A shared day

The 27th of October has since 1983 always been my sister’s birthday, but as of last year, it’s also the date of when our godfather died. I can’t think of a better photograph to embody this new duality, which I took at some point in the 90’s. My sister is watching TV in the his front room, while he stands in the kitchen, holding a lightbulb delicately in his hand. They’re together, yet apart, which I guess is a bit like how we live on with our loved ones who are no longer with us.

My godfather was a keen amateur photographer, with a great selection of cameras and lenses that he gave me while he was still alive, and I remember that on this particular roll of film I was trying out my newly gifted 17mm lens. I had never shot with a lens as wide before or afterwards, but if I remember correctly there’s not one dud on that whole roll. The wider perspective gave me new eyes and everything looked different, better.

I’ve been watching the calendar creep closer to this first anniversary with a bit of trepidation, but dipping into Thich Nhat Hanh’s “How to live when a loved one dies” yesterday really helped me feel less sad. Thanks for having been such a great part of my life dear Guffar*; I hope you can feel all of my love and gratitude somehow ❤️

* my incorrect pronunciation of gudfar (godfather in Swedish) when I was a kid

Dutch flowers on film

When we were away this summer I decided to not bring my DSLR and only shoot on film. On my birthday we were in Amsterdam with no real plan, but after breakfast I remembered that I’ve always wanted to go to Museum Voorlinden, which is near the Hague. I hadn’t realised that the gardens were designed by Piet Oudolf, so this is where these are from. I was holding back on them with the intention of posting them in the middle of winter, for a little colour boost, but with our world so bleak at the moment, why wait?

Roll 2

More film pictures, but this time from my little Olympus XA2. Here’s Oomoo walking through Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Your blind passenger’ installation at Tate Modern last year. I took many many more pictures in there with my DSLR on our previous visit - still need to post those!

Walking across Waterloo Bridge, back in May, after seeing a classical concert at the Royal Festival Hall. It was our first, and I hope to go again one day. When I saw that the London Philharmonic Orchestra were playing Shubert’s Unfinished Symphony I quickly got us tickets to see it, as it’s one of my favourite pieces of music ever. I remember there was an older woman sitting in the seats behind the orchestra, and during the first movement she had her hands clasped under her chin with the lovely smile on her face. She was clearly enjoying it, and maybe hearing it live for the first time too. I could hardly believe it myself, I mean to be able to sit and watch an orchestra play a piece of music almost 200 years old, that’s bloody terrific that is!

Walking home from the overground back in the summer. This section is usually a part of my runs, but I rolled my ankle back in November, and it still doesn’t feel right. Being middle aged sucks when it comes to recovering from injuries :0(

Found a playground halo.

Walking along Fournier St in Spitalfields and travelling in time. It’s lined with beautiful Georgian houses, and I’d love to see the interior in one of them. Positively dreamy. Found this blogpost where you can see what the houses looked like in the 1970’s, compared to now. Back in those days the houses were not the highly desirable ones they are now, and could be bought relatively cheaply.

My mum came to visit back in June, and we went in under this huge tree in Hyde Park. We were not the only ones.

My sister H, taking a pic of these bill posters further down on Fournier St. Isn’t the contrast between the past and the modern day great here?

That’s it for film pics this time round, as my third roll is full of personal pics, and none of them of the ‘taking pictures of loved ones from the back’ type. This was also the roll that had pictures on it from 2016 - Oomoo was tiny in comparison to now! Crazy.

4 more

Last ones from the Pentax MX roll. I think I pushed the camera too hard on this particular roll; pretty much all of the indoor shots came out of focus and too warm. All three rolls where Fuji films, which in the old days of only shooting film, used to come out quite green and contrasty, but these came out really warm and a bit washed out. It’s a shame that most developers now use modern machines and print from the scans, rather than from the negatives. Maybe I just need to try out different films and see how they come out…