Homecoming

And just like that I was back home in Sweden again. Feels great to be back. Seems though that I missed the heatwave of the summer when it was 30 degrees here for a while, but it will probably come back soon. Now its sunny but not so warm and the coming days is gonna be rainy. But it's really green here anyway, something I missed seeing because its so dull-green-ish in Perth.

The first weekend I came home I went up to Carolines place in Dalarna where its even more green. Was great seeing her again coz of course, I've totally missed her like craaaaazy. We went to this big party during the national day at her friends parents place where we had a "questionaire-walk" in the forrest, where all the guests tried their best to answer questions no one on earth could know the answers too :p. At least not us. But its more for fun so. Then we started with the drinks and the barbecue which was greeeeeeeat! We had made some thai marinated chicken, sallad with bulgur and Carolines awesome tzatziki. After the dinner the games started, when everyone had become just enough tipsy. The games involved Stövelkastning (throwing a rubber boot over your back), running in slalom with a big tire, running to a big water filled bucket and filling it and then running back with the bottle between your legs to fill another bucket, aiming a long plastic pipe with the pipe held between the legs and aiming it onto a nail stuck on a plank 2 meters up in the air. It was awesomely fun. We were separated in three teams; Yellow, Blue and Orange. And he he, surprisingly (not really), my team won. Which felt great :p I think Carolines team cheated pretty much :D

After the games everyone took place in a big trailer that was pulled by a tractor and we headed to a big Rockabilly party out in a place called Turbo. I've never been to anything like that before so it was really fun. The company was awesome and Carolines friends were really nice. After that us youngsters went home to this couple who had a house close-by and we ended the party there.

Other stuff we did was to make awesome dinners, we painted with acrylic colours, played with the cat Bastien, watched movies and just spent a lot of time together. It's so relaxing to be there and i really feel well when I'm there. <3

Oh yeah, when I arrived in Sweden Lopez picked me up. My parents had no idea that i was coming home so we were gonna surprise them. I let Lopez ring the doorbell and my dad opened the door and Lopez said that he was just gonna leave something there and then I walked out from behind and said that I was also gonna leave something and my dad became really surprised haha and said: But are you here?! ?!? haha. Then i went to my mom who was still sleeping and sat ont he bed next to her and just said Moooooom! and she turned over and said WHAT ARE U DOING HERE U ARE CRAZY!! haha. They were still surprised that i was there a day after.

I also met some friends which is really nice to see again. Now i can't wait until i get home "for real" and can start really living here which i discovered that i really want. There's so much stuff I want to do and experience here that I never had an idea that I wanted before. I know what I need and want more now.

Patience/acceptance

I've noticed two small coincidences, within 24 hours, in Dexter and the anime movie Laputa - Castle in the sky, both leading back to the same TV-show! First I noticed that Sam Trammell who plays Sam Merlotte, the bar owner in True Blood is in Dexter Season 1, which explains a lot because I knew that I had seen him before but not from where. Then, today I noticed that Anna Paquin do the voice of Sheeta in Castle in the sky in the English dub, Paquin is also one of the leads of True Blood! Ding dooong!

I think I'm having a bit of a downfall in my blog posting recently, I don't know what to write any more. It's weird, I don't like it.

The prescription's talking

I've finished my architectural landscape project which you now can see HERE. The pictures are finished but my statement isn't ready yet but will be uploaded to my portfolio later on the coming week. They can be found under "Architectura".

Above pic is about, well, a lot! Mainly inspired by the song Unfinished business by White Lies and my dear sweet Caroline. There's so much stuff on my mind right now and a lot of it concerns the coming..hm, future? I might be thinking to far ahead but there's a lot of planning to do with my exchange to Sweden next year as I'm hoping to take my last semester there. There's also a lot of other stuff I'm probably unneccessarly worrying about.

And on top of that I have 4 big remaining photo and drawing projects to finish in a couple of weeks. Yikes, but it will be alright. Then I will get some peace :) finally. C <3

Watched Star Trek yesterday with Joshua and Marthe. It was AWESOME! Finally, Star Trek is exciting, action filled, well-made and cool again! So people, watch it, even though you havent seen any of it before this is very different from the other ones and still satisfies the fans (at least me).

First step of many

I've put up a temporary portfolio site which you can see HERE.

Only three more weeks left of school now, a bit stressful but soon it'll be over :).

New words with meaning

I have a quote from a very good poet named T.S. Eliot I have to throw out there in the interwebszz:

"We shall not cease from exploration and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

I cant wait to get home. And I think it is true that you learn to appreciate your home more, or i guess it depends where ur from and whats ur current situation, either ur love ur home more or you realise how bad it is. I've realised how good Sweden actually is even though many small things of course could be better, but there isnt a perfect place anywhere but my home is a dang good place.

Last week me and C celebrated our two months anniversary :D. She sent me an awesome drawing, birthday card, easter card, a Martin top-ten list :O and an extremely important, life-changing, cute and lovely letter only she could've written. <3

I've also finished colourising this one, which i also printed, framed and had shipped to sweden :) :

I try so hard

Part 2

As they stared at me, i searched through the menus in the camera looking for the Format memory card section. Eagerly they awaited for me to delete my newly taken pictures and i asked them if they wanted to see me hitting the Format button which they of course wanted.

I pressed it. They were pleased and said that they were sorry for the mixup. I put on a fake-smile just as theirs and nodded and said that i was gonna go and i left with much anger and confusion. This totally ruined everything i had planned for my assignment and was my last hope getting anything at all before it was waaay to late.

On the way home i remembered; maybe there is a way to blablablablablablablabla bla blabla blablabla. Blablabla blabla blablablablabla bla blablabla bla blabla bla blabla bla blabla blabla.

blabla blabla haha bla blablabla bla bla, bla blablablabla bla blaaa hah wohoa.

So yeah, im a happy camper :).
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In other news, i got a new fancy laptop! The Dell Studio 17" of badassery! Its awesome and Im loving it. Even though its running Vista. Im getting used to it and its ok for now.

Ive also bought a...... DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER!! Oh yes, when you thought i couldnt be any more egocentric, Oh Snap! In your face :p. No, but on a serious note. Im going to record all kinds of different things that can inspire and amuse me and it will be very useful if i would do a job where i need to record an interview of some kind. I got an older model from Sony called Sony ICDB600 which would do just fine for me. Ordered it from Ebay, gotta love Ebay!
_

Next week is going to be exciting, and life-changing :).

April is the cruellest month

It's much harder to be creative than most people think because it strains the mind very much. Like the last assignment I've had for photojournalism has taken alot of energy for me. It's basically about shooting a series of pictures of interesting people and their lives or occupations or something similar and that doesnt sound so hard. But it can be. Maybe i just makes it harder for me than it is but that's a good practise too i guess. Its also hard because when you think you got a really good idea it fails because of several different reasons like people not contacting you back and things. So you move on to the next idea and next idea and it just continues until you're out of ideas. I was lucky and stumbled upon something that could be really interesting though, in the very last minute and that was to take pictures inside the church of Scientologists...

So, heres my experience with them:

I went there last thursday first. Nicky and Stanley was with me and we walked up the stairs to the reception. We came to the reception and was greeted by this nice lady who asked if she could help us. I told her that i was doing an assignment for school and wanted to take pictures of this place because it seemed interesting. We talked for a while what the assignment was about and what kind of pictures i was gonna take. She seemed very positive to the idea and said that i should come back tomorrow because there was supposed to be another staffmember there who usually took care of things like this.

Next day i called them before i went over there just to check that it was still on which it was. Came there by 4pm and met the guy who i was gonna talk with. We sat down in his office and he asked what kind of assignment i had to do and what pictures i wanted to take. I explained myself but after a while he said that i actually werent allowed to take pictures. I was a bit shocked coz it seemed so certain the other day and that this would probably ruin my entire assignment.

He said that it wasnt usually allowed and that i could find everything they had there online, but i told him that it wasnt about the information they had there it was more about the pictures. He really seemed like he wasnt gonna allow me to take any pictures. So i said okej then, thank you and left my seat and he walked me out of his office. But then i stopped and thought, no, im to far in haha to let this go. So i stopped and asked about all the stuff they had there, their merchandise and their charts, their e-meters and stuff. He started to explain different stuff and i carried on asking him question after question to get him going. After talking for a while he let me take a few pictures of the place. We moved down the corridor and he showed me different stuff they had in there; more merchandise, books, courses and stuff and i took more pictures.

I asked how the e-meter worked and he asked another guy if he could do an demonstration. He said yes and was gonna set it up. After a while it was ready and we walked over there. The new guy instructed me to sit down and hold these two "cans" as they called them. It was like two aluminum cans which was connected to the blue little e-meter. Which is a device that ( i think) sets off a little bit off current through the cans. He then said that the next step was gonna hurt. Then he pinched me on my arm! He did what i want to call a "pinch-twist" which is just a pinch with a twist :p. But anyway, he then said that i should think about the moment of the pinch and the pain it caused me. It didnt hrut so much when he did it so it was hard to think about it. But i tried and made this really ugly face trying to think of it. He stared at the e-meter to see if it moved. It moved a bit but he congfigured it and said with a loud voice: THINK ABOUT THE MOMENT OF THE PAIN! and then stared at the e-meter which was barely moving this time. So once again he said with a loud voice: THINK ABOUT THE MOMENT OF THE PAIN! but nothing happened. The first guy then said: yeah yeah i think it moved the most the first time! They agreed with eachother but seemed a bit dissapointed.

Obviously i wasnt thinking hard enough. They told me the device was used to treat bad memories sort of, in some way. Then they seemed to be eager to get me out of there and said that it was everything they had to show me. I felt pretty much ready but started asking about the room in the beginning of the corridor. It had the text; Ron Hubbard - FOUNDER on the top of it. I asked what it was used for and he said that their founder used to travell alot before he died and that they had kept an office as a tradition. I then asked if i could take some pictures in there also which i was allowed to do.

After a while i felt pretty much ready and we walked towards the stairs down. Suddenly comes this woman out of nowhere and asks if she can talk to the guy who was showing me around and that i should wait there for a few minutes. I thought that she just wanted to talk to him about something business related or whatchamacall it but she had something else in mind. After some minutes they both came out from his office and walked towards me. She then said that she was sorry but that i isntantly had to delete every picture i had taken because no one was allowed to "just walk in there and take pictures". So i said that both the guy who showed me around and the lady from yesterday had granted me permission so it wasnt like i had "just walked in there". She then refused to listen and said that it wasnt permitted to take any pictures in there anyway. She then wanted me to show her that i deleted the pictures.

I got a bit shocked by this coz it seemed like a prettty chilled enviroment nonetheless and i hadnt taken any pictures that was like of something no one else could see if they just walked in there. But they both stared at me and waited for me to delete the pictures...

To be continued.

PS: The picture at the top is my first picture for my landscape photography project im doing on modern architecture landscape.

my royal road/yes you can

Went to the city today to take some photos for my landscape-photo class. Im trying to do a Suburbian landscape-feature with some modern architecture but werent able to find anything that could work for my assignment. Stanley and Marthe joined me and we decided to go for fun theme of the day; people with hats. But that didnt go so well either buuut i did get some other nice shots, some that ive finished tonight. ^.

We also had lunch at Domes and i had a humongous Club Sandwhich which was more like two really big toasts, but it was really good. We then walked for hours almost all the way to East Perth where we got tired and took a bus back.

When i came home i saw this nice reflection on my phone which reminded me of something beautiful. <3

Alla vill ha hela världen

Clouds clouds clouds.

Today i finally did my presentation for my Landscape class. I hate doing presentations so i was a bit (very) nervous but it went alright even though i had to do it backwards because my teacher wanted to see my comparison between two contemporary photographers (Martin Parr and Walter Niedermayr) where i claimed that on an artistic level, Niedermayr was so much more satisfying than Parrs work because he makes more out of his pictures using montage, better composition and uses the existent lighting very good. His photographs almost becomes paintings in a way. Parr on the otherhand takes photographs with a "snap-shot" feel where i claimed that they could've been taken by anyone there in that particular situation of the time even though they are highly satirical and critical against mass tourism, consumerism and the middle class and food! And then I talked about the ongoing debate about The Tourist vs. The Traveller (which has been going on since man started to travel and take vacations; is there a necessary distinction between the two? Do they experience the landscape differently from eachother? etc etc) but i was actually gonna talk about that first so i got all confused and lost my focus a bit and missed a few points but rounded it up quiet nicely i think anyway :) Buuut, now I'm just rambling on and on about stuff i could talk about just for fun now when the presentation is over.

The best thing about the Landscape photo class or other classes also i guess, is that it's very interesting to know certain backgrounds and styles of different photographers and where they came from and thought about society, history and everything else. Makes you wonder a bit about your own life, where u come from and what you can produce from your experiences and viewpoints in your life. You learn how to pick up little pieces of information during class that can inspire you and then when you know a bit about the background of different styles and try them on and eventually find something that suits you and develop your own style from that. This of course, applies to any learning faculty and is nothing new to the world, it just struck me that i kinda enjoy the classes that I'm taking even though they can be very boring sometimes when its so much information you think your head is going to explode like in that Scanners-movie.

.....KapoOOOoOOoOW!!! *bloodsplatter on wall*

Your head caught in a waking dream

Today we had some real estate people here to take pictures of the place for new investors as our building is for sale. It doesn't affect us though because we have a contract until December and then we have to see what happens.

Yesterday me and Stanley were in Subiaco to take some random pictures. We decided to also shoot a small assignment for ourselves and we picked the theme "clouds" just for fun and to have at least three pictures with clouds someway. But I think we both forgot a little bit about it after a while and we started shooting other stuff mostly :). But i got some i could post another time.

We tried to get lost in Subiaco coz its then when you can find the most interesting places and we found a really cool alley where we both got some really good shots. We also ate at this awesome café. I had a four meat roll sandwhich with extra mayo and avocado :D. Four diff meats! :O
It was goooooood!