It is also obvious to me that regardless of how much we know about life in the universe we still know so little. How else could we keep on making ‘progress’? Sceptic or not, we often use the term ‘benefit of the doubt’ to allow for the things we don’t know for certain. In which other cases is this more important than in the case of climate change? Just a hundred years ago the planet was a very different place. Today we are harvesting the limited earthly resources at a terrifying pace, we build cities, roads, travel around the globe, manipulate genetic code to suit our needs, more often than not in the pursuit of greater wealth. How naive does one have to be to ignore that this behaviour must have consequences? How can we pave our backyard and expect the flowers to bloom at the same time?

I do not personally have the facts, but I believe I have a sound mind. My mind is telling me that we are at a crucial point in history and it is time to check our desire for material possessions, become more conscious. When I hear people like James Hansen and Al Gore, I believe them. I listen. And their crucially important messages strike home.

Spend a few minutes seeing James Hansen’s speech on TED. It may make perfect sense. Change is not required locally, we need to change the way we think and act globally.

Having said this, it made my iMac sluggish, iTunes started skipping and beachballs were flying. After a while I had to reboot, something I rarely do. I usually have no problem running six desktops with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, browsers, email, Lightroom and more. LR3 has been working just fine so these bumps made me uneasy. Being totally dependent on Lightroom for my workflow I was very thankful that I started a new catalogue to test rather than simply upgrading the LR3 catalogues.

To summise, my first impressions were that Lightroom 4 is, at this point in time, not fast and sturdy enough for me to risk relying on. Lightroom 3.6 does a great job and, although I want the new features, I won’t risk upgrading until Adobe have ironed out what I can only assume are new release issues.

THE NEED FOR RELIABLE WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT
Ever since acquiring a Nikon D200 dSLR back in 2005 the images have been piling up. With todays technology it is almost too easy to keep shooting to safeguard against a flawed capture. I quickly discovered that having the right software to edit and manage workflow is equally important to having a good camera. Capturing the photograph is, after all, just a small part of creating an interesting image.

Back in the day the software I found was generally unstable and unreliable. I started out with Bibble, checked out Apple Aperture and Adobe Lightroom. Bibble left me frustrated and short of hair. Apple Aperture was a step up but had certain issues that made me move on. I almost became religious when Adobe launched Lightroom. It too was a little unstable at first but with each version it got better and better. Today I use Lightroom 3.6 and I love it.

One of the beautiful things about LR is that the folder structure in the program is reflected on the harddisk. This was one of the reasons I gave up on Apple Aperture (though this may have changed in later versions), it wrapped the images into one library file, like iPhoto, making it more difficult to administrate. Using Lightroom, I store the actual RAW image files on the network disk, writing image edits to an individual XML file associated with each image. This way, the original image is preserved allowing me to make as many edits as I want without changing the original image. I have several catalogues with their previews stored locally. This setup has worked pretty flawlessly with Lightroom 3.

MY SETUP
I work on an iMac 27” 3.4 GHz Core i7 with 8gb ram, running OS X Lion 10.7.3. Having accumulated well over 500 gb of RAW (.NEF) images I spent a little time think about a scalable storage solution. I landed on a QNAP TS-419+ Turbo NAS network storage unit. Although it took a little tweaking to get things up and running it is a system that works well for me.

This particular bouquet caught my eye in Krabi, Thailand, when I was there a few years ago to heal body and soul. Relaxed and cool people, amazing food and a climate so perfect makes that harsh Norwegian winter seem far far away. Shorts and t-shirt, long beaches and heavenly azure seas. I will definately return. Very soon.

Travelling to Kathmadu is a shock to the system, a chaotic and exotic emotional infusion for any western traveler. Moving further from the capital into smaller towns and communities almost feels like visiting a different planet. I will cover more of this trip as I get around to it.

This shot was taken as we entered Bardiya, a town in the Nepalese lowlands.

Catching the rays at all times of the day, strolling around in total silence catching droplets and butterflies as they transform. Seriously, it may not qualify as meditation, but it sure as hell feels like it.

On my return to Phuket I went for a trek to Ton Sai Falls where I stumbled upon a group of kids bathing at the bottom of a stream.  The jungle was literally soaked in shy giggles and laughter. Lovely.

Old and young, these guys are everywhere. This particular one was obviously tired of tourists and tried to give me a smack across the face. I escaped to shoot another day.

Read more about Swayambhunath here.

I’m sure I’ve lived in Nepal in some past life, I felt so at home. I arrived there at the end of 2006, just after a ceasefire with the maoists, and it was so clear people were struggling, every dollar counted, children were sleeping on the pavement taking care of themselves. Regardless, the warmth and humour they always met me with blew me away.

I won’t pretend to know much, so if Boudhanath Stupa intrigues you check out Wikipedia

This shot was taken the very first time I met her. She was in her little pen with her siblings, running and falling over each other, chewing on shoelaces and pretty much anything. Unbelievably cute, tough and resiliant, she in the car with us and started a life in Oslo.