I mitt ögonblick

Old volvo

2012-03-03T19:55:00.002+01:00

Give me a break please!

2012-03-03T00:45:00.001+01:00

I said the first 25. Not the first 250. Did I? Now - don't ask me for more flyers, please, I don't have the time to make flyers to everybody and it's almost 1 o'clock in Sweden. They just get shabby. Not me.

I love you. I love you all and I love you visiting my blog on a daily basis, and I love you appreciating my style. I really do whatever for all my readers but - breaking news: I am human! I just can't do that and I am fair enough NOT to ask you to pay. You have total freedom on the Hey Jude too, I swear, do what the heck you want with that. Ok, my fault I said I would. I had no idea you should send THAT much. I just can't!

I must say: no more. Try to understand. But thanks for you love and enthusiasm, it is totally warming.

That beautiful thing.... it's me =)

2012-03-02T16:46:00.000+01:00

Yeah, the title is even supposed to be taken ironically, I am not that arrogant, just kidding!

Original picture by Jens Rydén, thanks for letting me play with that!

A new flyer totally by request (update)

2012-03-01T11:50:00.000+01:00

Really, was it that cool? Do you know how many wrote me and asked me to make a new flyer with songs lyrics? Crazy! You are crazy! But no wonder, if you weren't that crazy, you wouldn't check my blog. ;)

Ok, that's what I did, I listened to the radio and made a new flyer according to what my ears were hearing. First sentence matters =P

NOTE: it is NOT dizzy, click on the picture. It's the compression that makes it so.

Readers: I get mails with requests now. Before I start a business with that, rush rush! The first 25 I do for free if you let me publish here =P

Orchids, another angle

2012-02-29T10:34:00.002+01:00

Flyer

2012-02-28T15:42:00.000+01:00

Oh yeah, you are so right, I should go and get myself a life =)

I just heard this song on the radio and I had really nothing to do so....

Surely what the most need...

2012-02-27T16:18:00.001+01:00

Crash boom bang

2012-02-26T15:43:00.002+01:00

Last summer

2012-02-22T14:14:00.000+01:00

Having fun with portraits

2012-02-22T14:10:00.001+01:00

Did I ever publish this picture?

2012-02-21T18:08:00.001+01:00

'cause I really love it...

Form color and perspective

2012-02-20T09:43:00.000+01:00

Ronneby, Sweden 2010

Bad news

2012-02-16T15:59:00.002+01:00

Why don't you leave alone?

Starbucks in Malmö

2012-02-16T09:26:00.002+01:00

I was on the way to the school yesterday and as usual I gave a look at the new Starbucks at Malmö's central station. I swear you, I've been waiting quite a while to see the opening. A new coffee place makes me happy and this one, a bit happier than others. Signs say it should open in winter and well, looks like much of a winter to me...

Anyway. I saw an open door and I've been reading Alice in wonderland a couple of times so I knew I had to take a sneak peak. It was open, not officially, but promoting with some free coffee cups (tell you about daring do things, if you see a door open, smash it, get in, check - don't leave wondering =P)

Oh, Sweden, my first Starbucks coffee here almost made me emotional! (So much free advertising from me, I wonder if they send a check at last =P) Anyway, just because I am still a reporter in my heart, I share some of the sneak peak. Poor pictures, totally, taken as fast as possible with my mobile. But here it's how it will look like.

Happy valentine!

2012-02-14T12:20:00.001+01:00

Cinque Terre, Italy, "Via dell'Amore" (on the "Love Way" between Manarola and Corniglia) summer 2010

Listen to my friends...

2012-02-13T10:27:00.001+01:00

...who say sometimes you have to leave a job at a point. Just say "it's done" don't overwork it. I don't feel these two are done really. Something inside says they are not talking 100% my way.

But friends might be right. Sometimes it's ok to leave tings as they are. Don't overwork them.

Goodbye broken angel, we are going to miss you

2012-02-12T15:10:00.000+01:00

No picture today, I just want to say a single thing. Whitney Huston was a part of my childhood and in my teenage life there was a song she played that guided me often. I still feel this song in my hardest day as a little guide. As you know, there are things from our teenage life that -no matter what- they still mean something to us when we are grown up kids.

Now she's gone and I have to say that I am so frustrated. About all this emphasis on drugs that I really don't understand. It's so painful to see it happen all the time. So many talents have left us when they still could have a lot to share. Why that? It's so not necessary at all.

This is my way to remember her today. With her song that meant/still means that much to me

Goodbye Whitney and thanks for sharing your talent with us for a while. Keep on shining in Heaven and thanks for all your songs. Please, if you meet daddy in Heaven, tell him I miss him, tell him I have lots of angels on Earth that help me survive and tell him I am trying to be strong, loving, warming and happy as he taught me to be.

One more thing

Edith Piaf used to say that a song is a combination of well written music and poetry. She meant that turning off the music, you should still keep in your hands words that are beautiful.

I think never ever had Whitney said something as beautiful as that which follows, and so mine for many years. So one last thank you and one last goodbye to a musical friend of my childhood. Just because I do really believe and live in these words

I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can't take away my dignity

Rest in peace, broken angel.

Holy cows!

2012-02-11T21:54:00.001+01:00

(yes, I eventyally made one with a halo too, but hey, there's a limit.... =P)

Somehow funny art in Malmö

2012-02-11T19:17:00.003+01:00

Sometimes it feels like music is still smiling to me

2012-02-10T20:29:00.000+01:00

Why oh why oh why?

2012-02-09T21:29:00.001+01:00

Gosh it's so disturbing with dull people! How hard is it to discuss things with perspective? I was in a forum and -no- I will not tell you which one and where because otherwise it will be giving them credits - and we were discussing the use of lights. You know I am an enthusiast supporter of photographing with avable light. And after sooo many years I can acutally tell I can catch the light.

So now I am interested in discoverying the studio light and I got my self a couple of elinchrom to play with. I thought about talking with other photographers and we got to a point of no return. The discussion was about models and make-up. I know, a neverending story! But I really think make up is something you should use smart or don't use it at all. Better to picture a natural beauty (and hell every person is a natural beauty, I swear) and eventually - thanks life for that! - make some corrections with photoshop or whatever editing program.

I really believe that it is better that way, and I bumped in an arrogant guy who said you must have a loooot of make up if you work in a studio. As much as you can get. I was not really convinced but I just commented it by saying "oh well, how do I know? I am learning now. Working with avable light I can say it is not that big problem to photograph people and avoid a loooot of make up. You can make it look good anyway. Just the way he answered took me to my nerves (quoting: "are you stupid? Noone can be pictured without make up, if you say that, you are not a photographer!" ...you say....) - and then the conversation became the more and more unpleasant. I tried to explain that every kind of skin finds a light that suits, but no way. He knew better.

Believe me, I am not even trying to tell the contrary as to make up. It surely helps. I use it, I ask models to use it. I just can think about not using it and making the picture work anyway.

So just to shut your freaking mouth up. Avaible light, no make up at all. It works! (oh right, and no photoshop on the face either, just in case you wonder. Just a whatever editing program actually a mobile app that makes goofy contour vignetting). Just learn to see the light!

(oh yeah, that's me =P)

Thinking about an old love of mine

2012-02-09T09:25:00.001+01:00

Sleepless in Malmö

2012-02-08T15:55:00.001+01:00

It was full moon over Malmö yesterday. I am sorry if my picture is maybe a bit poor, I had no time to get all the stuffs out and do it better, but I thought this was just too beautiful, I needed to stop everything I was doing and stare for a while. I was not able to ignore it, it required my attention. My what it shines, can you see that? I was feverish and sick but this was spreading light onto my whole flat, it felt like it was calling me, I had to go out and freeze it for the rest of the world to see.

You know how i love to quote songs and movies (hey, it's the art of my time! that's where I feed my soul) so let's take it from Cast Away, a film that deeply influenced me.

"The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself."

It was a darn cold winter night and I insist that neither you or anyone else attempt to recreate or perform anything that implies going out when it is sooo cold. Though, if you live in the hereabouts, I hope you just had the chance to quit whatever you were doing and looked at the beauty of the moon. (Ok, I took a picture for you, so you had your second chance =D)

Ah, la luna la luna. On and on the night fell down on my unfinished job. But that was totally worth the while.

By the way and just because I started mentioning it, the part that influenced me the most in cast away and which I still quote has somehow got charged by a new meaning lately, and therefore I wish to recall it. Part of it anyway.

"Somehow. I had to keep breathing. [...].

So that's what I did. [...] I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. [...]

And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise.

Who knows what the tide could bring?"

I do not talk that much right now on my blog, but all of you know the emptyness in my heart when I heard about Chris wife. Not a day goes by without me hoping and praying for her to get better. That would be my consolation. Though I have some issues when it comes to getting parted from the people who meant that much to me. I miss his humor and support every day. He was my mentor before all the others came. But you know, I learned once that you have to keep on breathing because you never know what the tide will bring you tomorrow. This ocean waving around my life, to keep the metaphor alive - has a kind tide and in my deepest wonder I have to say. Sometimes the tide brings sails. Sometimes it brings diamonds to me.

Hotel rum

2012-02-06T16:19:00.001+01:00

Somewhere, sometime

Lund's cathedral, detail

2012-02-06T04:10:00.004+01:00

Gothic black and white

2012-02-06T03:48:00.002+01:00

Two ways of seeing the same fountain

2012-01-25T19:22:00.000+01:00

The sharp one

The "typical me" one =)

Tramways

2012-01-24T14:05:00.000+01:00

Milan, Italy - Piazza Cordusio dec 2011

A hazy shade of winter

2012-01-17T14:45:00.000+01:00

The picture is not edited, barely taken with a fake-a-macro filter and manual focus. The whole thing was to deceive the lens buy moving the camera while focusing. Hard to explain, easy to do. Just got close to the subject and focus then move slightely and change camera orientation. Everything keeping the same distance from the lens gets in focus, but the fake-a-macro filter has a dull balance and there is the result - the camera is blind, you can let her do quite a lot while she has no idea what you are questioning. That's great about photography. It's your perception and no discussions about it =)

...but I still got the blues for you.

2012-01-16T16:49:00.003+01:00

Three is better than one...or, is it?

2012-01-16T16:13:00.001+01:00

A light in the dark

2012-01-11T10:36:00.002+01:00

Strange trees

2012-01-09T16:38:00.002+01:00

Milano, the cathedral

2012-01-05T20:06:00.002+01:00

Milano in the winter

2012-01-05T20:01:00.001+01:00

The fountain in front of the castle (a detail in the background) on a dizzy, foggy, typical winter day in Milano.
December 2011

Anthony Ausgang for La Rinascente, Milano Italy

2012-01-03T12:37:00.000+01:00

Christmas 2011

Our Christmas Tree

2011-12-22T19:37:00.003+01:00

My beloved Alps

2011-12-19T19:43:00.000+01:00

the waiting

2011-12-19T18:50:00.000+01:00

The subway in Milan tonight

2011-12-19T18:47:00.001+01:00

Christmas Tree

2011-12-08T17:25:00.001+01:00

Yes you can download and use as you wish =)

Black Cat

2011-12-08T17:23:00.001+01:00

Minimalist

2011-11-23T14:36:00.001+01:00

Bokeh

2011-11-15T17:45:00.001+01:00

feels like the sun's going down on me

2011-11-07T16:48:00.002+01:00

Trogir at night

2011-10-31T16:16:00.001+01:00

Will-o'-the-wisp

2011-10-28T17:33:00.000+02:00

And happy halloween week end !

The book is published!

2011-10-27T15:09:00.002+02:00

If you want to buy the book, it is on sale through her stores or on Vivienne Westwood's official website. You find it in the shop among the gifts. Thepublication raises funds for Cool Earth – a charity for whichVivienne is an ambassador.

If you love our planet, buy a copy. Don't buy it for me, because I don't gain anything but the tremendous honour to be one of her photographers. Which is really so much more than I expected the day I decided to become profesional. It really is a tremendous honour!

Support Cool Earth, buy 100 days of active resistance, the perfect gift for next Christmas!

Gothic

2011-10-22T18:23:00.002+02:00

A big moment one week ago

2011-10-21T10:53:00.002+02:00

Reverend Jesse Jackson visits Malmö University, oct. 2011

Dressing the trees

2011-10-19T15:38:00.002+02:00

Model black and white

2011-10-18T23:26:00.003+02:00

Jonki, september 2011
Ängelholm

Feeling romantic

2011-10-13T13:21:00.002+02:00

Black and white update

2011-10-11T13:56:00.003+02:00

Bokskogen, Torup
Sweden
09-10-2011

Those who read my articles remember probably an article on creative photography where I suggest to print pictures on silk paper.Mulberry I think it's called in English. That's how this picture turned out on a white Mulberry:

Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees, the flowers and the trees....

2011-10-10T13:25:00.002+02:00

A flower in Malmö

2011-10-07T22:47:00.000+02:00

Autumn in Malmö

2011-10-07T14:53:00.001+02:00

Edit for fun

2011-10-07T02:33:00.000+02:00

Banister mouse

2011-10-05T10:59:00.004+02:00

Still answering to Håkan's picture, this time he published this

http://foto.dahlstroms.com/2011/10/05/umbrella-chimpanzee/

An answer

2011-10-03T16:01:00.000+02:00

to my friend Håkan who published this http://foto.dahlstroms.com/2011/10/03/speaking-in-tongues

Krka national park, Croatia, its wonderful landscape

2011-10-02T19:12:00.001+02:00

If there is a place to fall in love with, that is Krka in Croatia.
Picture taken 2011,08

I made a tilt-shift style miniature without photoshop!

2011-10-02T18:39:00.000+02:00

I swear over my holy bones that no photoshop is involved. I just made some minor corrections to white balance in Camera Raw and that's it. It really looks like a miniature and I did it with my camera and some patience last summer. My oh my, that's being proud of myself!

Bowing to the sun

2011-10-02T13:47:00.000+02:00

Slottsträdgården, Malmö

Turning torso and I

2011-10-02T10:37:00.002+02:00

Slottsträdgården today

2011-09-30T19:09:00.000+02:00

Malmö, Slottsträdgården, Kungsparken 2011-09-30

Great autumn in Malmö this year!

Square at night

2011-09-28T15:02:00.000+02:00

Bol, isle of Brac, Croatia 08-2011
Oh yeah, this picture is acutally edited some couple of times =)

And here som more, tried to correct lines and made a crop on the whole composition. So now I cannot choose my fave =)

Krka, the waterfalls

2011-09-28T11:17:00.000+02:00

Croatia, 08/2011

Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant

2011-09-27T15:22:00.001+02:00

Split, Croatia 08/2011

Flowers in the night

2011-09-26T14:24:00.002+02:00

Lübeck

2011-09-22T15:02:00.003+02:00

Dancers

2011-09-21T13:16:00.002+02:00

So easy and still somehow impressive...

2011-09-18T21:02:00.003+02:00

ain't that boring finally? Or does it still have a charm?

Exactly the way I look in these days

2011-09-16T00:08:00.000+02:00

Sweet meeting

2011-09-15T17:56:00.000+02:00

As it feels today

2011-09-15T13:42:00.003+02:00

A whole new world through the window

2011-09-14T17:15:00.001+02:00

The most wonderful things are often hidden

2011-09-13T16:41:00.003+02:00

09/11

2011-09-11T13:42:00.001+02:00

Not so many people know that I lost a penpal on 09/11. I wrote this poem shortly after I understood the dimension of what was happening in New York and quite close to the moment I read that my friend was there no more. By those time I was in Holland and I remember me and my friend Marc watching at the first attack on a tv outside a shopwindow. The poem came to my mind once back in Italy.

I wrote it and it got eventually published for an American publishing house 2007. This publishing house has disappeared, I cannot find them so i guess they went bankrupt or something.

Ten years after that day I wish that all my friends who follow my blog read it.

She has some rock'n'roll shoes

2011-09-10T18:25:00.000+02:00

She is September

2011-09-10T18:14:00.001+02:00

Malmöfestivalen 2011

A butterfly

2011-09-09T15:56:00.000+02:00

Military plane and the German sky

2011-09-09T15:41:00.003+02:00

picture taken through the car glass on the way to Regensburg 2011-07-28

symmetry and variations

2011-09-08T14:18:00.001+02:00

As easy as I could make it

Inspirational

2011-09-07T12:35:00.002+02:00

Pareidolia? What the hell?

2011-09-06T14:26:00.004+02:00

I made a translation of some things I did for my education for my beloved friend Chris and he had some kind of lyric reaction to something I wrote. I suggested a way to develope the photographical observation of things. Part of my interest is to make people more self-confident with rethorical figures, which by the way are deadly common in commercial pictures. Secondly I am interested in using them to let my students understand that you need a solid theoretical education to have more fun with your camera. Or better said: you are going to get twice that fun you feel now, if you put behind your job a well aware theoritcal education. It is highly against the general tendency which is more like choosing action without consciousness. More and more choose to learn by doing instead of combining learning by doing with knowledge of all possibilities. Just see how many refuse to get an academic education and go for a mentor. Not that I think one is wrong and one is right. I am convinced that both works, but I adored the way I developed and I can't see why it has to be out of fashion. And I promote learning by doing too. Just give you some suggestions on what you can learn by doing. Are you with me?

Anyway

So I made this short thing and described Pareidolia. In this case I use a psychological phenomenon rather than a real rethorical figure such as paradox or synecdoche which are also easy to understand and help developing creativity through making a photographer aware of the many possibilities in general communication systems.

The easiest way to understand what pareidolia means is to tell you. What is a smiley? You will probably answer: a round thing that looks like a face.

Well, that is pareidolia. A psykological phenomenon involving a random stimulous being perceived as significant. Have you ever played with your friends looking at the clouds and trying to name what they look like? Pareidolia again.
Have you ever heard talking about a face on the moon, or on mars? Pareidolia. Do you see a happy face when you look at a smiley? Pareidolia.
The word comes from the Greek para "alongside"—meaning, in this context, something faulty and eidōlon "image", "form", "shape".

What I suggest is to look around and try to find things that looks like faces, or anything else than what things actually are. Like a cloud that looks like a dog, some pennies thrown on the table that looks like a boat, whatever. Just try to see other than the simple object infront of you.

It is just a way to train the eyes, there are other ways to develope observation, but this work astonishing good with beginners. It's funny and you don't need to travel a long way to find something. I always get a picture of a granter that looks like a quite disappointed face. It has become a classic.

Chris thought it was such a great idea that I made a translation here for all my readers. If someone can get inspired, why not?

I can give you some exemples to look at and get inspired. Some motives are stronger than others. I can see things that you do not see in a picture, exactly the same way you can see a dog in a cloud but your friends near you don't see the same thing at all. Sorry to repeat myself, but a smiley is a really strong exempel. It works worldwide, people see eyes and mouth in that coloured circle and connect it with a face.

Ex gratia, I see a face here, right on the helmet. Don't you?

Miss Li, Malmöfestivalen

2011-08-31T22:50:00.000+02:00

For some reasons that I cannot explain I do really adore these two pictures. I want to use the first one to make some astonishing editing. Stay tuned =)

Ghost, Malmöfestivalen 2011

2011-08-30T18:59:00.000+02:00

Walking on starshine

2011-08-30T18:19:00.003+02:00

Hanging in the air

2011-08-30T12:08:00.000+02:00

Thinking about perspective...

2011-08-26T18:44:00.000+02:00

... and that's the other one.

2011-08-24T14:47:00.000+02:00

...but there I decided that the water wasn't such a safe place to be....

That's the small friend I met that you've heard about....

2011-08-24T14:41:00.000+02:00

Trogir, Croatia

2011-08-16T17:50:00.000+02:00

Krka, the waterfalls

2011-08-15T12:41:00.000+02:00

Dad and the girl

2011-08-13T13:53:00.000+02:00

That's what my eyes see now

2011-08-03T20:19:00.000+02:00

...life could be worse...

The best joke of the day

2011-08-02T19:28:00.000+02:00

I am in Split, Dalmatia (Croatia) and going around the old Democletian's palace I saw 2 centurions. Centurions in Croatia? Ok, it's an old Roman town, it's an old part of the Republic of Venice, I don't see gondolas.... Should not Roman centurions only be in Rome?

I called my brother who's better than me in history and asked him
"what are centurions doing in Split all at once?"

and he answered

"what the hell do I know, they're likely on holiday"

I am still laughing

Snapshots om kroatiska poliser mm för svenska polisvänner och polisintresserade läsare

2011-07-30T00:41:00.001+02:00

(inga poliser, det går för sig...)

Banandans? =)

2011-07-30T00:14:00.000+02:00

Regensburg (more to come =P)

2011-07-28T23:34:00.000+02:00