Next up on the awards program is the IFAJ Photography Awards.
After seeing each of the 28 entries:
Honorable mentions were presented to 12 of the entrants but I don’t have the list.
Second place was presented to Mark Rozin, “Capital Press”, USA.
First place was won by John Eveson, “Farmers Guardian”, United Kingdom.
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The business meeting just concluded and now it’s time for awards. First we have the IFAJ Star Prize for Agricultural Journalism.
Right now we’re seeing a listing of the entries. And the winners are . . .
The second place winner is Andries Gouws, “Landdbou Weekblad”, South Africa.
First place winner is, Andrew Blake, “Farmers Weekly”, United Kingdom.
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The business meeting of IFAJ is underway. Here’s the leadership at the head table.
We just had elections for the parliament of officers. President is David Markey (Ireland) and Vice President, Mike Wilson (United States).
Right now we’re getting a budget report for the coming year which will include funding to help up to 5 students attend next year’s Congress in Japan.
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I’m not really sure what/who this is. If anyone has more information, please share.
Before we left the lakeside stop on the way back to our hotel, three of these “troll ladies?” showed up screeching and attacking men.
It was also getting very foggy out which plays havoc with a flash.
Here’s a poor guy getting a dose of whatever these ladies were dishing out.
Can you say “crazy Norwegians?” This all has a lot to do with agriculture as I’m sure we’ll find out in coming days.
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After we left the play last night and got on our buses it’s hard to describe what happened next. I heard we were stopping for a surprise.
The surprise was going to be “night bathing” in a lake. Yeah, right!
But that’s exactly what happened. Some serious Viking souls got in the lake. I have pictures of them but deemed them inappropriate for a family website. Email me if you’d like a copy.
For those who didn’t do a little night bathing, we had some really good ham/bean soup and beers in the semi-darkness. This was about 11:30pm and it still wasn’t full dark yet.
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One of the locals working at Peer Gynt said we were very lucky to have such good weather for the play.
I guess it can rain and get even colder but the play still goes on.
One thing we got lucky with was a beautiful sunset.
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Here’s a little wider angle shot of the play we attended last night (Peer Gynt).
I don’t know what the official number is for people attending but I’d guess we had a couple thousand at least.
It’s held in an outdoor ampitheater on the bank of Lake Gala and includes a series of turf/grass covered huts which look like ones we saw a lot of on the way here.
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It’s Sunday morning now and I’m starting to wake up. The delegates are meeting already but since I’m not one, I’m taking a little longer to get going. Getting in at 2am requires more sleep on my part than what these hardy Vikings need I guess.
I thought I’d catch up with some more photos from yesterday. Before the play got started we had a little private lakeside reception.
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I don’t even want to think about what time it is locally here in Hamar. We just got back from seeing the final night production of Peer Gynt at Laka Gala. Here’s Peer and the green troll. You’ll have to get a copy of Henrik Ibsen’s play to find out what it’s all about. Let’s just say that I think it made more sense in Norwegian than it would have in English.
By the way, the cows in front of the Scandic Hotel in my last post are part of the Cow Parade. I thought they were and found some information on them in the registration materials we received when we arrived.
Did I mention that Peer Gynt is a truly bizarre play? If not, I should have. I really did not know what to expect, especially since it was not in my language. However, it was incredible and entertaining. It’s tied into the folklore of the region here which is why it fits in nicely with the purpose of an IFAJ Congress.
Besides these pictures I also recorded a short audio clip so you can hear what the native language sounds like. 
Peer Gynt Segment (1 min MP3)
In addition to the audio I shot a video clip of a dance segment that was pretty cool. I hope you enjoy it. 
Peer Gynt Segment (3 min WMV)
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Here’s the lovely Scandic Hotel in Hamar. I just arrived and am getting ready to go to a play in the mountains. I know nothing about it except that it’s a 2 hour bus ride.
My plane was a mere 2 hours late and from what I’ve heard a lot of people were delayed getting here so I’m not alone. I’ll have a lot more coverage of the IFAJ 2006 Congress to come.
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