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Recently I heard there is a special kind of forest fire that can survive winter, kindling fire, they call it. The fire dims down into slow burning embers that slowly burn under snow, transcending seasons.

This is what this film has been, slowly burning away inside my body, almost extinguished. The script has gone through several actual rewrites and even more imagined ones. Some of the ideas have emerged only to be released again back to the lake.

But now finally I felt the real flame starting to emerge, bringing a new image that now feels complete, a story that has beginning and end, but also enough breathing room to let it develop further, and to let actors and actresses to bring their own spirit to the work, which I think is extremely important.

Pseudo documentaries, those in the likes of Suwa Nobuhiro’s 2Dyuo or Kawase Naomi’s films, or District 9 with the “interviews” of the African people are brilliant. Documentaries are afterall search of “realism”, in a way that CG director would look for photorealism in the VFX work.

Ryoko, the character in this film is innocent woman like women in Lars von Triers films, too honest for her own good but also the kind of person I wish more would exist, but she also is obsessed in reality. For her it is romantic to sleep in hard wood of kitchen when she feels hurt. Painkillers or booze would not work for her.

I think Heart Sutra makes some great movie dialogue and subject matter, death is indeed the ultimate kind of reality. But this is all more playing with philosophical constructs and fun with poetry than Buddhism like in Kim Ki-Duk films.

The story From the Water’s Edge that I wrote several years ago also features a woman called Ryoko and it also tells a story of a loss. There are some parallels to the story and few of the scenes are also included, those who have read the story will recognize a certain scene involving burning wind turbines on sea.

This year I have been afraid that the embers under the ice are getting extinguished, disappearing forever. But now I feel alive again.

This piece is dedicated to the new people I have met recently in my life.
Thank you for saving the flame in me.

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.

It was time for me to go.

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.

I went to Kyoto some time ago

Complex heaven
memories from past

-Jaakko 2018

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.)