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Afternoons and Kara-age
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.
Refresh
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!
Why Photo
There is an article over in my Things blog about the reasons why I shoot.
“It’s like digging up these huge stones from the soil. You know, my father is a farmer, and he taught me how to clean up entire field from stones. Much like him, I am preparing my grave. He brought a shovel. I brought a camera.”
http://things.hiyayaakko.com/why-photo/
Going to Space
Going to space for me would be a milestone in my own journey, and in my spiritual growth. To see the beauty of this planet from outside it would be a breathtaking experience; not only in overcoming the physical and personal challenge, but also spiritually. Life is a huge cosmic journey itself and going to space would be a perfect visualisation of it.
I was separated from my mother when I was two years old. I want to experience that separation again, this time from mother earth; going to space would be like amazing personal movie for me.
I would refuse to ride a Nasa shuttle or rocket, but I wouldn’t mind riding Sir Richard’s vessel. Things must be done in right spirit ecologically, and Richard surely does just that. In any way, I strongly support Virgin Galactic, what they are doing is remarkable and extremely responsible. They might be a company but what they do is so much more.
What next?
(note for myself)
One of the common questions I’m asked during my exhibition is “what are you going to do next?”. I have given it a thought.
I’m going to clean up my work room. It’s a total chaos. I don’t mean like creative Einstein-like-chaos. I mean total-unfathomable-godcrazy-abyss-like-chaos. It’s going to take at least a week to restore the room into some kind of working order.
After that, I’ll sit a moment and have a cup of coffee.
Regarding Image Theft in Japan
Couple weeks ago I received a message from a friend whose photo I took back in 2012. In her message she told me that her face is appearing in this shady website of Japanese company which sells some kind of medicines. And it indeed, there my photo was. In description she was told to be 42 years old, which is not her real age. Against her knowledge or consent she was endorsing their product, her face clearly recognisable. She was frightened if her appearance was used in further, more damaging way.
It was pretty clear to me from the beginning that the image was stolen from Flickr since that and Facebook are the only places where I uploaded it. Later communication with the company verified that the image indeed was downloaded from Flickr.
I was pretty shocked. But my initial shock was nothing compare to what was to come. I called the company in Saturday morning, and explained the situation. The first guy was pretty polite and he seemed to understand what is the issue. But what they asked me was a jaw-dropper.
They asked me to provide the model’s name, address and phone number. Because they need to check something. Yup. Can you believe that?
My hands were shaking. I said that I will never provide them such information, and that such inquiry is absurd. Since my Japanese skill is not native level, I thought it’s better to ask my friend’s help.
So, my Japanese friend called them and explained the issue calmly from the beginning. They said they will get back to me on Monday. The image disappeared from the site sometimes during the weekend and was replaced with a photo of cappuccino cup.
The company did finally call me on Tuesday. The man asked me have I ever heard of this company called Flickr. According to him, Flickr is a free site and they had legally obtained the image from the site. My hands were shaking again, real bad this time.
However, I managed to keep myself pretty calm, and I directed him to my Flickr page and my image. I asked if he is familiar of meaning of english text “All rights Reserved” and copyright mark. He gave me kind of muffled answer that was nowhere near apology, more like “uhhmm.. I .. see..”.
I told him that if I ever see another image of mine in their site, lawsuit will follow.
What’s really sad is that it seems all the images of people in the site are probably stolen same way. All these beautiful people smiling and endorsing their product without knowing. To imagine what kind of group lawsuit could be possible is kind of mind baffling, if these people only knew.
It is always very important to verify the source of the images that are used in website designs. Purchasing images from popular sites such as iStockphoto and Getty is generally acceptable since they require model release, therefore model in image accepts that her appearance might be used in advertisement. The permit written in model releases however does not usually extend to medical products, and does not allow use which suggests that the person in image is personally endorsing the product. There is no model release that would allow that kind of usage of the image I saw in the site.
It seems it is up to the photographer himself to defend his rights. I just cannot let this kind of thing slide. Not as long as I call myself “photographer.”
Interview with Mike Gesgregen
Computer Trouble
Some months ago my Macbook Pro started freezing. Pretty annoying really, and it happened after I had just installed Mavericks. Using the Apple Hardware Test I was able to pinpoint the fault to the SSD that I had installed by myself, Crucial M4 256gb in fact.
I thought the disk had just died. It was out of warranty so I thought there is not much to do except discard the drive. So I restored from backup and put the old HD back in. And then Mavericks was so slow that I found it impossible to use. Since I didn’t feel like shelling another 300dollars for brand new SSD, I just thought I’ll bear the situation.
Just today, my friend told me that he had exactly same situation with his M4, and that he had found a fix. In fact there is a firmware upgrade for the SSD drive, a neat bootable disc which automatically upgrades the firmware. I did it, and everything is working fine again! And really really fast.
I really love Mavericks, this is really speedy OS and feels in many ways snappier than earlier versions. Apple is really making big improvements for the operating system of Macintosh. After Snow Leopard, Mavericks is definably my favourite one.
We won't close our eyes
We postpone death by living. Here we cannot take a photo without noticing it.