Frostbiten

It's winter in Stockholm. Cold and sometimes windy. I have been skating and enjoying my winter vacation. No snow yet but last morning I found frost. I don't think I ever seen frost like this. Totally amazing and I was out for hours taking photos.

Almost an ultrasound experience

I once had a wonderful teacher when I was taking evening courses in drawing and painting. I guess my old teacher is a good painter but he told us he doesn’t paint anymore. He teaches and spends time just observering light. He can sit for hours in his kitchen, looking at how the daylight changes.

When I saw this doll at a toy store I was amazed how real it looked, and also I was fascinated by the daylight that reached into the package.

Big Calm

A summer evening at sunset. A nice break at a rest area on our way back home from the summerhouse. Inner calmness.

My own shadow

An old archive CD is like a diary, part II

I found this image on an old archive CD.
Once again I had been taken photos without any clear purpose. This was originally quite a dull image, a photo of my own shadow. But when I started to play around in Photoshop something happened.

I really love this image. It has been hanging on my wall from time to time.

Folder ready

Unna Design just finished our work with an info folder (eight pages) for Fritidsforum. Art direction and copy by Unna Design. Helena Bergendahl made the illustrations. It is always easy and fun to co-operate with her. In my links you'll find her website.
Now it’s up to the printing-house to do an excellent job.

Fritidsforum is a Swedish, non-profit organisation which organizes approximately 400 youth clubs and their over one million youth club members. Fritidsforum, with associated neighbourhoods, youth, and community centres etcetera, is an important part of society’s social, cultural, and democratic infrastructure. Since the 1940’s, Fritidsforum has been pursuing the line of open youth club work with the aim to reach out to young people who have an expressive leisure activity style.

Pemba

Jondeni Guest House is wonderful. It' s a small guest house, only eight room. The view from the terrace, when sunset, is great.
From our room its was possible to walk directly into the garden. Pempa was an unbeatable experience and if you go there, don't miss Jondeni Guest House.

And the living is easy

There are many highlights to remember from 2008. One is definitely my first solo exhibition labelled “and the living is easy”. Most of the images were in the size 1000 x 700 mm.

I’m now looking for other galleries to show my work.

Christmas and gifts are equal

The Christmas season is fast approaching. In the rich part of the World, where Christianity is the dominating religion, many people are spending both a lot of money and time buying Christmas gifts. Every year you can hear a few people complaining. “Christmas is not about gifts” they say, “it’s about the birth of Jesus and love”.

Well. No doubt there is a hysterical shopping frenzy surrounding Christmas. I don’t argue that. But Christmas is about gifts. And it has been from the very beginning. Listen to Johannes 3:16:

“For God so loved the World, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life”.

Well, Christians must consider this the most valuable gift ever given in the history of mankind.

And Matthew 2:11 tells us what happened shortly after Jesus was born:

“They came into the house and saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Opening their treasures, they offered to him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

Sounds like pretty expensive gifts to me.

One might argue that commercialism and the focus on Christmas shopping went out of control a long time ago, but don’t argue that gifts doesn’t have anything to do with the birth of Jesus.

Not being a Christian, I don’t care that much about the intention of Christmas. I just try to keep the gifts to a minimum.

Art book hits the bookshelves

Unna Design has been working with Hälsinglands Museum in Hudiksvall since 2006.
The design of two exhibitions, interior design of the museums café, shop and reception and a new concept for the Museums visual identity, is some of the projects we been involved with. And no lately, graphic design of a book about Albert Blombergsson, a productive Swedish artist in the 19th century. Blombergsson is most famous for his altarpieces and oil paintings depicting romantic landscapes.

Today, the 5th of December is release date for the book.
Author is Lars Nylander, since 2003, employed by Hälsingland Museum in Hudiksvall. We hope he will be satisfied when he receives the copies today.

An old archive CD is like a diary

I have started many diaries, especially as a teenager when you are supposed to write diaries about your hard and meaningless teenage life. I have a stack of them in the basement. They were never completed, but there is a new diary for every second year, because I kept on trying until I reached the mid- twenties.
A few nights ago, I wanted to find an image I once created. I ran through approximate 150 CDs and DVDs in order to find it. While I couldn’t find it, I learned something. I recognised that old CDs with stuff from work is really like a diary. One starts to remember old clients, colleagues and other things related to the projects saved. I laughed, felt both embarrassed and proud as I looked through some of what I created in the past.

I found a lot of nice stuff. The picture above is an example. It was made during a period, when I tried to find out everything I could about Photoshop. After a successful fishing trip, we had just taken out the guts from the fish we caught that summer day, and I saw that the business section of the morning paper was used to cover the table. I took a photo and worked with it in Photoshop. Today it seems to be a comment to the current financial crisis.

A project for the coming month is to transmit the content of all these CDs and DVDs to a portable hard drive. Diaries should be kept for the future.

A delicious taste

My favourite fruit is mangosteen. Covered by a smooth, dark-red-purple and black skin, mangosteens look much different from other fruits. When widely opened, the extremely white flesh is revealed in segments.

The street vendor in Zanzibar Town told me that the mangosteen also is called European Mango. But why it is named so he couldn’t tell.

The Cold War is history now

At The Maritime Museum in Stockholm you can now see Göran Forss masterpiece, a model of the Swedish Navies biggest destroyer HMS Halland. Göran Forss started during the Cold War and finished his work when the Cold War was over. It took him over 10.000 hours to finish the model that was built at 1:50 scale and is 242 cm long.

Unna Design was commissioned to design the exhibition and the graphic design. Working together with the skilled Exhibition Producer Elin Harland at The Maritime Museum, was a great pleasure.

Reflections on the Nature of Water

In March 2008 I opened my first solo exhibition. Copenhagen-based percussionist Linda Edsjö talked to me during the opening and asked me if I wanted to make a photo projection for the staging of her diploma recital. One of the pieces she will perform is Reflections on the Nature of Water, composed by Jacob Druckman (1928-1996). It is said about Druckman that he “Devoted himself to the exploration of sound and colour, both instrumental and electronic”.

Linda Edsjö is studying in the soloist class of the Royal Danish Academy of Music and also currently working with contemporary music, electronica, storytellers and choreographers. Regular ensembles: LeLe (flute, percussion and electronics) Harpcore (electronica) Susa (song, marimba/vibraphone and doublebass) and Tesco Value (Cabaret-Punk).
Visit her spot at Myspace.

Anyhow I was thrilled to jump into another photo project and I have been working on the project from time to time since March. Above is one of the photos that may appear in the final projection. It is also fascinating to work with a project without a tight time-schedule. It requires discipline, (of course) but also stimulates my imagination and give me possibilities to explore the colours and different images of water.

Linda Edsjö´ diploma recital is scheduled to autumn 2009.

Not yet

It´s not a big step för the blog community,

but it is a giant leap for me to start this Blog.

I guess I´ll be struggling with the blog tools in the start but the idea is to show some of my work.  Both already published work and exhibitions but also some of my private stuff.

I guess I´m here now. But I cant say I really been here yet, or have done it.