I think it is attractive idea to use camera to simply document my surroundings with no particular agenda. No pressure of building a coherent series of pictures to put up in exhibition wall nor need to worry about getting the picture absolutely perfect. And no need to worry if my pictures would be worthy of someone’s time or attention.
Because if the photos I leave behind me are a kind of evidence where my eyeballs were pointing at, then I think that is also a reflection who I am. I wouldn’t take a photo of something I am not interested in.
Looking back at the past decade of my pictures, I see a kind of pattern emerging. Some of the years I took almost no pictures at all, and those years resulted in the least of good pictures. And then year like 2017, when I took most photos I had more gems than all years combined. In addition to that, my best photos seem to be film photos and in addition, it seems to me that having film in my camera makes me to take more pictures.
So it would seem that there is like this momentum, pictures that turn out strong will attract more of such and so on. And getting that one great shot will make us go out and take more pictures. It’s like exponential growth.
It could be that the only way to get better is to take more photos but then equally there is also right time for photos. I don’t mean literally in terms of noon sun light being harsh. I mean spiritually. Person rejecting to be photographed one day might be a willing subject another time, so patience is required and there is just this magical time when nobody minds to be photographer, that’s the way how great photographers blend in.
Ultimately for me the reason to return to photography is the need to return to live in present. I have been obsessed with nostalgia, but it’s wrong to keep thinking same thing over and over again. When I take photos I am back in the present.
I would like to take a photo of the person thinking it’s the last chance to meet that person, kind of like in Japanese phrase “ichigo ichie”. That really helps to bring back thoughts to the present.
I am grateful for the wonderful people I have met, some of who I will never meet again. Even though I miss them, I am just grateful for the wonderful stories they shared and the moment we could share.
I did not make it to my father’s funeral. Finnish airlines happened to go to strike, just that day. But I made it the next day with Japan Airlines.
His grave was still new from the ceremony with fresh flowers and spruce twigs laid on top of a kind of cover that was placed on top of the grave. Father was lying silently in frozen ground.
It seemed to add to the strangeness of my first close encounter with death, seeing my father’s coffin ready to be buried in middle of snow like that. We humans can’t imagine how it would feel not to be.
This time my visit was shorter than I expected. But before I departed, I woke up early morning and took a walk in the crisp Finland winter. The night sky opened up magnificent above me. Some of the stars whose tiny light reached me probably didn’t exist anymore.
Some time ago I and my son visited Hakone. It was oddly peaceful and quiet place. Hakone Hotel was especially good place to stay, really nice place just by the lake.
I like the black and white photos with Leica M Monochrom.
Money is nothing but a tiny little thing. The way you treat others is everything.
Brian Eno’s Music for Airports is one of my favorite music of all time. This music was the soundtrack of my life in my teens and in my 20’s. If a CD could be burned by repeated listening, mine would be scorched black.
The story goes that Eno was frustrated about the light and easy music in airports around 80’s. The music seemed to be designed to soothe those who have fear of flying as if telling them “you are not going to die”. But Brian Eno said “you might die, but in cosmic sense that won’t matter”.
So a deep and meditative Music for Airports was born. And it is delightfully deep and fresh, still in 2022.
It was made so that it could be interrupted any time by the airport announcements. With this the new genre of music “ambient” became to life.
I feel the world needs more art like this that encourages exploration of thought and more spiritual way of life instead of material. Because we all will most certainly die. I think I am not the only one who is experiencing this kind of thirst for more art.
(Bang on a Can made a fully acoustic version of the album which is also definitely worth of listening.)
Ever since I visited Finland and held my father’s old sickle that I used to cut some of the overgrown bushes; I have had back pain. It comes and goes, being always the absolute worst in morning.
I broke my 11th vertebra back in 2017, that is 11T counting from the top, just leaving one more of the thorasic vertebra before lumbar vertebra L1. It seems to be the one in the center that gets most stress if torso is moved to left or right.
Someone wiser than me said “there are two types of people who do not experience mental suffering, those who are psychopaths and those who are dead”.
I am of course not immune to the shock I think we all experience when realizing a kind of existential crises; nothing will last and as sure as hell we will all perish leaving nothing but a faint memory behind. Seeing parents fading away and our hometown overgrowing with weeds does bring the entropy to our doorstep. A sudden package of uncertainness that sure has effect on the body core as well. And muscle-skeletal system is what literally keep us upright.
So dragging my heavy luggage (because of my job I carry a typical 3D artist gaming laptop behemoth that weights same as an infant), I indeed was wondering have I totally screwed up my back for good with my recless act of attempting to use a farmer’s tool despite not being a farmer. Somewhere deep I felt I had to kind of be like my father used to be, the overgrown bushes needed to be dealt with despite my sister saying I shouldn’t care about them. Dragging the luggage in airport also did not improve my condition to say the least.
It has been now over a month and the pain has not got better, if anything it has gotten slightly worse. I have been to five different kind of hospitals, taken MRI and over four X-Rays. Also have had my lungs checked just in case, luckily they seem clear.
Visiting the hospital where I spent the November 2017, I was told “since you have had accident like this there is nothing you can do but accept it”. First days thinking about that I felt incredibly sad. Is this my fate then, to live like this, being hindered with a chronic pain?
But then there are numerous people who have had way worse fate than me facing even death, still being able to enjoy life. I know for a fact that life can be fullfilling experience even with less than ideal circumstances. This is a first step for me that I am trying to take with somewhat unsure footing.
I guess I was just lucky for these five years since the accident. The back took six months to heal, but since then I have not had any really terrible episodes, except just a few times a wiches shot, or gikkuri goshi. More or less I have lived a normal life.
Indeed it surprises me that none of the doctors I visited even try to imagine if there could be anything that could be done, it is just “you have to gaman it (bear the pain without complaining)”.
I have had a whole two days when the pain has been way less and I was more or less able to even forget about it for a moment. Now the pain has returned like a rebel teenage son returning home; I know it in my guts that it is going to stay at least for a while and there is positively nothing I can do about it. I have stopped taking the pain killers as they only postpone the inevitable pain, and I am also unsure of the long term effect they have on my body. If I can bear the pain, I will if it builds up my resilience.
I am attempting the back muscle training where one lies down on fours, lifting the opposing left and arm. Unsure if this is a good idea but it is all I have at this point. This is said to bring strength to the balancing core muscles that protect the core while being relatively easy on the spine. Having the potential of improving the core muscles would be beneficial anyway and who knows one day this would ease the pain.
I sure hope to get better in time. But what actually gives me hope is trusting in my capacity to endure the pain that I seem to have to live with from now.
