Last July

Last July it was summer. I shall trust it'll arrive this year too. For now, just some more snow then.

Viime päivinä

-Naprapaatin käsittelyssä kahdesti, kolmas edessä; haaveena tuntea vasen olkapää, kylki, rinta ja käsivarsi normaalisti.

-Yksi yö Helsingissä, viisi taidenäyttelyä (Jaakko Heikkilä: Henkeviä porinoita Valokuvataiteen museossa, Cafe 2010 -valokuvanäyttely Hotelli- ja ravintolamuseossa, Looking Forward -valokuvanäyttely Jukka Male Galleriassa, Samaan aikaa Intiassa ja Mobiili Afrikka Tennispalatsissa).

-Filmijärkkää, digijärkkää, kertakäyttökameraa ja kännykkäkameraa. Ihan vaan siksi koska se on kivaa.

-Vanhoja kunnon tallikamuja sushin ääressä.

-Kolme muumikirjaa ja Nalle Puh -kirja villisti kahlattuna kaverin pienen pojan kanssa ja hienoinen pettymys siitä etten ollutkaan Martta-koira, jolla on noussut aakkosmurot päähän. Kun olinkin ihan Martta vaan.

-Sinisiä asioita: kengännauhat ja kevätpusero. Ja pakaste-mustikat!

-Nyt luen: Paul Auster -Mies pimeässä.

-Tule jo kevät, tule!

Between 2pm and 8pm

First, I decide it's a good day for it. She thinks it just might, too, depends. It's coffee break around 2pm.

Sometime around 6pm we sit down and start researching, unsure if the outcome has anything to do with 'us', as well it might end up being 'me' on one side and 'she' on the other.

I suggest Prague and Istanbul, she likes the idea of Berlin and London. I say no to Paris and Amsterdam, she thinks the whole of France is out of a question, as well as the Nordic countries. So Copenhagen goes out of the window. We both get really hyped about Sarajevo and Marrakech. Then we move on: how about Ljubljana, Leipzig or Kiova? Or why not Vilnus? Gdansk? Sofia, Lissabon or Budapest? Nothing seems to work out. A), we're little late I guess, so B), things are pricey, impossible or sold out or C) either of us don't quite feel it or has been there and not in the mood for a re-visit.

Then we hit something suitable. Short flights, direct. She's been there shortly, I haven't at all. We both quite like the idea. We stretch it a bit from both ends, why three to four nights if you can as well make it six, huh.

At 8pm it's sorted. 'We' are going to Riga.

Likey like

Taidegraafikko/ Printmaker Kirsi Neuvonen

-Saniaistyttö/ Fern Girl (2007)
-Faabelit: Kuuletko satakielen laulavan?/ Fabels: Do You Hear the Nightingale Sing? (2010)
-Tänään on kohtalaisen runsaasti valinnanvaraa/ Today Choices Are Fairly Plentiful (2009)

***
For your inspiration. I like these very much indeed. Also, wouldn't mind another head today. Mine is aching. / Inspiraatioksi. Tykkään näistä tosi paljon. Minä voisin myös kaivata vaihtopäätä tänään. Omani on ihan särki.

Amateur in the darkroom

The scanner does evil things to my photos. Decided to share them anyway as it was so much fun to mess around in the darkroom. These are my first tests from this week -the last and only time I've been before was some ten years ago!

From the originals my favorite is that high-key photo of birds on cables, but in the scanned versions that's the one that suffered the most. I don't have any tools to retouch it on my own laptop as I seldom (well, never) bother to retouch anything I blogg (or in general, actually), but I'll tell you verbally that in the original the cables do continue smoothly to the borders of the photo and the sky only looses the flat gray shade faintly to the bottom end of the picture (so use your imagintaion, hah, this is the best I can do for now). All these pics were taken within an hour in a small village in the Finnish countryside where my school is, just before we went to develop the films, and the day was gray cloudy winter day. I had time to snap 17 photos in total. I'm quite very happy how they turned out. I'm loving this whole film and develop and wait and never know what comes out until it's actually on paper -thing, it must be some sort of a hangover of these digital times.

To be continued. I'll keep practising.

Now I'll head outdoors. It's yet another gray winterday awaiting for me! Or is that sun peeking behind the clouds? I'm going to find that out. Just one more thing: should I grab my digital camera with me or test out the old film one I got back to life yesterday with a new set of batteries?

Weeks passing by

Last week my course-mate Janina took these pics of me. Doing what exactly? Climbing up with the help of some snow just to see inside of that abandoned house. Call it curiosity.

Just as the spring has started to reach this corner of the globe, I've moved to the darkroom. I'm absolutely loving it, there's just something about self-made black n' white photos the pixels on screen can't compete with.

Other than darkroom, this week has been made of Almodóvar-movies, avocados, moomin troll -stamps, studio lights (sigh I'm not a fan), tea from a new thermos-mug (it's like flask meets a take-away cup, genious) and so the weekend is slowly moving in. Have a good one!

***
Kurssikaverini Janina otti nuo kuvat minusta viime viikolla. Tekemässä mitä kummaa? Taiteilemassa lumikasan päällä, jotta näkisin sisälle tuohon hylättyyn taloon. Oi uteliaisuutta.

Juuri kun kevät alkaa hiipiä pohjolaan, minä muutan pimiöön. Tykkään tykkään tykkään, itse vedostetuissa mustavalko-kuvissa on vain jotain sellaista minkä kanssa ruudulla hyppelehtivät pikselit eivät voi kilpailla.

Pimiön lisäksi tämä viikko oli tehty Almodóvar-leffoista, avokadoista, muumi -postimerkeistä, studiovaloista (uhh en ole järin innoissani), uudesta termos-mukista (termospullo meets take-away muki, mikä loistava keksintö) ja niin viikonloppu on jo melkein täällä. Toivottelen hyvää sellaista!

Attention Cape Town!

This is what my friend Laura has been working on! These teasers are from a documentary film Odd Number.

Odd Number tells a story of an ex-gangster turned into plumber living in the Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa. Follow his journey through the Flats, gang-wars and the notorious Pollsmoor Prison by watching this documentary film directed by Marius van Straaten.

I went to the premier of the film back in November (-and so did some of the gansters featured in the documentary, too). Now it’s on show again: if you're anywhere close by, head to the Cape Winelands Film Festival on the 20th and 25th of March to check it out in full length.

The cinematographer Laura Merilainen is originally from Finland, but now completing her Master’s Degree at the University of Cape Town and living in 'the Mother City' with her Kenyan husband.

***
Huomio Kapkaupunki!

Cape Winelands Film Festival esittää Odd Number -dokumentin koko komeudessaan 20. ja 25. maaliskuuta! Jos pyörit lähistöllä, suuntaa paikalle katsomaan mitä Kapkaupungin-suomalainen Laura Meriläinen on saanut aikaan!

A miss-thing

Oh look what I found from my archives! That's me, tandem-paragliding in Verbier some six years back! It must have been my second season in the Swiss Alps, the same season we changed our snowboards to telemarks with my room mate and I was in a crevasse (intentionally). We also led a beanie-factory from our living-room which at times irritated some of the co-habitants: all the yarn and wolly creations covered the space excessively.

I miss the mountains.

Jesús Chacón Photography

detrás de ti from JESUS CHACON on Vimeo.

Although on holiday, I did actually do something for school as well. It was such a pleasure though, that it didn't feel like work: I visited Jesús Chacón, a spanish photographer, at his studio in Marbella and had a chat with him (I'm writing up an interview about him and his work for a school project). Not only does he take amazing photographs, he has also started to shoot films such as the music video above (Zuri -Detrás de ti). He enjoys to work with the world of music and fashion, but is yet down to earth. What a sweetie! I'm impressed.

Visit his web site for more.

All images above by Jesús Chacón.

A thing for

I'm afraid I have a thing for Spain.

Little I saw

Granada would have deserved more than a day.

***

Granada olisi ansainnut pidemmän vierailun. Yksi päivä oli kovin lyhyt.

Pretty and pretty breezy

The following day I was in a bus again. We had decided with my mom to give Granada a day. It was real breezy over there -or we simply had gone wild with the spring and coudn't realize how much colder it could get by the snow-topped mountains. We visited the beautiful palace and fortress named Alhambra.

Bus, bubble wrap, books

I also took a small break on my own. I jumped to the bus to Marbella and stayed overnight. I didn't do much but took my time in everything I did, just walked around, sat in the sun, enjoyed lazy breakfast, draw a picture of a tree.

I spent quite exactly 24 hours in Marbella, realized it on the bus on my way back. I was in an internal state pretty much for the whole time, like as if I had been wrapped in bubble wrap, still watching through the transparent plastic but only able to hear the rattle and rustle inside. And yet I enjoyed it. It's quite pleasant there, inside the wrap, in Marbella, when the sun tickles your nose, rolling churros in sugar, writing down a thought or two.

The same day I woke up in Marbella I was back in Málaga some time during the noon. I took my feet (or funny enough, should I say heels; when have you seen me on heels?) under and hit the museums. Walked and walked and walked. Forgot to eat. Bought Picasso-postcards. And then the fatal: entered a couple of book-stores. Ka-boom, 6 books in a day, oh thank you. (To be totally honest, the first two found their way to my bottomless Mary Poppins -bag already in Marbella.) The day made me think a lot of those two months I lived in Paris in 2005. Maybe it was the walking, maybe the museums, maybe the random conversations I had with shop-keepers or simply the funny anonymity you get when you move through the streets of a city on your own, a city that ain't yet yours, a language that ain't yet yours.

Lace and door-knobs

Frigiliana was white and blue, it was curtains made of lace, it was door-knobs and narrow streets and passages made of stone. It was also stairs, shiny skies and friendly people.

Day trip

We were four adults and a toddler. My nephew kept the rest of us busy but I nevertheless trusted him to his mommy and daddy and granny at times and took off on my own. Like in Frigiliana, were I ran between the chalcy-white houses, my eyes burning of the brightness.

We rented a car and on the way to go there I was driving (like crap), my brother gave me directions (good ones) and the others commented from the back seat as follows: 'Goooo! Drivedrivedrive', 'It's so so easy with the navigator, isn't it' or 'Oh look how lovely and green it is over there'. Amusing, right.

Under construction

I found the construction sites equally exciting to the pretty and cute face of Málaga. Wouldn't it to be almost dangerous to be too perfect?

The cosy, the dreamy

I can't explain why, but I quite immediately felt cosy in Málaga. Sometimes I saw things dreamy.

***
En osaa selittää miksi tunsin oloni kotoisaksi Málagassa lähes saman tien. Joskus näin kaupungin utuisen suloisena.

An early start for the spring

Found what I went looking for: the spring! South of Spain had organized me some sun for the week. Málaga, Frigiliana, Marbella, Granada. Then I ran out of time.

***

Löysin mitä lähdin etsimään: kevät! Eteläinen Espanja oli järjestänyt minulle lomaviikoksi aurinkoa. Málaga, Frigiliana, Marbella, Granada. Sitten loppui aika kesken.