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| SCROLL FREE SEPTEMBER |
Today being the 1st of September, it was lucky that I heard about the idea to give up social media for a month on the very first day of the month in question.
Just in time to put a quick post on Facebook and Instagram giving my intention, and then to promise myself not to even open the apps for the next 30 days.
I am going to go cold turkey. A bit like dry January, but I am allowed wine. Just no social media.
scroll-free-september is an initiative by the Royal Society for Public Health. We all know the problems it causes, but convince ourselves of good reasons to continue anyway.
FOMO
I'll see what I miss, and what I gain.
If I don't post, then I wont need to check whether anyone is looking at my posts.
And what do they achieve anyway?
...... I am not sure I know the answer to that one.
I am keen to see how I spend the time that I might otherwise have used aimlessly scrolling.
I might even then have some time to share some of my images from Greenland; a place so special that I have not been able to think what to say about it.
Holding it in my head.
A place of stark contrast between land and sea, mostly covered with ice.
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| a house on a rock |
Where homes are built on rocks, and where the ground is covered with snow for about 9 months of the year.
Where transport between villages and towns is by boat, plane or sled. There are no connecting roads.
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| sled |
Where electricity and other utilities are supplied in pipes above the ground, due to the permafrost and rocky ground.
Where fishing and tourism are the main sources of income.
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| fishing boats, Ilulissat |
Where the icefjord creates an ever changing environment in Disko Bay. Icebergs breaking off the glacier and heading out to Baffin Bay, small fragments eventually reaching as far as Canada.
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| Icefjord, Gronland |
Where village life is harsh and somewhat untidy.
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| Ilimanaq |
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| Ilimanaq village refuse collection |
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| Greenlandic home |
Yet all of this set against the exquisite beauty of Disko Bay, where the sun doesn't set in summer, and the night sky could be mistaken for daytime.
The low sun illuminating the ice in subtle majesty.
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| photographers at night, Disko Bay |
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| Disko Bay, Greenland |
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| Iceberg, Disko Bay |
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| Ice flow |
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| midnight light, greenland |
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| blue ice |
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| blue ice, Disko bay |
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| red boat, Disko Bay |
Just posting these images makes me realise that I wish to return. I would like to explore the coast in my own time, taking it all in. Five days is only enough to see what is there, and not enough to say anything meaningful photographically.
It is only familiarity that brings me the ability to have something to say. Time to truly immerse in an environment.
The silence and calm waters were everything that I had hoped for.
Photographs taken from a moving boat will never convey the experience adequately.
A sea that rippled like liquid mercury at 3am in the morning as we returned to harbour left everyone spellbound.
One of those moments that lives on.
Not on Instagram.
Not even on my 'proper' camera.
A special memory
In my head.
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