All About: Bjørn Rørslett
Professional Nature Photographer

• Living and working in Oslo, Norway
• Age 58
• Educated and trained as an aquatic ecologist with macrophytes, statistics, image analysis, underwater light climates and computer modelling as areas of special interest. Recently retired from my scientific position to give photography higher priority in my life.
• Active in Photography for 30+ years
• Single parent with 2 children, Liv (22) and Erlend (18)
• Totally committed to all aspects of Nature Photography
• Member of executive committees of several Norwegian Nature Photography Societies
• Runs a small Nature Photography company, NÆRFOTO, to help distribute high-quality (digital) images to clients anywhere
• Contract with SAMFOTO stock library in Oslo, Norway, and its associated Nordic libraries.

• Girl Friend:

  Ruth is the best friend and companion any man can have

• Favourite Car: The French Peugeot 306 Special Edition. This is in fact my 3rd Peugeot so obviously I'm devoted to this product line.
• Favourite Literature: "The Process" by Franz Kafka (still after all these years)
• Favourite Music: the soaring beauty of the works by Tangerine Dream; and the sheer, spine-chilling, impact of compositions by Johan Sebastian Bach. How can any mortal produce these timeless achievements? True genius defeats the march of time.
• Favourite Photographer: So many I can't list them all, but American Nature photographers aren't amongst them, I wonder why?
• Favourite Operating System: Windows NT 4.0 (although I'm no big fan of M*S*, this OS has proven itself extremely stable and powerful for my line of work. I see no viable alternative at present - and yes, I've also tried Linux - in fact, am running a Redhat 9 test machine on my network, as well as a specialised Linux proxy server and firewall). The alternative is Windows 2000, troubled with bugs not yet weeded out, but I need it for operating my LS-8000 scanner and for running my web server. However, Win2000 runs much slower than NT, even on identical hardware (I've measured up to 40% slower). Windows XP is a blatant insult to the user and I ruthlessly eradicate it any time I purchase laptops and find they come with XP pre-installed. I'm not willing to give up user control of my own PCs. Alas, that's the reality, take or leave it.
• Favourite Web Browser: It used to be Netscape Navigator (I find the very idea of installing a browser that takes partial control over my PC disgusting. In particular so with M*S*'s bad track record). However, I wish it had less bugs and better DHTML support. Also, since Internet Explorer (IE) together with all its stupid bugs and security holes now have taken over the lion's share of the browser installations, many web sites these days are sloppily coded to run against IE only. Hence I've been changing over to Mozilla recently. Mozilla is in fact excellent, but there are some annoying flaws with it (for example, it may corrupt searching with Nordic letters which is an affront to me, and Java support sometimes is flaky). You cannot always get what you want, at least not in a single package.
• Favourite Computer Manufacturer: ASUS
• Favourite Film: "Blade Runner" . It has stood the test of time. So, for the matter, has the "Colour" (Red, White, Blue) trilogy by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Or, "Viskningar och Rop" by Ingmar Bergman. Or, "Citizen Kane", by Orson Welles, although I found it had begun faltering the last time I saw it.
• Best Traits: Inquisitiveness and stubbornness
• Worst Traits: Haven't got time to listen to people with better insight than me

As has become the norm for well-respected Norwegian Nature Photographers, I am basically lazy and enjoys working Nature Photography from the vicinity of my car. A typical example is shown here:

Norwegian Nature Photography: Me, my red Peugeot and the ubiquitous Nikon F5 mounted on my indispensable Sachtler Tripod - need I say more ? If you still are unconvinced, click here for a view of a mountain photographer!

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