Another double-page spread from my moleskine.

Fårösund, Bunge

Fiskeläge (fishing village), Digerhuvud

Inside of eremit (koja), Hotell Furillen

These are photographs I took during my summer in Gotland and Fårö. Common topics being Hotell Furillen, Grey sheep, mackerel, knäke bröd, old Scandinavian vernacular architecture, old wooden fishing villages, baltic sea, pebbles, raukar (rock formations), Ingmar Bergman's land, arvesund,
hästens säng, grilled food, hand made bread, countryside...

eremit (koja)

nacho sheriff
(The story of a retired Lucha Libre wrestler gunslinger, turned sheriff)

wooden hooks

I recently came across this firm called Live Wire Farm that make things like hooks, napkin rings, shelf supports, spoons etc. from timber and wooden branches in a very traditional Scandinavian style. I love these sort of things and it brought back a sudden flood of memories from when I lived in Sweden as a young child. We made our own hooks at school for our coats, like in the picture, did a lot of ray mears craft type stuff, built a small traditional cabin the size of a playhouse out of wooden logs as a year long project (and found this half dead scarred rabbit underneath a log we were going to use). When we finally finished, it became our cosy hang-out spot which we filled with rabbit and polar bear fur carpets.

Brighton ship, pier, sea, captain

Old West Pier, Brighton, reminiscent of a capsized skeleton of a pirate ship

Nikon FE

Kodak Portra 160VC
Fuji Superia xtra

Mal Pais

Just another sketch I forgot to upload from my travel sketchbook.

Mal Pais, Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica

Driftwood

1 An embedded circular box perforated with bars
2 Antique old metal birdcage
3 Skinny table legs of mahogany
4 Life's obscurity
5 Magicians, sheriffs and moustaches
6 That dark horse that comes riding in to seal the deal
7 Feathery half-mechanical object
8 Piece of driftwood
9 Trapdoor
10 The last grain of sand slips away.

The 'driftwood', waiting to see where the sea of obstacles and opportunities will take it until the point it's washed up on shore.

FUP a modern fable

FUP by Jim Dodge is a brilliant book, one I borrowed off my brother.

A story about Jake, an old addicted gambler and immortal from his home brewed (97% pure) Ol' Death Whisper wisky and his giant grandson 'Tiny' who goes hunting after his nemesis, a wild bore called Lockjaw together with his pet duck called FUP, no ordinary duck, a massive detective duck with a nose to track down lockjaw's trails. They all share something in common, they are all insane. - Read it, you'll enjoy it.

Willy Wonka's sugar cane factory

As close as it would get to a Wonka factory, in the midst of stretches of sugar cane
fields, lies a small building where they make sugar, toffee and sugary sweats from the
ground basics, old skool way. Was an experience to remember. and I definitely ate
way too much...

La Cangreja National Park, Costa Rica

Expedition (across central america)

A few snaps from my epic, adventurous trek across a continent, through Costa Rica.

Olympus Trip 35
Kodak Portra 160VC

Moin (Limón) - Playa El Ray (Savegre)

flying drawings

I found some pictures I was drawing on the flight from Madrid to San Jose, Juan Santamaria. It was a really long flight and I was running out of things to do, so I whipped out my sketchbook and drew random things whilst listening to Johnny Cash and Elvis Costello.

Saying Goodbye

This was the hardest part, saying our farewells to the families we'd lived with and gotten so close to, the locals we made friends with, the 'rudboys' with the machetes strapped to their belts, to the little kids that always followed and played with us in their curious ways (Alfredo included, the little 7 year old that chopped off the head of a snake with 'his' machete in his living space, the pig castrations we had to listen to for half an hour which were done on mature pigs without any anaesthetics, Armando the man with a name on his high white horse and womanising charms, mr president of the community with God knows how many mistresses who fell in the spell of his attraction hidden behind his thick beard and buckle belly, the many skinny cows I took pictures of, the smoke that would suffocate the air at 4 am followed by the cockerel and hounds orchestrating their own music with the birds, pigs and the chickens. It was a very emotional early morning, but we set off eventually with our giant rucksacks into the hills and to a small town 7km away called Yali to catch a public bus to Esteli and from their back to field base to get our next project...

Abode

Pictures of my house and kitchen, taken with my 'Olympus Trip 35' camera.
More pictures can be found on my flickr account.

Getting close...

Progress with the community centre was going well and by this stage we were almost finished with the first half of the construction, which would be carried on by a second group coming in after changeover to finish the beautiful work we'd built together with the locals...

Monkeys & revolution

On our last Sunday we were curious to see monkeys which could be found higher up in the mountains amongst the tall trees. So we thought it would make an interesting adventure, so that's what we did. A local took us up to a part of the forest high up which he explained was where the battles of the last revolution with the Sandinistas was fought, and home to many bunkers now lost and forgotten in that very jungle. It was an interesting day, but unfortunately the wrong time of the day so no monkeys were spotted. But the trek and the views from the top made everything worth it.

First day at work

"We met the local craftyman, builder, engineer, legend called Noel. This is the day we began building the foundations for the building after a brief introduction to the communities way of building, measuring (using their unique measurement called vara) with strings and sticks, making wires from scratch and mixing concrete the traditional way."

Expedition in Central America

Just over a week ago I retired from the magical landscape of Costa Rica and Nicaragua and the great people I was fortunate enough to meet in my travels and volunteer work there. For the 3 months of my expedition I had brought with me an Olympus Trip 35 camera, an old point and shoot from the 70's, in almost pristine condition. I also brought with me a small sized Moleskine sketchbook which I brought almost everywhere. I kept a journal in it as well, and now is my chance to upload everything and share the places I've been, the things I've done and the people I've met.

When I arrived in Costa Rica, I stayed in a Hostel in San Jose for two days, where I met up with some friends and volunteers before heading off to the fieldbase in Turrialba, 2 hours eastwards to meet up with the rest of the volunteers and project managers and co-ordinators.

After a short week of jungle and survival training I was on a bus heading to Miraflor, northern Nicaragua which became a 2 day bus journey. There I was to live and work with an indigenous community in some valleys within the Miraflor region called San Ramon. We were to help build a community centre for the adults, right next to the school the charity organisation helped build back in 1997. This would be my home for the next 3 weeks, living with a family inside a shack, sleeping on a wooden bench with potato sacks.














These are just a few pictures from my arrival on the 2 days (you can find more on my flickr account).

shunt, london bridge

It was my 19th birthday on the 22nd of Jan, and we went to shunt in the old underground of London Bridge. We ended up seeing some pretty weird things, first the shockingly amazing Gothic Circus with grotesque mechanical figures and inventions by

Sharmanka, acrobatic dancers along the spotlit walls of the chambers, dark synthetic park made of red roses, various art exhibition spaces by various artists and towards the far end; several wooden tables and chairs by a bar area in a large pitch black room lit by single candles on tables and pianos, the whole scene resembling something out of Lord of the Rings (the human's village). It was definitely a night to remember. Luckily I brought a camera, unlucky, it was the one camera that does not go down very well with nigh shots or dim lit situations; my Olympus Trip 35 (1979). Anyway, these are some of the photos.

some random pages

If you're interested, these are just some ideas jotted down, for different purposes...

"old, antique"

Some really old, underexposed, grainy shots I took with my old time fe.

Streets of Soho

My attempt at some night photography using kodak portra 160VC film, and nikon FE slr. I had no idea how they'd turn out, but these are some of the more successful ones I managed to get out of it. Hope you like them.

"Silk Stockings"

On monday the 29th of December I watched the wonderful, humour and brilliantly executed musical 'Silk Stockings' directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Starring Fred Astaire as Steve Canfield, an American movie producer in Paris and Cyd Charisse as Ninotchka. Fred Astaire never seizes to amaze me, even at the age of 58 in this performance and Cyd Charrise also carries out an oustounding level of charm as her portrayal of a dead-serious, witty, beautiful soviet agent with a heart for the working class and dedication to her job and her country (who just happens to be an excellent dancer as seen here and in her performance along Gene Kelly in 'Singing in the Rain').


The plot summary is as follows:

A musical remake of Ninotchka: After three bumbling Soviet agents fail in their mission to retrieve a straying Soviet composer from Paris, the beautiful, ultra-serious Ninotchka is sent to complete their mission and to retrieve them. She starts out condemning the decadent West, but gradually falls under its spell, with the help of Steve Canfield, an American movie producer. Written by John Oswalt

My favourite scene in this movie is when Ninotchka, the three Soviet agents ( Brankov, Bibinski, and Ivanov) and the composer meet up in Moscow and fantasise about their memories from Paris and suddenly burst into spontaneous dance which was not only filmed in a great way, but the actual performance was breathtaking. I had to hold my breathe when it all took place. It certainly deserved every bit of applaud it got. I would recommend this comical musical to anyone who hasn't already seen it and just wish that there would be more 40's and 50's influenced musicals produced and viewed these days. This has also been written as a tribute to Cyd Charisse who sadly passed away on June the 17th, this year at the age of 86.

random doodles

no idea...

...no they aren't sperms

Arkangelsk

This is probably one of my favourite buildings, and it wasn't even built by an Architect, but a retired russian gangster in a small town in Russia's far north-western region. It shoots up to a staggering 13 floor structure (originally only being 2), apparently built over the course of 15 years, received a head load of criticism from neighbours and the community wants it down, which I honestly don't understand why. I mean, it's so beautiful. It makes me think it was built by a really crafty child trying to imitate the Kiyomizu-dera combed with a giant fairytale-like treehouse, where the floors, roofs and walls overlap and withstood a mild tornado.

continues

It's almost finished, this is how the sculpture looks so far, quite a mixed media piece.


Some close ups:
one
two
three

...more project sketches

...here I just tried finding ways of exploring and expressing the inner conflict in human nature.



















Some photos of its current developing stage:

sculpture

These are some sketches for a sculpture I'm currently working on, has to do with the duality of human nature and the inner conflict of humans sense of good and evil- more details soon (with some pictures of the progress so far).

marilyn monroe

...

experiments

I'll let you figure it out...

crazy moustache

And my fascination with moustaches continues...

another day in the wild life...

I decided to draw some animals, a cow/bull and some sort of deer specie then found myself turning the cow into some abstract pattern thing. It's not weaved intestines, though it could be.

mechanical

(click for full view)

I've never used a mechanical pencil to draw with before, so when I was at my parents house over the weekend I got hold of a mechanical pencil and did some doodles. Not sure exactly where I was going with these, perhaps just another sketch of my fascination with pipes and moustaches and possibly some death reference you can decide.

greenpark

Was sitting in the park the other day, just sketching what I saw from my bench. Got a lot of stares which was funny, but yeah happy that I managed to get something out of it. So here are some quick sketches.