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My portfolio is now live. Please check it out.

Tonight I watched again first episode of NHK スペチアル ヒューマン。I love this awfully beautiful but very scientifically accurate program.

https://www.nhk-ondemand.jp/goods/G2012036277SA000/?spg=P201200085700000

It is interesting notion that one of the key differences between homo sapiens and chimpanzees is that human mother needs help when delivering baby. This is due to the structural differences in female pelvis versus chimp.

I really recommend this documentary.

My recent T-shirt design for Japanese elementary school.

つぎは、
ニコニコ駅前
ニコニコ駅前でございます

Today I called my father in Finland. My mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and is in hospital, so my father lives alone now. Mother’s condition is getting worse.

This doesn’t happen so often, but tonight I feel wave of homesickness. So I took my tested cure for all sadness and loneliness, album of Crash Test Dummies, “God Shuffled His Feet” and listen it with my stereo. When I was bullied in school I listened this and it always managed to make me relax and feel soft. I got the CD actually from my sister’s boyfriend way back then and it soon became one of my favourites . There’s something about this sweet music that just works for me.

Tonight I cooked my speciality, Kara-age, a fried chicken in Japanese style. This food is also kind of my personal comfort food. (And this is likely my best dish.) It just heals the soul. And now my kitchen is still smelling like it has been used, which I like.

It’s strange really. I don’t feel that often homesick. So when it comes it really hits hard. However, it’s wrong to keep thinking the same thing over and over again, as it was said in Tarkovsky’s Nostalgia. Yes.. we must live in the present.

I am wearing a skirt my wife borrowed me. I am loving this feeling of smooth light fabric on my skin. (I’m not wearing underwear). Women are way luckier than men I think, since they can wear so comfortable clothes. I am enjoying this refreshing feeling while I’m writing this, listening Bjork’s “Big Time Sensuality”.

You know I have had so many blogs. And I always gave up writing them sooner or later. Most often the reason was that the design didn’t please me. Either the colours were wrong, too dark or the site felt like a corporate blog. Most often the environment just didn’t feel like me, and as result I couldn’t write as honestly as I’d like to, after all.

I wish this is more like my own journal or notepad for myself rather than serious blog written for some audience. Facebook has been kind of like my public notebook, but it seems everything disappears after a while and it’s hard to go back in time to really see what was going on some time ago. This, however is a permanent record.

Photographers are a quiet bunch. If they talk they talk anything else except photos. I also feel like I should save all my energy for the moment of taking photo. So rather than talk about photo, I wish to talk about my life.

However, let me write this;  selecting the images for the front page gallery was interesting chance to look at the photos I’ve taken during last three years. Then it really helped me to understand what I am doing with my camera, in a bigger scale. Even if this turns out to be only fruit of the effort of entire redesign I am quite happy about it. This is what I do.

Anyway, I will be updating this as my main series of images to reflect my best works frequently, so please do return to check every now and then.

Meeting Oota-san in Sokyusha book shop in Tokyo really helped me to curate my own images into more simple and pure form. I feel I’m privileged to know such a great person and get his advice. Then, seeing my ex girlfriend’s photo book “Looking for Forest” (森をさがす) was another inspiration for me to change my website’s layout into somehow more simple form.

Then, I realise also that I have just recently started photographing really seriously. I still have a lot of mileage to cover. As I left Sokyusha last time, Oota-san  threw me casually;  “Hey, Jaakko, Don’t give up taking photos..”. I can still hear his voice, and remember how he said it.

I can’t say that I don’t understand why so many do, especially those with families. Perseverance is a required feat in this thing. We just simply have to love what we do. If the love dies, it’s game over.

However, when I get depressed I feel like I want to throw my camera into a dark well in my parent’s backyard. It’s so difficult to explain this  to someone who is not into photography. How could she possibly understand?

My family friend said to me yesterday, “If your wife would really become to understand your photography, then it would mean she became a photographer. Think how hard it would be then?” Bravo!