Journal

I was visiting antique shop some years ago with a friend and I came across with old glass plate negative. It was in pretty good shape although covered in dust. I was able to make this capture with a setup at home. I didn’t do any excessive restoration work although I removed few scratches.

It is hard to imagine the era of this photo but I would imagine somewhere around early 20s, Taisho era. Ozu Yasujiro was still a child and about to make his wonderful films.

There is something really attractive about old photographs.

I first heard of English bassist and singer Jah Wobble from album Spinner, which was a collaboration with Brian Eno.

Tracks in the album, especially “Unusual Balance” and “Space Diary 1” were forever carved in my soul. There was something really attractive about the dark and strange soundscapes this duo created. Brian Eno, of course was familiar to me with Music for Airports, and On Land which is still one of my favorites.

I became aware of Songs of Innocence only several years ago.

There is something meditative and poetic about this piece by Wobble, I feel like this would be perfect song for summer nights in Finland.

The lyrics say:

On a cloud I saw a child
And he laughing said to me
“Pipe a song about a lamb”
So I piped with merry cheer
“Piper, pipe that song again”
So I piped, he wept to hear

and after the chorus

“Father, Father, where are you going?
Ah, do not walk so fast
Speak, Father, speak to your little boy
Or else I shall be lost”

I tend to like a music that is a little a bit weird and dark. Even if I am sad. It would indeed feel unnatural to try to force a change to my mood.

I am not sure if it is Scandinavian ethos or maybe I am just weird like that.

But Songs of Innocence is beautiful and bright and I love it.

My son used to take a lot of breaks from kindergarten. I would take him to watch the birds by the sea. Or we might ride the ferris wheel in Minato-mirai, followed by a leisurely time in one of the cake shops near Chinatown.

It would be just two of us in middle of the week, while ordinary people went to work.

I would bring my camera with me. This time I had brought Olympus Pen, loaded with expired film I would have bought from the neighborhood old camera shop which no longer exists.

It all now seems like a story you would read in a book, almost like a fable.

In evenings I would ask him, “why do you cry?” and he would say “because the day comes to an end”.

Yeah, I see what you mean there, son.

We humans are young and foolish and we can’t understand time. We know as much about it as a sea cucumber knows about satellites orbiting the earth.

Remembering a verse from a Genesis song:

All at once I can see what we do
Me into me and you into you
Me into me and you into you
Tonight, tonight, oh, he’s burning bright
Everyone is on their feet ’cause he is out, out on the street
There’s another day done and there’s another gone by

and

And in the beating of your heart
There is another beating heart, ah-hah

Wake up young man – you, who I see in me.

Dreaming of new life, yet the old sky remains

I turned 47 last month. The cherry blossoms have already fallen in Japan, and spring is slowly approaching in Finland.

Someone said recently that Finnish spring time is like autumn coming once again. Snow is gone already and the salty sand spread on roads during winter is causing sandstorm like conditions. Nobody would call this – whatever this is – winter, but green is still nowhere to be seen.

I have been thinking about interpersonal relationships a lot lately. It seems to happen every now and then that someone close to us ends up hurting our feelings.

I am strong believer in calm negotiation over loud argument. But emotions get heated sometimes and we humans are inherently flawed in the way how we experience life subjectively, it sometimes cannot be helped.

One thing that I have always noticed, although not being able to admit, is that almost always those people whose words feel like fiery meteorites falling from sky, are in fact right, at least about some things they say. There is always some percentage of truth. This is not to mean that their hurtful action or behavior would be something to be agreed on but still, it is rare that all what they say would be nonsense. Well, I am putting world-leaders aside here.

I am still very much learning and 47 is not much of an age to brag about but I have theory.

I think agreeing to the fact that :
1. The people who hurt us are not wrong about everything.
2. The something they say might give us a clue for our own self knowledge

could lead us into forgiveness and finding peace within us.

I love Buddhism in the sense that it accepts that there are no absolutes and everyone has a seed of good in us when we are born.

Life is much nicer experience when we don’t have to carry the burden of hatred within our hearts.

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.