I like the lil' bottles

Late autumn rains have some use after all... they encourage imagination indoors!

Red and Round

Actually one of the photos (see the rest of them here, latest seven photos) in a specific project. Sounds rather grand, that word, but Vastavalo, the photo bureau I'm a member of, has a section for customer requests: if someone is looking for a specific kind of picture, a request is posted in the section, asking photographers to offer such pictures among their work that fit the specifications. Then the list is sent to the customer, and he/she picks the picture/pictures he/she likes (if any). On monday, someone was looking for a picture to be used as an artwork on living room wall: preferably abstract but not absolutely necessary, two colours, grey and red, should have a largish, roundish thing in red. Quite a few photographers posted their suggestions. At first I thought I wouldn't have anything to offer, but then I got a large red cup, some tomatoes and some grey cardboard for background and started experimenting. Not exactly abstract but it was immensely enjoyable and quite inspiring too to play around with the "ingredients".

Using what is at hand

The two pictures in this blog post you might find depressing, but that is sort of the point: the idea was to capture that 70's concrete suburban mood. They were taken at the mall just across the big road nearby.


As it happens, I do live in a suburb but I don't find it at all depressing. On the contrary it's a brilliant place to live: the sea all around, the woods, places of historical interest in the form of an area with several old, ruined summer villas and a rather fine early 19th century manor not too far away (now a museum), good connections to the city - which will get better after the new tram line, supposed to run on a tall bridge across the water, is finished in 2014. The suburb doesn't have much concrete either. Just the mall is an authentic 70's mall - in outlay and general lack of colour even if some of the buildings are a bit more recent. Which gets me to my subject: I'm rather fond of the idea of letting the circumstances direct my choice of themes and methods of photography. It was cloudy, foggy and rainy today. Not a weather for, say, beautiful sea sceneries. PERFECT weather for depressing suburban scenes like these. Grey concrete isn't sufficient for creating the desired effect on its own if the sky isn't right. For example, brilliant sunlight and blue skies would change the mood completely, because not even the ugliest of human inventions, concrete, can resist the transmuting power of the sun.


Why do I want to take depressing suburban concrete pictures then? It's one form of reality - depressing suburbia. That's one reason. More important is... I'm not really interested in capturing "reality" in terms of documenting it. I'm more interested in trying to capture what whatever is it that catches my attention makes me think. As to what catches my attention, I try to keep an access-all-areas mind, not to get stuck with a limited range of things.

Hm, is this pretentious nonsense? Well if it is, so be it! I liked writing it.

A Shopping Cart's Odyssey