Svalbard. The fjord
When I first walked the snowy stretch off the road to the waterfront and I embraced the scenery with the whole of me, I thought it was the most breathtaking view I’d ever get to experience in my life. I still think it is. I’ve been lucky enough to stand in front of many a great views, and I’m fairly sure I went as far as labelling a few of them as breathtaking – and I hope I will get to experience many more of them in the future.
But that view of Adventfjorden just off the main road in Longyearbyen became ‘my own Svalbard view’ from the very first time I glimpsed it in the distance as I first walked the gentle downhill from Nybyen to the centre, and it was truly mesmerising. It felt like my eyes had sought after that view for a very long time, and had finally found it.
I kept going back to the fjord over and again till it was time to leave for the airport. The fjord is one, but I saw eight of them, because every time I went back I found it changed, and it felt like I was looking at it for the very first time. The whites, the blues, the greys, the blacks: they were all there in that fjord.
The fjord view in Longyearbyen reminded me, once again, why I make a point of returning to some places or spots again and again, and again, and again, and -if I’m lucky enough- one more time still. There’s something profoundly impressionistic about shooting the same location at different times of the day and in different weathers. It always reminds me of Monet and his Rouen Cathedral paintings, each image an attempt to impress on canvas one unique instant of reality.
That view of Adventfjorden was truly mesmerising to me. So I kept going back to it, over and again.
