These are some photos I took while I was in Oslo, a few hours after the tragic bombing and shootings. I found out that I was going only an hour before the last flight was due to take off, so I didn’t have the time to pick up a camera or any clothes, so these were all taken on my iPhone. When we arrived at about midnight, we took a taxi in as close to the centre as we could, before we were stopped at the edge of the bomb zone by police roadblocks. The main radio station was playing old songs, Imagine, All You need Is Love, Peace Train, attempting to broadcast some kind of hope over the city. The streets were still covered in glass and office documents still blew everywhere. Strange zones where three windows in a row were fine and the next completely shattered, ash in the shop inside. No one on the streets. Everything closed.
The dank morning we drove to Utoya. The footsteps of Breivik. Wet empty roads. Highways closed. People huddling in the rain; the King, Queen and Crown Prince comforting them. Black clouds. Back to Oslo. A minute’s silence outside the cathedral. It turns into five minutes. Rain fails to fall. Waiting for Breivik to arrive outside the court. Too crowded and risky to allow him to arrive in public. A man hits and screams at a car that tries to get into the car park. Policemen in a conference, admitting that they didn’t react fast enough. They’re not defiant, they apologise, look devasted, say that they will understand if people criticise them, then, in a breaking voice, ask people to remember that they are humans too, not just policemen. They could not believe that anyone in Norway could do such a thing, mistaken in presuming that everyone in the country was as decent as them.
