Whether an idea turns into a book in the end depends on many factors. The most important thing, of course, is for a publisher to warm up to the idea. But a book project can also fail due to completely different hurdles. This book could have failed three times: at the beginning of the journey, in the middle and when the journey was long over.
When the photographer Mike Dodd set off from London on a 4,000-kilometer motorcycle tour to the North Cape three years ago, he did something that photographers never do: he left his camera at home. “I wanted to have my own adventure and not think about how to make the perfect picture out of it”. A few street corners down he turned around and packed some camera equipment – a decision that was worth it.
The question was whether he could even achieve the goal with a 40-year-old Goldwing
The second hurdle was the motorcycle. The North Cape is one of the dream destinations of many motorcyclists. If you set out on your way, you usually do so with a machine that you don’t have to worry about whether you will even reach your destination. Mike Dodd started with his Honda Goldwing GL 1000, built in 1979, called “Mrs.B”. The first Goldwings, which came onto the market in the mid-1970s, were monsters that showed typical weaknesses in motorcycle construction of those years: a powerful engine paired with a too weak chassis. The machine often rocked, especially in fast corners, and was then difficult to control even for experienced drivers.
Camping in Lofoten, in good weather.
(Photo: Mike Dodd)
This only improved in later models, and over time the Goldwing became a technically sophisticated travel sofa on wheels, powered by a legendary six-cylinder engine. But Mrs. B. was an almost 40 year old motorcycle lady. Anyone who sets off into deserted areas with such a machine must always expect that the journey in nowhere will come to an abrupt end because some technical defect has paralyzed the motorcycle and of course any spare parts that may be required cannot be found, especially not quickly.
The third hurdle was the traveler himself. He had doubts whether the countless pictures he had taken are good enough. But sometimes chance helps. Dodd showed photos from his trip to the German journalist Lena Siep, with whom he had already worked several times. She was thrilled and convinced him to make a book out of it. From long conversations, Siep wrote a sensitive text, without which the book would only have become a magnificently photographed illustrated book, of which there are countless.
Because the text is not just about driving a decrepit motorcycle through grandiose landscapes. Rather, it primarily describes a journey to himself. A journey on which a professional photographer frees himself from the obsession of having to take the perfect photo and realizes that he would only have added more soulless images to the flood of soulless images in the Instagram world .
A motorcyclist’s dream: the road to the Sifjord on the island of Senja in Norway.
(Photo: Mike Dodd)
Dodd, as the book says, was inspired by “beautiful Instagram pictures” for his journey and was driven to recreate the most beautiful motifs somehow. At the beginning of the journey, he drives back and forth along a mountain stretch with 27 hairpin bends seven times, never finding the right perspective until he realizes that the Instagram photo that so fascinated him must have been taken by a drone.
Little by little, Mike Dodd frees himself from this constraint, which is also necessary because Mrs. B. starts to bother after the first few stages. About halfway through the route, already beyond the Arctic Circle, the Honda more or less slacks off. The way Dodd first finds a mechanic who seals the ailing covers of the ignition coils because used original parts are out of the question and then passes him on to an old man motorcycle club is one of the most beautiful passages in the book. There one of the enthusiasts found the cause of the constant misfires: a defective spark plug connector.
When Dodd finally has his goal in mind in the barren and cold landscape, all tension falls away from him. “I took my hands off the handlebars and shouted into the wind: We did it, Mrs.B., we did it”. He has long since overcome his obsession. In a world full of flawless digital photos, there is only one reason to take photos: “to show what really moves us”. With the photos of his North Cape trip, Dodd succeeded in doing this in an impressive way.
Mike Dodd / Lena Siep: Fjordward. With the motorcycle to the North Cape. Delius Klasing Verlag, Bielefeld 2021. 160 pages, 39.90 euros.