Well it’s finally done. The Roth and Ramberg 2010 Calendar is out. We had a fantastic trip to Newfoundland and met some awesome people. If you’d like a copy shoot us an email
This is a fellow by the name of Bill Mercer and we met him the second day on our trip. He took us out to see the whales and we ended up with a good old fashioned Newfoundland shed party that night. Great start to the trip.
This was shot with a normal lens so needless to say we were quite close!
One of the many highlights for us were the icebergs in Dorrell. Not only did we get a private boat tour around them, we used some ice for our scotch, and we camped with a view of them in the bay.
This is where we camped for the night.
If you’re curious and want the behind the scenes of our trip, we’ve created a special website. Go to our main page and click on the cod and we will be posting a new set of journal pages every month…at least thats the plan.
Roth and Ramberg are in the latest issue of Communication Arts Photography Annual. It was a photo done for DDB as part of Syncrude Canada’s “Dream Bigger” campaign. Thanks to Eva and Howard from DDB and of course Mark from Syncrude.
We worked with Brad Connell, Kelsey Horne and Nick Asik (Taxi) on some ads for custom-made wallpaper produced locally in Calgary by ABL Imaging. Now it’s in the latest issue of Archive Magazine!!
We finally got Maggie home and back up on her blocks in Portugal Cove. Tired and dirty, we had a bit of a sleep in but were up early enough to drive around Portugal Cove. We were pretty sure we had enough shots for the calendar but perhaps there was still a gem waiting to be found. Lunch of fish and chips by the ocean ended up taking priority, along with buying new outfits to wear to Mark’s cousin’s wedding we managed to get ourselves invited to.
We joined Mark at the Legion after the supper and speeches were done. More drinks and beer. The party was rolling along and all of a sudden the music stopped. The lights turned on. The bartender grabbed the mike and announced that if guests were bringing in their own beer she was going to shut the wedding down. Then the lights got shut off and the music got cranked up again. Newfoundlanders love to have fun that’s for sure.
We stumbled home around 1am and sure enough there was yet another good old fashioned shed party going on. Men singing old Newfoundland songs, lots of rum and good times. Another 3am night. Unfortunately we had to be up at 6:30am to catch our flight home.
We’re sad it’s over… but what an adventure! Wonderful, warm, hardworking, hospitable people. We can’t say enough about how great our trip was. The sense of community is strong in Newfoundland. We will be back for sure and you should go too.
We hope you enjoyed the blog entries if you’ve read them to this point. Stay tuned in January for the ‘Roth and Ramberg around the Bays’ Newfoundland Calendar. If you’d like a copy of the calendar just drop us a line and let us know your address.
Thanks to everyone in Newfoundland who took good care of us, especially Fred and Rosland.
Now it’s time to get some sleep, then start the detox and dieting.
It’s nearing the end of our journey. One of the many great things about Newfoundlanders is their generosity. Not only do they invite you into their homes, or sheds, or driveways, many give you something in return. We’ve managed to disrupt the daily routines of many on this trip and yet we leave with fresh cod fillets, antique spoons, handmade tea towels, fridge magnets etc.
Today we met up with a friend of Marks parent’s named Harold. After photographing him he treated us to some crab au gratin and as we were leaving he loaded us up with frozen scallops, moose burgers, crab etc. WOW!
To back up a little though, we woke up by the ocean in Chaulkers Cove on Conception Bay. Yet more generous people, Richard and Elizabeth allowed us to park Maggie in their yard overnight. We had a late supper of tacos in their kitchen, sat up and chatted for a while and in the morning had a nice dip in the ocean before we left.
Today we decided to do the excursion around the Bay tour. For us it consisted of going to Bay de Verde which is at the tip of Conception bay where it hits Trinity Bay. Vicki, who is Richard and Elizabeth’s daughter, made some calls for us and we had a few people lined up to photograph or help us out. One was a Newfoundland Dog breeder. The second the owner of a beach camping area. The third, someone who headed up a historical society in Bay de Verde. Two out of the three… not bad.
We made the drive up the coastline, which of course was stunning. We stopped at Old Perlican where we hooked up with Harold. When we arrived he was drying out the capelin recently caught. If you remember day 1 of our journey we bit the head off a capelin to begin our journey.
He took us down the fish plant where the Capelin and shrimp were being unloaded and packaged and shipped.
After finishing in Old Perlican, we made the 5 km trek to Bay de Verde. Just when we thought the scenery couldn’t get any better… oh my. After wandering around a bit, we finally found the clothesline shot we’ve been hunting for. Clotheslines in Newfoundland are quite a common sight and it was kind of a quest to get a good one. The stick is used to raise up the line, as well as support more of a load. It rests against the ground and the weight of the clothes keeps it from moving.
We met and photographed a great old fisherman. (If you haven’t noticed by now, you’ll have to wait until the R&R calendar comes out to see those shots.) A quick visit there and we were on our way to the beach.
At the beach we met up with a man named Neal Oleary. He owns a wonderful campground/park with the best beach we’ve seen so far on our travels. We start talking with him for a bit. After a while he brings out his handmade wooden accordian and he starts playing us some great old fashioned Newfoundland music. Down to the beach we go with Neal and get the last shot of the day.
Now its back to the home of Maggie. We’re all feeling a bit sad as tomorrow is our last day of shooting.
We overnighted in Square Pond campground, mainly due to their wi-fi connection. Another long night plowing through the video, blog, etc.
The average bedtime is about 2:30 am. Usually we have a few cocktails while we work. Best guess so far for alcohol consumed: two bottles of Old Sam rum, ten dozen beer or so, three quarters of a bottle of gin, one bottle of vodka, one and a half bottles of scotch and a bottle of red wine. Seafood comsumption: cod, lobster, scallop, crab, cod tongue, salmon, shrimp and squid.
Mid-day we made the determination to go to the lower part of Trinity Bay to cover that area, more specifically a town named Dildo.
Yes, we shot the obvious… Dale with the Dildo road sign. There’s a clever bit of guerrilla advertising attached to the sign. It’s a handpainted sign. It advertises a wood shop which sells replica Dildo signs and other souvenirs. Sure it’s a small sign, but everyone stops to get their picture taken.
According to the Newfoundland dictionary a Dildo is a small round stick or dowel fastened to the gunwhale of a rowboat to hold the oar in place, just in case you were wondering
All 12 year old boy humour aside, its a wonderful town with friendly people who take the name with good natured jokes and chuckles. We met a couple of young adults at the music festival inside the local hall and had a chance to take some great photos. That all said here’s the view from the harbour, absolutely stunning.
Now we are heading down to the last of the four bay tour, which is where we started. That would be Conception Bay.
We pulled in late last night onto Fogo Island. Friends of friends of Mark’s live at the far end of the island in a town named Tilting. One quick call to Cathy and Joe and we are invited over. We hit the scene close to 10:30pm. We ask Cathy about the best way to cook our fresh cod from Twillingate. A few minutes later Maggie is hooked-up out back recharging her batteries. Before we know it, Cathy is frying up a proper scoff of cod fillets and potatoes for our midnight dinner. Best cod we’d ever eaten… even Dale had a fine feed!
Cathy makes a call to her sister Mary who lives next door. Instantly it turns into a good old fashioned kitchen party. A bottle of Sam’s is opened and the lid is thrown away. Mary took quite a fancy to Dale and gave him the gears all night long. The bottle is done and Joe walks in to the house after his own shed party at the neighbors. He’s suprised to see the three of us, but of course we were welcome with open arms.
We’ve got lots of work to. We don’t want to get caught on Fogo. We get up early and go find something to shoot. The last ferry is out at 6:30. Bacon and eggs courtesy of Mark, showers all around thanks to Cathy & Joe and then we hit the streets…
We begin to hear stories about a local woman from a town named Joe Batt’s Arm. She is quite a success story, having come from a poor family and now a philanthropist. She has attracted artists from around the world to stay in the community to work. As well, she has set up scholarships for students and set up a foundation to help businesses start up. She’s involved with the local ice cream shop which hires local high school kids and an incredible restaurant with a world class chef… of course we stopped there for lunch. From all accounts she is doing great things for Fogo Island.
There’s a specific kind of boat called a punt. It’s is a type of rowboat used quite frequently in this area. It’s meant to be towed behind a slightly bigger boat and then used to haul the nets etc. for fishing. We hear there are a few boat builders in the area. Our first quest is to find one of the boatbuilders. Poking around town we find a man named Aiden. He won the first ever annual punt race from Fogo Island to Change Island and back. He lets Michele take her shot at piloting the boat… not so good.
Throughout the day, we hear a story of a man who owns a Newfoundland pony. It’s a specific horse that is slighty smaller than a regular horse but bigger than a Shetland. There’s only one pony on Fogo. We manage to find him and his horse and they both agree and to let us photograph them. His pony is named Midnight Trumpet.
After a quick drink with Joe and Katheine and family visiting from Alberta in their shed we haul ass to the ferry. We make it with time to spare (good thing the boat was late arriving). We hop aboard and within five minutes Michele is steering the boat back to Farewell Harbour.
We heard the sounds of the icebergs breaking all night long. We decided to get an early start to the day for a change. Loading video, working on the blog, facebook, twitter etc. takes a long time. That of course would be fine if Rogers coverage wasn’t non-existent outside St John’s. It makes our little mobile internet stick “as stunned as a birch broom in the fits”, whatever that means…
We were determined to find a kayaker to photograph by the icebergs. After wrapping up our internet work, we spotted two kayakers in the bay. We tracked down Bax for another boat ride. Sure enough he was ready to take us out on his boat so we hauled ass across the bay towards the kayakers. We pulled up alongside one of the kayakers and there before our eyes was a wonderful redhead. We thought for sure her name was going to be Maggie but it wasn’t. While photographing her, we definitely drifted WAYTOOCLOSE to the iceberg.
We safely got out with no iceberg tipping over on to us. To celebrate we headed back to our favorite stage for a few beers.
Lunch time. We had to have some seafood by the ocean… Mark and Michele anyway. We drove a few km out of town and took a back road to Doyle W Sansome and Sons. There’s is a little wharf with a few buildings to hold live lobster and the tiniest kitchen ever.
We got two lobster specials. In one of the buildings one of the owners grabbed two live lobsters handed them to Michele. She plunked them each into a lobster pot sitting on the concrete floor.
A few minutes later… lobster by the sea. Yummy.
Here’s the difficult math… the fisherman sells the lobster for $3-4/lb and then the restaurant sells it to us for $20/lb.
After a few stops to buy some clean underwear for Dale, stock up on more beer, shopping in an art gallery by the sea.. we are now off to the ferry at Farewell. It’s an hour from Twillingate and we caught the last ferry to Fogo Island.
We drove into the night and arrived at Dildo Run Provincial Park (yes we covered every joke). A few hot showers and some drinking by the campfire we went to bed refreshed. In the morning, we drove the last few kilometres to Twillingate, the drive in was unbelievable. Every vision we ever had of Newfoundland was right before our eyes. If you haven’t noticed we like to eat out a lot, mainly because its a chance to meet the locals.
The Harbour View restaurant seemed perfect and it had wireless. For the first time in a long time we’re back on the grid. Dale went outside to take photos while the rest of the crew worked on the blog etc. Carrying two blackberries, Dale was stopped by what may have been the owner, Cal. They got to talking and within a few minutes we were packing everything up and driving down the road to meet Bax, but first we ate toutons (panfried bread dough with molasses).
Bax had a boat and was ready to give us a tour of the icebergs. What a beautiful boat ride getting close to the icebergs, taking photos and watching them break apart.
After a few drinks with some freshly caught iceberg ice on Roy’s fishing stage we found out where a 96 year old fisherman lived that we could photograph. Then a little boy showed up with his wooden toy boat on a string, click.
We wheeled Maggie to an oceanside picnic park for the night. BBQ, a little Fat Bastard red wine and rumbling sounds from the ice bergs all night long. I wonder what they’ll look like when we wake up. Unfreaking believable… a perfect day and a perfect night camped out right beside the icebergs.
