fuji versus polaroid

this post is a belated answer for jane (from the blog nearness of distance). she posted once about the instant film camera from fuji - fuji instax; i have one too. mine is not so good looking as the one in her post. and the pictures are... hm.. well... as a hardcore polaroid-fan i'm not really convinced.
polaroid's just the best! ahhh........

polaroid sx-70

fuji instax

the textile giraffe is a fleamarket find.

l'homme qui aimait les femmes

if i had a shop for selling beautiful things (something like this one),
i would have an open cupboard with a little filmothéque where people could borrow (or perhaps buy) my choice of dvd's.
i would earn nothing on that (it is not my intention to become a dvd-seller); i would do it for pure satisfaction of presenting my choice of good films :)

since i discovered the pleasure of making screenshots, i added a new category: "dvd" on my blog, and from time to time i will introduce here some great films.
well, "introduce" is too much of promise. i don't think i have enough time and energy for writing reviews (besides, information about a film is easy to be found on the web).

i'd rather pick some snapshots like raisins from the pie (MY raisins, of course) ;)
for example,

man who loved women, a film of francois* truffaut, year 1977.

monsieur truffaut, the director himself, to be seen for a second in the first minutes of the film, as he watches the catafalque passing by...
in the catafalque lays the main character of the film, bertrand. he reminds me of the main character in milan kundera's the unbearable lightness of being (1984). was kundera inspired by truffaut?


i think it was gerard depardieu who said that there is a cat in every film of truffaut.
from now on i'll pay attention and search for a cat every time i watch another of his films.
but as for man who loved women - yes, there it is!

the cat appears in the most romantic scene (in my opinion): bertrand having breakfast in bed with the editor; she's telling him about the first moments of desire she sensed yet before they became lovers (a very feminine retrospective ;)... she brings the tray outside the door of the hotel room, still speaking, and then there is this black cat who appears from nowhere, and licks on some leftovers.


what a ring! mmm


or - what about this outfit?
very stylish. very seventies.


and the episode with the crying little girl in the bright red dress!


* sorry, i cannot type that special french "c" (with "tail") on my keyboard.

all screenshots from this dvd.

clothes-pins

this is a hallo to lisa congdon and her ingenious blog-project called a collection a day (the post day 6)!

the pre-owner of these clothespins was my mom, i asked her if i could take some with me as i was on my holidays "back home" in latvia a couple of summers ago.
my mom is really surprised sometimes about all the "impossible trash" i'm taking home ;)
well, i love the simple functional form of the pins and their patina - a perfect finish made by wind, sun and weather.
i think they go well with the pebbles found on the riverbank near my house.

rag doll

seen in riga (in an appartment i once told about)

PS: april 19, 2010: laurent lambert, a NY-based artist got inspired by this doll and made his interpretation of it!

my famous lounge chairs

i have to admit - they were not my find but that of my husband - accidentally he read an announcement on the pinboard in the entrance of a supermarket, and we went to see what it's all about. the seller was a couple of our age, going to open a hotel in croatia, and "throwing the ballast overboard". they had a garage well-stocked up to the ceiling full of trash and vintage. these lounge chairs were the best of it all, and as we were actually looking for something like that for the evenings in front of our fire-place drinking a glas of wine, having a good conversation or just reading... we took them with us.
they are really cosy. if we'd move they would definately come with us.
the previous owners didn't know the exact age or manufacturer, they estimated it being a product of the 20s, and asserted that they bought them on a fleamarket in france.


months later i discovered exactly the same lounge chair in an interior-decoration book*, originally a french edition.
and...

... what's even more exiting - some days ago i discovered "my" lounge chair watching truffault's l'homme qui aimait les femmes (1977)! they can be seen there only for a fraction of a second, unfortunately...


et voilà un petit bonhomme qui aimait les livres ;)


credits: * home coaching: flohmarkt-(t)räume, sabine alaguillaume, tandem verlag. original edition: déco à vivre - brocante, groupe fleurus, paris 2008.
third picture is a screenshot from a dvd with the film of francois truffault l'homme qui aimait les femmes ("the man who loved women").
pic 2 and 4 are digital.


PS (jan.8, 10): thank you, dear indre (alias frau mima), for finding another one of "my" chairs - at the gallery of moomah!!

picture from moomah

the world's on fire

doesn't it look like snapshots from a faraway war? made hastily by some adventureous and certainly brave war journalist?



sure, it was last night. the first fireworks for the little ones (jonathan fell asleep all the other new year eves of his life)
there's this ambivalence in it all: i do like fireworks, but at the same time... there is this noise that reminds me of all the war scenes i've ever seen on the tv. and it makes me think...

how will it be, the year 2010?
2009 was a very good year for me. and i feel a little weakness coming up, something like being superstitious - is it possible to have two good years in a row?


anyway, whoever you are, reading this, i wish you all the best for your next year.
be curious, be searching. be brave.


ps: these are one of the first images with my digital nikon(D300), i'm trying to get friends with it ;)

last preparations/ blue and golden

(another "looking back" - these are pictures from the last couple of years)


to all: thank you so much!! danke schön für all' die guten wünsche!
i would say "and the same for you too" but christmas is over ;) anyway..

looking back

no, these are not my images.
it's 1973 and i'm a bit older than a year (or perhaps two - it depends on whether it was the winter 1972/1973 or the winter 1973/1974, nobody knows anymore).
the photographer is my brother who's 12 or 13 at that time. these pictures are taken with tschaika, old soviet super-mini-format camera: the frame is 24 x 18 mm, and the quality reminds me of some super-8 film (in cinematography)...
this year christmas time and snow makes me want to look back. i'm searching for old images, those of my brother, and my own - winters of the years passed by... if i only had more time to "dig" in the archives......


these pictures tune me blue - this is the house of my childhood, it doesn't exist anymore, it was torn down ten years ago (the street had to be made a bit wider once more). it is still a scenery in many of my dreams.


credits: photos: guntars jansons --- camera: tschaika, film: diapositive, orwo (?)

a place for 4 candles

adventskranz. advent wreath. a place to put in 4 candles symbolising the four advent sundays. "wreath" implies fir twigs, i guess.
well, not necessarily for me ;)


some three years ago our advent "wreath" was: four candles in the form of a fish on a cake stand full of coarse sugar, decorated with some bright red glass hearts.




last year i bought a steel framework for advent candles to be hung from the ceiling. and i admit, first i did think of "wrapping" the staple in fir twigs, then decorating it with some christmas tree decorations.
but somehow i liked the lightness of this "construction", so fir twigs were left in the woods.


these christmas tree decorations are very special ones - my mom bought them in the early 60s in riga, they were the precious IMPORT from czechoslovakia or eastern germany (my mom doesn't remember anymore). they are part of my childhood memories. now as i've grown-up, my mom allowed me to inherit them ;)




this year our advent wreath looks like a warm-coloured bunch of candles: there are the four big ones and in between them - lots of small christmas tree candles, put in another inherited treasure from my faraway home.
these candlestick holders are another memory from my childhood's christmas trees, but until a couple of days ago i didn't even know that my father remembers them from HIS childhood! so they're at least from the 30s, if not even older. they're made of pine cones, acorns and haselnuts, some of them covered with golden, silver or bronze paint.

just another winter morning

credits: text fragments (next to the last picture) by indre zetzsche. --- tableware: plates by dibbern, knives: vintage wmf. --- advent calender: philippi, design by christian von ahn. --- pictures are taken with polaroid SX-70 camera on 600-film using ND filtre.


replies (dec.17): @jane: thank you for your mail too. but i still have no idea what to answer on your question. all i understand is, that the 600-er film is much faster than the original sx-70 film (but that's not available anymore), and the filter compensates the difference. how much it is, i cannot say. just that the pictures look almost the same now as if they were sx-70-film...
@ all: thank you for letting me know what associations and feelings this little series awaken in you, that's so nice to hear!
@mano: oh.. wenn das kein kompliment ist!!! danke schön! na dann... muss man ja da was machen ;) ich arbeite schon dran, dauert noch etwas.... aber ein paar postkarten wären schon jetzt zu haben. melde dich, wenn du welche noch dieses jahr möchtest!: ieva(at)jansone-photo.de