graphic photons

amazonian

2012-02-17T16:29:00.000+02:00

once again garment by ellie, sophie by genetics and evolution.

looking forward to more collaborations! :)

a lady in red in white in black and white

2012-02-13T23:04:00.002+02:00

oh, and then i got a bit excited with photoshop and tried an alternative version!

also looking at a bright red hat for several hours becomes a bit blinding.

a lady in red

2012-02-13T22:15:00.000+02:00

i do still take photos!

corset and hat by ellie, modeled by sophie.

i used to live the american dream

2011-10-17T19:53:00.000+03:00

microportrait

2011-10-17T04:16:00.001+03:00

dslr modified into pinhole, self-portrait from inside the microwave with flash. also did dishwasher and oven.

really hastily done pinhole project, i would like to try this with a proper little analogue pinhole that could really be put somewhere inconveniently small.

robert smail's printing works

2011-10-13T02:06:00.000+03:00

still functioning victorian printing press in innerleathen, scottish borders.

bonus points for creatively named local pub.

i was testing out a helios-44M lens, suddenly everything is quite nice and dreamy.

0112358132134

2011-10-11T17:25:00.000+03:00

red hat

2011-09-22T00:40:00.000+03:00

rolleicord 120

end of seasons

2011-09-19T00:33:00.000+03:00

and it always comes to a close, blissfully dragged out and yet all too quickly.

and everything will be fine

iona

2011-09-14T22:51:00.000+03:00

from iona, in the inner hebrides off the western coast of scotland. last april. rolleicord, 120 film, i had these photos up on the wall of our eggs and their shells exhibition.

( )

2011-09-08T21:43:00.002+03:00

( exhibition work from last march )

snowblind

2011-09-02T12:38:00.000+03:00

tota volpe-landi / london

2011-09-01T14:11:00.000+03:00

more lady tattoo artists! on a june trip to london, i went with my friend E to watch her get tattooed at happy sailor tattoo in shoreditch. our mutual friend worked there, and E had already gotten a tattoo from tota before, so the place was familiar and we knew we could expect quality work.

i've begun forming an idea about taking more portraits of female tattoo artists. it still seems a very male-dominated field, and women with tattoos are generally frowned upon more than men with ink - especially women who don't fit the "tattooed stereotype". but you were so pretty before!

pfft, bollocks.

i always forget how fun black and white film can be. i think i should practice with it some more.

and this is the finished result E got. i definitely know where i'll be getting inked if (when) i go to london next. :)

kit hall tattoo / chicago

2011-08-22T15:48:00.005+03:00

last april (on my 22nd birthday) i got tattooed by the awesome kit hall at deluxe tattoo, chicago. the next day i came back and took some editorial style portraits of her for a college project.

i sent her my final images as well as a pdf of thumbnails from the rest of the shoot, and was happy to hear she was going to use them on her website. i noticed she ended up choosing one of the thumbnails, so i've sent her an edited version at a better resolution - the one on the site is still an unedited copy from the contact sheet.

and the final result! the bear is from august 2009 by juha mustonen at custom x, lahti, finland. there is a photo of this tattoo up on her web portfolio as well, taken fresh when it was finished, so i feel special. :) some day there will be even more animals and foresty things on my back!

.NEF

2011-08-08T18:08:00.000+03:00

always shoot raw, they say. raw format, raw mind, raw moment.

but then it makes it just that much harder to accidentally find them again.

makes the world go round

2011-08-04T16:02:00.000+03:00

today i realised that i am truly, unconditionally poor and unemployed, with less than three digits to my name.

today i realised that i am truly, unconditionally lucky.

haa-vei-lu

2011-08-01T19:05:00.000+03:00

en enää järjestä aterimia millään muulla tavalla. haarukka-veitsi-lusikka.

kaikki on ollut hyvää jo pitkään.

all things go

2011-07-04T19:25:00.000+03:00

city daydream

2011-06-27T14:09:00.000+03:00

lone island

2011-05-25T14:43:00.000+03:00

fort william florals

2011-05-21T22:42:00.000+03:00

exhibition 19-22/05

2011-05-20T16:00:00.000+03:00

We had a little exhibition opening yesterday - my first non-school one too, so that was exciting. Lots of people came and the small shop was packed all evening. And all the leftover Thistly Cross found a good home afterwards.

Donkey puppets, chainmail, dark sheep, forests, magic! Open until Sunday the 22nd, Herman Brown the vintage shop, No. 151 West Port, between the strip clubs and Edinburgh Books. :>

a little something for the road

2011-05-18T22:36:00.000+03:00

waiting for summer

2011-05-16T19:36:00.000+03:00

blogger resizing on it's own accord

2011-05-15T23:16:00.002+03:00

I've just noticed that even though I use Photobucket to upload images on here, Blogger resizes the files further by about ~50 pixels, making them smaller and noticeably blurrier. The files are fine on Photobucket - the problem is definitely Blogger. I verified this by taking a screenshot and checking the image dimensions, and an image originally 650px by 420 px is showing up as 591px by 381px. But when selecting "view image" by right-clicking, the resulting view is the actual size and sharpness.

The images are not thumbnails, as they aren't links. This also happens with all images, not just the widest ones.

I was wondering if anybody else has noticed this problem or knows how it could be fixed? I've spent hours on google trying to solve it, but to no avail. I don't want my photos showing up as having worse quality than what they actually have!

EDIT: I found that when I use Opera instead of Firefox, the images appear as they should. I don't know if the problem is with all Firefoxes or just mine, hope it was just me!

aer

2011-05-15T19:07:00.000+03:00

a strange passenger

2011-05-10T21:23:00.000+03:00

costumes by amy lawrence

for the character "a strange passenger" from the play peer gynt.

35mm pentax, ilford hp5

àird nam murchan

2011-05-08T19:15:00.000+03:00

I've finally had time to start developing the 35mm rolls from our trip to Mull & Iona in April. This is Ardnamurchan Point, allegedly the most western point on mainland Britain, though the internet tells me the title really belongs to Corrachadh Mòr, a kilometre to the south and about forty metres more west.

I am quite set on growing old in the Highlands. I'll be an old spinster with a little potato patch, and I'll roam the hills with a dog just as carefree as the one we met at Ardnamurchan. There will be floral curtains and a monumental collection of bones and shells. (This time I found a whole sheep skull that I brought back. I'll paint it soon.)

ovis aries

2011-05-07T21:04:00.001+03:00

trousers and hat by amy lawrence.

thanks to hannah for assisting!

medium format rolleicord, ilford fp4

100th post

2011-05-07T20:40:00.000+03:00

demonstration

2011-05-07T16:14:00.001+03:00

on the street: wicker park, chicago

2011-05-06T03:16:00.001+03:00

I was traveling in Chicago last week and had some time to adventure away from the towering glass-iron jungles to the smaller, humbler neighbourhoods.

Taking the elevated train/subway in such a large unfamiliar metropolis by myself was exciting already.

Wicker Park was full of mysterious things and misplaced apostrophes.

Buildings boarded up, signs peeling. The rich are very rich and the poor are very poor in this country. I only saw a sliver of the latter, mostly from the window of the metra from Naperville - the ride from idyllic green suburbia to shiny downtown via the outer city apartments perched next to landfills in less than forty minutes. But everybody, even the ones with third-floor balconies ten metres away from the clattering tracks, had to have king-size grills.

I remembered there are millions of people in the fringes of the wealthiest world powers who are quite simply forgotten about.

They live too close to be noticed.

They sell new shoes for $2.99 a pair,

set up hip hop clown businesses,

or dig for whatever is available.

Where's all that money gone?

dirt and stain

2011-05-05T05:30:00.002+03:00

pöytälaatikkovalokuvaaja

2011-05-05T05:15:00.000+03:00

large format 5x4" camera, b&w Ilford FP4, studio

Minulla on kymmeniä rullia filmiä kuvattuna, kehitettynä ja skannattuna, mutta silti en osaa laittaa niitä minnekään esille. Ennen kuvasin koko ajan, ja puolihutaistukin kuva oli jotain, jonka polleana laitoin esille irc-galleriaan tai vastaavaan. Okei, kuvaan edelleen koko ajan - nyt ne vaan jäävät digitaaliseen pöytälaatikkoon kovalevyä tukkimaan, tai kirjaimellisesti pölyttymään negatiivikansioihin. Pelkään hurjaa mustaa kameraa ja sen mahdollisuuksia, ajattelen etten ole tarpeeksi hyvä, että kuvat eivät ole tarpeeksi hyviä, että joku muu on kuitenkin parempi ja minä en osaa. Että kuvani ovat jotenkin huijausta ja jos joku sanoo pitävänsä niistä, se on siksi, että niissä on joku temppu eikä oikeaa sisältöä. Vaikken edes tiedä mikä tämä temppu voisi olla. Kuvaan usein aika arkisia asioita; keittotahroja, ikkunavaloa, ihmisten pientä puuhastelua. Kuvittelen, että minun pitäisi olla tekemässä sen sijaan jotain suurta ja grandiöösiä ja "oikeaa kuvaa", ohjaamassa mallia tai säätämässä lamppuja.

Tämän asenteen on muututtava, jos haluan päästä yhtään mihinkään. Opiskelenhan kuitenkin tätä ammatikseni, enkä vaan harrastuspohjaisesti. Joten lupaan laittaa kuvia myös niistä keittotahroista.

Yllä oleva kuva on yhdestä kouluprojektista viime tammikuulta. Teeman mukaisesti kuvasin pelkojani. Tehtävänanto oli kuvata asetelmia studiossa isonkoon analogisilla Sinar-kameroilla mustavalkofilmiä käyttäen. Tämä on skannatusta negatiivista, mutta tein myös perinteiset vedokset sarjasta. Olen aika nyyppä kaikissa studiohommissa, ja monimutkainen kamera + kallis filmi (noin punta per yksi negatiivi/kuva) oli stressaava yhdistelmä. Yksi kuva onnistui kuitenkin yli odotusten, koska jaksoin rauhoittua sen ottamisen ajaksi ja oikeasti ajatella.

Toinen ongelmani on maantieteellinen. En tiedä, pitäisikö minun suhtautua itseeni suomalaisena vai skotlantilaisena valokuvaajana. Verkostoituminen on vaikeaa kahteen eri paikkaan, mutta se alkaa olla välttämätön seuraava askel. Maiden kouluilla ja taideopetuksella on eroja. Hyödyn Suomi-valokuvatietämyksestä, ja huomaan sen vaikuttavan suoraan ainakin ajatusprosesseihini ja lähestymistapoihini, mutta tällä hetkellä kotimaan valokuvaskene tuntuu jotenkin sisäsiittoiselta. Vastavuoroisesti Skotlannissa taidekoulut ovat kaikki talouskriiseissä ja selkeitä piirejä ei tunnu olevan, koska opetuksen laatu kärsii leikkauksista, tukea nykytaiteelle on teoriassa muttei käytännössä ja opiskelijat jäävät räpiköimään.

Tulipa pitkä teksti. Huomenna ja ylihuomenna on kouluvuoden viimeiset kritiikit (neulanreikäkamera ja editorial-tyylinen henkilökuva jostain tuntemattomasta ammattiympäristössään) ja muutaman viikon päästä olen mukana pienimuotoisessa näyttelyssä. Se on aika jännittävää, koska se on ensimmäinen näyttelyni, joka ei ole suoraan jonkun koulun järjestämä. Eggs and their Shells, Herman Brown, 19.5.

eucharist

2011-03-30T03:29:00.000+03:00

23/03/11, analogue medium format.

the space is an old seventh-day adventist church.

120

2011-02-21T19:20:00.002+02:00

two frames from my first test roll of medium format film. hasselblad 501cm with kodak portra 400.

uploading seems to have flattened the quality of the scans considerably, they are not really so greyish-green. i don't think analogue is meant for the internet anyway. the rest of the roll did not turn out so good, most of the frames were out of focus or just weird otherwise - further proof that even when armed with a hasselblad, it's down to who is taking the pictures, not what.

very excited to learn more, though; i wanted to put these here for documentative and reflective purposes, so i can look back later and track development.

also introducing this strange attempt at a self-portrait with a very short cable release. i believe it falls under both "out of focus" and "just weird otherwise" categories.

this shall be the beginning of a long and prosperous relationship.

wavelength

2011-02-17T19:13:00.000+02:00

some photographs from isle of skye i'd forgotten about.

records

2011-02-16T22:55:00.000+02:00

ice land

2011-01-31T18:08:00.000+02:00

it's a possibility.

snippets

2011-01-17T01:36:00.000+02:00

this winter break was also about:

possibility of dying like an animal

2011-01-15T19:25:00.000+02:00

out cold film

2011-01-14T15:32:00.000+02:00

analogue winter

where compasses all go mad

2011-01-05T01:49:00.000+02:00

if i got a million moneys, or became a freakishly wealthy art collector, the first thing i would buy is this. it's 18 photographs, or where compasses all go mad (2007) by jorma puranen.

it was in a gallery today and it was amazing and i kind of couldn't look at it for too long because it was too beautiful and i wanted to either not look at anything else for a couple of months or have it.

unfortunately the internet doesn't have a bigger version.

a winter so far

2011-01-05T01:01:00.000+02:00

where does the white go when snow melts?

yuletide

2010-12-29T14:52:00.000+02:00

i think a new year's resolution is in order.

more looking

less snoozing! and getting back on track with picture taking.

this is my brother, with whom i share a cornucopia of our most redeeming qualities, such as pretending to be a festive paprika raccoon.

productivity levels reach a new high

2010-12-06T22:18:00.002+02:00

an accurate visual rendition of how sharp le brain is feeling.

going to the shop round the corner twice (effort!) in a span of three days is surely more than enough reason to have spent the remainder of all these days indoors ~~writing an essay~~ ~~working on a research project~~ ~~doing seminar work~~ ~~taking daily photos~~ ~~socialising with other homo sapiens~~ procrastinating on the internet.

alright, shan't be too negative. i have
1. only succumbed to one toast-for-all-meals day;
2. played one game of trivial pursuit (social);
3. made an international call with family;
4. attempted 'exercise' (with resulting two-day muscle aches);
5. and written 'RESEARCH WORKBOOK' on the first page of the research workbook.

the procrastination snake has started eating its own tail, and it's harder to start retaking photographs when consumed by the self-induced guilt of not being up for it for several weeks. the truth is, taking dimly lit tungsten-cast photos of my bedroom walls every evening is only starting to further underline the fact that i don't.go.out.

LXXXIX & LXXXX - time

2010-12-02T01:34:00.000+02:00

i'm losing track of when i've taken which photos - i've definitely forgotten on some days. i've been developing and scanning and printing for the time project and been in contact with photos all day, i've forgotten i haven't taken some more. but perhaps the interwebs will be forgiving. there are some days that i haven't yet put up because i was using a disposable camera and the photos i took those days were too underexposed to really show anything. and crap photos from some other times. maybe i'll scan the negatives at some point just for the sake of documentation.

so here are some photographs taken on sunday and monday, for time.

the objective of this project was to explore the concept of time and make a series of at least six images using analogue 35mm colour film.

i decided to go with the present as time - i'd been reading up on zen buddhism and was inspired by the notion of the present as all there is, no matter how banal or boring it may seem, but still as glorious a moment as any. i decided to juxtaposition this with imagery from traditional travel advertising, because i felt like that was a good comparison in what not to believe in: that life is only amazing when you're doing something extreme or escaping to turquoise beaches. it's still the same person doing those things. it's still sixty seconds in one minute.

i used my own home as the location, because that is obviously where i most often find myself bored and wishing i was "doing something better". i set about exploring how little everyday things could be presented in a curious, positive way, using the aforementioned travel clichés as starting points but not as the end in and of itself. anine and charles graciously feature in these photos (thanks!), but i intentionally made them quite impersonal so as to not become too portrait-like.

for the actual pin-up i'll present them differently, so that the blue wavey photos will seem to flow through the series (it looks a bit odd put up this way).

overall i'm pretty satisfied - i feel like i utilised the skills i knew i had, plus a bit more, and knew what the images would look like at the moment of shooting, as opposed to hoping for lucky mistakes to get it through. i tried to do something else at first, using a flash and stuff, but that just looked quite confusing. i still don't have a working light meter, so all the exposures were guesstimated. in terms of subject matter, i did stay quite firmly within my comfort zone, though given the personal nature of the series i guess this is justifiable. i also wish i'd done more 'scenes' so there would be more to pick and edit from. next time i'll try to branch out a bit.

:)

magic magic sludge magic

2010-11-30T01:36:00.000+02:00

like pilates for the tongue

LXXXVI - yay!

2010-11-27T01:51:00.000+02:00

LXXXV - cranberry & raisin cake

2010-11-25T23:52:00.003+02:00

i swear this isn't turning into a food blog.

today i made a cake with fresh cranberries and raisins. the icing is pink because i mixed it with some raspberry and echinacea tea. and polka dots! (and sprinkles later, too). and vegan again of course hehe.

i applied to pastry school once.

LXXXIV - beginnings of a collaboration

2010-11-25T01:59:00.000+02:00

LXXXIII

2010-11-23T22:52:00.000+02:00

LXXVIII - raaw

2010-11-19T21:44:00.002+02:00

shedding

2010-11-19T00:37:00.000+02:00

5/11

10/11

15/11

17/11

LXXVII - gingerbready lemony gingery vegan cupcakes

2010-11-18T23:52:00.000+02:00

having recently discovered the joys of ordering stuff from amazon, i finally got myself vegan cupcakes take over the world by isa chandra moskowitz and terry hope romero.

such delightful things to try out! i never really follow recipes word-for-word, but this book has some great stuff in it. pistachio and rosewater cupcakes? mmm. i'll probably use these recipes as reference points for other kinds of cakes/brownie-style pies too, fiddling with cupcakes can be fun but also timeconsuming. 10 cupcakes in two and a half hours? a big tray of pie seems more fruitful somehow.

the measurements are in americanish (cups) and i spent ages at realfoods, hovering about puzzled with the sales guy and trying to figure out what shortening was. in the end i just got some margarine, which is fine for frostings if you don't mind the yellowish tinge.

so the recipe i used today was gingerbread cupcakes with lemony frosting. there's some ginger bits in there too (i boiled the ginger first and rolled it around in sugar, and the leftover ginger water made a rather tasty drink, which i also added to the batter a bit). i ended up adding quite a bit more liquid than the recipe called for, maybe because i used dark sugar instead of molasses and less syrup. but the end result was still extremely tasty, well-risen fluffy cupcakes!

and best of all, baby cows and baby chickens stay happy!

LXXVI - windy wednesday

2010-11-17T21:16:00.000+02:00

almost a tornado but wore a dress still

LXXV - a tuesday

2010-11-17T21:10:00.000+02:00

LXX - professional mud

2010-11-17T20:56:00.000+02:00

misc. canal

2010-11-17T20:45:00.000+02:00

same day as the redscale ones, after i ran out of redscaled film.

LXXIV

2010-11-15T01:44:00.002+02:00

love being gluttonous and healthy simultaneously

LXXIII - pursuit of trivia

2010-11-14T14:41:00.000+02:00

LXXII - hair two

2010-11-13T17:21:00.000+02:00

auto mode &
pop-up flash

camera instant oatmeal

LXXI - engrish noodles

2010-11-11T21:13:00.000+02:00

LXVIII & LXIX

2010-11-10T01:02:00.000+02:00

finally cut last summer off.

and forgot to do laundry. huh, unbearably fascinating.

LXVII - apocalyptic sunday

2010-11-08T21:17:00.002+02:00

i used the redscaling technique for these - loading film into an empty canister the wrong way round (in the darkroom) so that when its in the camera, the base red layer of the film is exposed first, giving the whole roll a red/orange cast. the neg bags were horribly dusty and so some of the scans are as well, but right now i'm not bothered enough to clonestamp every ittybitty spec.

the results are quite disturbing and, when combined right, seem to indicate some kind of nuclear winter scotland.

LXVI - x saturday

2010-11-08T20:57:00.000+02:00

LXV - wet friday

2010-11-08T20:52:00.000+02:00

LXIV - poorly thursday

2010-11-08T19:41:00.001+02:00

i haven't stopped, just been using analogue for the past five days.

on wednesday and thursday i was ill.

dull.

LXIII - yard

2010-11-03T00:04:00.000+02:00

the trees are a perfect colour now but i need to shoot more film.

LXII - end of a legend

2010-11-01T17:13:00.002+02:00

i couldn't resist.
i gave rise to the analogue geek in me and bought a roll of kodachrome 64 slide film. (price £9.99 including processing - original price £16.99)
kodachrome 64 is not being manufactured anymore.
in fact it's only processed in one single shop in the entire world.
in kansas.
where it will go to via switzerland,
which is where i have to send this first,
because i am in europe.
and that one single shop stops all processing on december 30th, 2010.
this roll has to be in switzerland by the end of november.

so this film has to be absolutely perfect, because it's my first and last chance to use it.

it's like having 36 little baby jesuses.

oh yeah, i've never used slide film.
crap.

LXI - reliikki

2010-10-31T18:56:00.002+02:00

kunnon siivoaminen on tietenkin aina nostalgista puuhaa.
kun muutin skotlantiin, otin vain 'nostalgisimmat' pienet esineet.
joten kun siivoan, törmään aina näihin samoihin esineisiin,
enkä ole aivan varma miksi valitsin juuri ne. tai muunmuassa ne, koska enemmänkin löytyy, ja kerään niitä alituiseen.

pieni esine, kuukausia tai vuosia elämästä kiteytettynä, kokonaisia romansseja ja ystävyyksiä pullotettuna.

ensimmäisen poikaystäväni veistämä toteemitikku, en muista tilannetta.

toisen poikaystäväni - parhaan ystäväni - lukiokuva, viisi tai kuusi vuotta vanha.

huhtikuussa syntyneiden suojelusenkeli, joka tippui kerran hyllyltä ja on nyt yksisiipinen, kai isiltä.

neljännen ihmisystäväni tekemä unna kaneli ja dinosaurus.

elämäni ainoa tallinnan-reissu.

seitsemänvuotiaan lastenvahtivahtimislapseni tekemä helmityttö.

kymmenvuotiaan pikkuveljeni tekemä neulatyynytipu.

sata suudelmaa laatikossa eräältä seikkailijalta.

iltapäivä ylämailla, siltä jota kaipaan eniten.

saksalainen tyttö, joka opetti minut viheltämään tammenterhon lakkiin.

&
syntymäpäiväkortti kolmannelta poikaystävältä, siinä on cookie monster. kauna 2 -elokuvalippu päivältä 03/11/06. lampaan hampaita vuorilta. vanha sika-sarjakuva. satoja valokuvia, kolme polaroidia. simpukoita ja kiviä monilta skotlannin rannoilta. isiltä saamani my little pony, kun pyysin kaupasta ponia, viime talvelta. urheilijakoristeinen laatikollinen pieniä aarteita--

josta löytyi käsinkirjoitettu lappu, joel haahtelan elenasta lainattu kappale--

"Huoneeni on kohti merta. Lipaston päällä on peili, mutta muuten seinät ovat tyhjät. Katto on korkealla, eikä lamppuja tarvitse sytyttää. Valoa riittää pikälle iltaan saakka. Hyllyssä on viisi pientä puulaatikkoa ja otan niistä käsiini yhden. Kaikki laatikot ova erilaisia, eri muotoisia ja eri värisiä. Jan sanoi joskus, että heidän talonsa on täynnä juuri sellaisia pieniä puulaatikoita niin, että pienissä laatikoissa on jotain ja koko talo on täynnä piilotettuja unohdettuja asioita, kuvia, piirustuksia, kirjeitä ja jos avaa yhden laatikon, se saattaa viedä kuukausien ja vuosien taakse aikaan jota ei ole muistanut."

ja lähes kaikki lentoliput vuoden ajalta, luen niitä kuin kalenteria, rinnan alla kohoava ja vajoava tunne määränpään mukaan - helsinkiin, helsingistä.

LIX & LX - halloween

2010-10-31T01:06:00.001+03:00

for a 'dead things' themed halloween party i went as a floppy disk with windows 95 on it. anine took this photo for me.

and this is how it looked like the morning after

LVIII - plant in window

2010-10-28T18:01:00.001+03:00

first test roll out of a smena 8M.

most of the film was just bad overexposed snapshots (shot the whole roll in about 30 minutes to see if the camera worked). but seeing as the camera can still produce colours like this if you just guess the settings right, getting this one single decent frame was worth it.

new project: exploring found 'boring and banal' still-life objects and experimenting with different cameras and processes. thus, plant in window.

LVI & LVII - happy objects

2010-10-27T19:54:00.000+03:00

LV - sleeping patterns

2010-10-26T01:32:00.000+03:00

LIV - A & E

2010-10-24T21:22:00.000+03:00

LIII - pleitti

2010-10-23T18:25:00.000+03:00

anine made me a plate :>

LII -

2010-10-23T01:59:00.000+03:00

LI & XXXVII - fly me to the moon

2010-10-22T00:57:00.000+03:00

right over there.

and finally, the film photos from XXXVII aka 07/10:

an exhibition and some window climbing, roof/balcony.

L - the dresden kites

2010-10-21T01:49:00.000+03:00

today i developed my own colour film for the first time.

XXXXIX

2010-10-19T20:12:00.000+03:00

i went to the botanical gardens again.
i cowered behind bushes and trees, shivering for two hours,
left without taking a single photograph.

XXXXVIII - feeding bees

2010-10-18T20:01:00.000+03:00

XXXXVII - picture of a picture

2010-10-17T20:43:00.000+03:00

marie-jo lafontaine: belle jeunesse. 1998

i came across this in my research, i just love it.

XXXXVI - hiukset

2010-10-16T18:44:00.000+03:00

XXXXV - kitties

2010-10-15T22:14:00.000+03:00

wallkitty

acrokitty

XXXXIV - a student kitchen

2010-10-14T20:15:00.000+03:00

XXXXIII

2010-10-14T02:33:00.002+03:00

what i see if i put my head on my pillow and look up

XXXXII - charizard

2010-10-13T01:30:00.001+03:00

today i felt like charizard.

XXXXI - botanic portrait

2010-10-12T01:57:00.000+03:00

contact location photography, botanical gardens, edinburgh.

my favourite stranger from today's portraits. i'm not sure what her name was, because i can't read her handwriting, and despite the inconveniently placed leaf on her forehead, i'm satisfied with the results of this day.

XXXX - canadian thanksgiving

2010-10-11T13:29:00.001+03:00

a proper canadian thanksgiving dinner!

there were preparations,

an entire goose (with the odd chance of bullets and feathers)

herbivorous yummies too,

and found you really can put jam on everything.

the goose brought out animalistic behaviour in some,

and even the pie was sparkly.

pumpkin. mmmm

finished off with a good chillout and banjojamming.

much thanks to give !

XXXIX - evening in marchmont

2010-10-09T22:18:00.000+03:00

home

XXXVIII

2010-10-08T21:12:00.000+03:00

we ate the potatoes from the harvest.

yesterday was a film day again.

XXXVI - fail

2010-10-06T22:38:00.001+03:00

confession.

i didn't take a single photo yesterday. actually, confession number two, i didn't take a single photo on that justin bieber day, either. but i made up for it with justin bieber, so i thought that might be ok.

i'm just not feeling it. for today i chose webcam. it's a camera, right?

all i've done is spend copious amounts of time distracting myself from reality and reading this blog: effing dykes.

it's funny. it makes being sad funnier.

XXVIII & XXXI - smena party

2010-10-05T19:34:00.003+03:00

smena - the only proper way to document parties. manual film compact camera, black & white film, self-developed, scanned negatives.

XXVIII: tuesday, brown sugar, 50s and 60s hits.

XXXI - friday, houseparty

XXXIV - drumming

2010-10-05T02:27:00.000+03:00

nice morning

nice drumming session

nice evening. nice day.

XXXIII - queendom

2010-10-03T23:02:00.000+03:00

i am a queen

i own all this dust,
all these coffee stains,
empty bottles,
these tissues,
laundry and socks,
bits of string,
electricity

i own thousands of pockets of air,
i am really quite busy every day.

XXXII

2010-10-03T01:42:00.000+03:00

i spend too much time like this. crumpled sheets, dishes, laptop, the bed becomes a ship and i forget i'm allowed to walk on water, find other islands.

if i moved the bed closer to the window, i could spy on neighbours better.

XIII - XIX - DEUTSCHLAND

2010-10-02T17:46:00.003+03:00

i finally got the film from germany scanned. they're from prints, as opposed to negatives, so the quality on some isn't excellent, but it will do for documentary purposes. i had an amazing time. and this is how it went.

____

3:30 am on monday morning, in dark, silent suburbia, i sang a little song, improvising words as i went, a song about finally leaving and i think that must be the post truck. it was actually my cab to the aeroport. so i flew.

9 am, friedrichstraße was grey and rainy. i struggled to find food, berlin was only waking, i stumbled into tacheles by accident and later, having finally filled myself with a mango tofu and ein kaffe, danke, the sun came out and i realised the impossibility of the situation. here i am, in berlin, simply because i want to.

tacheles

later in the evening i found myself at potsdam hauptbanhof after a gloriously slow and nervous s-bahn ride from the city. julia, my couchsurfing host (and old school friend of anine's), greeted me with a hug and two bicycles, i fell in love immediately. the fifteen-minute ride with a precariously perched rucksack went okay, despite the one moment i crashed into an outdoor coffee table. all i could do was laugh (all the bystanding old lady could do was laugh). i was so happy.

julia lived opposite a firestation in an oldish detached house probably once made to house one or two families, now holding six apartments.

the neighbours seemed to be selling tombstones.

the flat was airy, light and colourful, and of course blessed with a rent so low i was half-plotting a move to germany already. we went to the shop, julia made food (which failed miserably - acknowledged on both sides to sheepish laughter, but i cleaned my plate dutifully) and we talked for hours with candles and music, gosh, way to make a friend the first day you meet. it was such a long day.

___

in the mornings the light was amazing, i could still see fading summer tanlines on my feet when standing in the shower, and water vapour never looked so magical. my sweater was the colour of dictionaries. tuesday. i spilled coffee on the white tablecloth.

i got to borrow julia's bicycle to make the daily journey to the train station easier. at one point i thought i'd dropped the key to the lock on the ground, and we spent some time crawling around with a flashlight, only to find the key was actually in my bag.

potsdam was filled with pretty houses,

wine,

random holy places,

amazing political posters,

and of course noteworthy amazing people.

i took the s-bahn to berlin every day. i'd spotted a big sign for a magnum photography exhibition at the c/o, an old post-office-cum-art-gallery, so i went. this photo by jonas bendiksen sticks with me still. later i tried to find something to do around zoologischer garten, but only found luxury shops and a botox boutique, and some burly men carrying liquid cement with old-fashioned yokes on their shoulders.

i decided to go back to potsdam after failed attempts to find food (again). this time i cooked, and it was another evening well spent talking.

___

on wednesday i saw a whole new berlin, one that didn't have starbucks on every corner.

i took the S7 to alexanderplatz,

experienced my first u-bahn ride,

saw awesome street art in prenzlauer berg,

walked down pappelallee,

had nice tofu,

then hopped the circle line to friedrichshain and walked some more (pausing for a cheesecake latte on the way),

i saw a wall of people eating people,

more amazing street art,

traffic light jugglers,

took silly pictures in a photoautomat,

and finally traipsed through a darkening görlitzer park and oranienstraße.

the cycle back to julia's was strangely nostalgic, in the way chilly autumn evenings tend to be.

___

on thursday i went to my final destination, neukölln.

lots of things were suddenly in turkish:

or otherwise awesome.

i enjoyed half a conversation in german with the sudanese man who made my lovely falafel, and felt thoroughly proud of myself. for some reason lots of people seemed to want to ask me for directions to places, and i reveled in the thought of not looking too touristy. except all those times i stopped in the middle of the street to clumsily shuffle through my six print-out maps. but i digress.

from neukölln i traveled back to kreuzberg to spend the rest of the evening.

down oranienstraße again

and manteuffelstraße,

and köpenickerstraße, to see if i could check out the köpi squat.

berlin was done.

____

friday. i had thought about exploring potsdam before leaving for dresden in the afternoon, but it was raining, and i liked looking out of the window too much.

this nice man said guten tag to me one morning.

julia was coming to dresden too, so we got baguettes for the journey.

but she couldn't wait to start eating it.

dresden. apparently this is germany's oldest skyscraper, now abandoned, and anine's grandfather took part in building it.

i met paul the very fat kitty, who made me sneeze about seventeen times in a row.

in the evening we went to look at art, which at first was a bit suspicious as the place was very remote and it was already dark. but soon the awesomeness of it was revealed, as the galleries were actually situated in an old slaughterhouse, which also seemed to have served as a bunker of sorts during the war. amazing location, very contemporary stuff (almost a bit too contemporary sometimes, there seemed to be lots of blood and boobs and slow-motion waterspitting). schachbrett by one martin werthmann was cool, and i also enjoyed some shortfilms by harald siebler and photographs by colin wilson. and a sculpture made out of cut phonebooks, but i don't remember the name of the lady who did it.

___

on saturday we went to a fleamarket in dresden.

some items on sale were a bit too painful to look at.

but i got a rainbow polaroid camera, who is now called hans. then i had to say goodbye to julia. baw.

saturday evening held the event for which i had come to dresden in the first place: the fiftieth birthday of mutter der anine.

it was preceded by a tour of a pink castle, which seemed to double as a popular place to get married, as there were about five weddings going on at the same time.

later on at the restaurant; food was plentiful, germans jolly, and gifts interesting.

it's an ancient saxon tradition to present the ageing lady with baked goods of exaggerated anatomy.

a certain father appeared at the party too.

then i fell asleep on the chair.

____

sunday, final day in germany - no better way to spend it than playing with dinosaurs.

there were ferocious dinosaurs,

hidden dinosaurs,

ducks riding pterodactyls,

close encounters,

dinosaurs that didn't mind if you drank beer at the same time,

or sat on their head.

the carnivores had lunch.

sausages can be romantic, too.

we finished off with a labyrinth adventure (i got horribly lost) and failed kiteflying in the evening. curry, packing, some more sneezing - another early morning wake-up (4 am, i think it was) and auf wiedersehen deutschland.

tschüß !

XXX - technically a portrait

2010-09-30T22:56:00.000+03:00

tasos

technical portrait exercises.

XXIX.b - harvest, creeptato version

2010-09-29T19:55:00.000+03:00