Out of Water // Baby Belly Session

In September I asked my expecting friend out for a photographic adventure. Actually, I visited her at home, in her bathroom, in her bath. There's many inspiring images floating on Pinterest you know - it was time (and opportunity) to try out recreating them and let some fantasy flow. Here's what we did: got some milk, got some milk powder, got some blossoms, green branches and a light sheer dress. The bath tub full of warm milky water covering pinkish flowers looked so tempting and magical - here's a few bits of hour cooperative result.

Pregnancy is a very personal matter, if not THE most personal mater at all - no need to say or question it. That's why I am so overall happy and grateful to the women and couples, who open up to this topic - sharing their birth stories, strengths, pain, difficulties, joy, complication or advice. All together they are making the topic of birth more human again, bringing the experience of birth back to it's natural roots and unbinding it from a purely clinical matter. Even for the ones who are more selective with sharing - I know they feel better about themselves and their decisions after getting inspired by private stories made public on personal blogs. I know that they get calmer about the yet unknown first-time body experiences, becoming a parent at the same time and the emotional firework or overload it brings with it.

I am grateful that the action of birth in general has very much changed since I myself was born in the Soviet regime Lithuania; that here in Germany there's a freedom of choice how to give birth to ones child in comparison to nowadays outdated Lithuanian limitations where private midwifes are haunted like black magic evil witches; and I am grateful for having inspiring friends who don't mind opening up, sharing their beautiful stories and contributing to a general knowledge of natural beauty and a lifestyle free of disgust, scepticism or body alienation.

Here are a few stories, that completely opened up my view and let my knowledge grow immensely. I will forever be thankful to these courageous people around the globe for letting me follow their stories and set myself free in my yet to come future decisions: the story of Alba, the story of Roo, the wonderful short movie Mild Witchcraft and the photographer of births / mother of three Georgia.

The topic and all the grand magic behind pregnancy and birth will always be my kind of topic which I never get tired of being curious about. Photographing it is yet another terrain waiting for the opportunities to be explored.

October Waves // Wallpaper Giveaway

Recently, I read an inspiring note, rather a love letter all dedicated to Autumn and it’s wonderful vibes, the heaps of inspiration it brings and the time where magic happens. And I couldn’t believe the different perceptions that people might have at this very same time of the year whereas I myself am the antonym of that love letter, feeling nothing else but the tragic death of my wonderful soulmate Summer.

When October comes, almost exactly counting 12 o’clock at midnight, the season of darkness and frost kicks in to my subconsciousness and I feel like I should lock up the door that very minute and put the key away somewhere safely till April comes again. In this time of the year I would like to sit (and sleep) at the fireplace, cook stews and cakes and cookies, read books, light candles and listen to lots and lots of music, even better - play and sing along with a little circle of likeminded folks. Wet shoes, snow storms, howling wind - all behind the light string lit window. With one exception - taking a wonderful long walk on a sunny frosty Christmas Day, layers upon layers of snow included. But mostly I feel the urge to hibernate like an exemplary nordic bear in the wintertime. Also, relocate my house somewhere close to a forest and a mountain side, please. That’s my ideal off-season dream to which I absolutely could write blocks of love letters with sketches and drawings.

But meanwhile, my eyes have to get used to the big amounts of unnatural light, and there better be plenty of light. My body goes through a few rough days of temperature adaptation, my nose practically doesn’t stop running and my mood is left on a playground swing. All I want to say is, that given the circumstances of a life in a city - it is a tough month for me, it's a time for adaptation and acceptance, a mental and physical preparation for frequent light change / temperature change / diet change on daily basis, which leads to a few weeks of confused moods for a little while.

Luckily, my dear friend Sevda once again read my thoughts across thousands of kilometres away and asked me in a message ‘do you know hygge?’ as if that would be a friend of hers whom I should finally meet. In addition, she sent me this wonderful article summing up my needs, feelings and urges into one danish cozy lifestyle word - hygge. There’s also this word ‘koselig’ - in Norwegian, a German equivalent to ‘kuschelig’, meaning nothing less cute than cuddly. I highly recommend this article as a therapeutic strategy to embrace the upcoming wintertime.

And even though we are half way through the month, I took some time two create two desktop wallpaper versions for October. Feel free to enlarge and download them. Otherwise you can find them here. Enjoy the cold time of the year embracing its indoor perks, practicing hygge straight away.

Inspiration Heaps // Blue Hour Picnic

I will write you how it really went. Manuel and I have been planing to meet up for a photo session long before meeting in person. Sending each other pinboards with inspiring photos of wonderful photographers via messenger we seemed to be planing a huge thing there - with body paint, with plants, with glitter, with smoke, mirrors, blankets, coal.. But when the day came to meet up (after postponing or cancelling it for a great amount of times) I got all indecisive and that said - simply lacking any inspiration or focus at all for the kind of scenery I wished to produce. Last second we decided to get the bus to the riverside and combine our artistic evening with a picnic. Until we got to the right spot, the perfect sunset hour just slipped out of our sights, though not stopping us from playing around with the light leftovers.There were bike riders passing by the place we sat at the water, the big field of meadow got all silent, fresh and moist after the dew had fallen. We took the given freedom - in no rush having a french style baguette-cheese-tomato dinner between the tall grass, then running around the empty fields, experimenting with smoke bombs, LED lights. Back then though I thought "what a pity - I have this beautiful evening, wonderful people but no ideas in my head". But the way my friend models were relaxed changed the flow of the evening into a magical result, at least for me.

I realised just shortly before the session that it's a very different thing all together to photograph a man as the main subject. I have rarely done it for a variety of reasons - women tend to join me in a session faster or on more simple ways than men, I guess. Also, it's a different message when you combine let's say flower blossoms with a girl than with a man (see, there's no link there for that kind of a session because I simply haven't done it yet, and I wish I had! though it was hard in the past - I remember I once tried placing an ex-lover in front of a blossom bush. He gave me 3 minutes. And after never again.)

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It was wonderful - a closing session like this of the warm sleeveless season and birkenstocked feet in the fields. Inspiration isn't always there, sometimes you have to gently invite her to come over, no force though. It's like a campsite cup: you hold it up, maybe it'll be filled with something delicious, maybe not, come anything - be grateful. Only when you don't have the right time for her - inspiration is aggressively there, annoying and teasing. Sometimes you just need this one shot to get your artsy ego happy for the night. At least we were more picnicking, laughing and joking than forcing anything. And after all - things just happened. And I'm thankful to the Fairy of All Beautiful for putting the right props together for me in the one right shutter speed moment.

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Thank you my two older and newer friends. By the way - Manuel is a starting out model and Maren is the heart of her fox band. Some tech details: shot with Nikon D7000 + Sigma Art 35mm f1,4

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