?
And these photos calm me for another reason. I love them because when I was stood in the place they were taken, at that time inevitably my own endemic, mammalian bullshit would have clogged perception. I would have been fretting about the kids, or about some words once said or not said, or just common or garden needing a piss or food, but these photos strip my ticking fret from the view and let me see the place I was in better than I did when I was actually there.
It’s peculiar and sweet isn’t it, using memory and images to go to places more deeply only once you’ve left them. And perhaps - and here I’m terrifying myself, feeling gales in all my exposed places - perhaps this is true of people too - knowing them more clearly only once they’re gone.
