The two days and one night in Latvia with Kylie

I'm finally back in London and finally there's a moment for personal blogging. So, I'll be quick with this one.It was nearly two weeks ago when I arrived in Latvia's capital Riga, and the first thing I did, was having beer and nibbles at the city hall with the rather new mayor of Riga Jānis Birks, celebrating the now gone Midsummer Day.In these two days I met so many Estonians on the streets of Riga, that it could have been easily Tallinn instead. There were familiar faces on every few meters and in every pub, bar or restaurant.Two days is enough, though, to take the most of Riga. That included eating in the national fast food restaurant Lido (the best food in town and probably the best value as well), "swimming" in the Baltic Sea in Jurmala and of course clubbing in the best clubs in town. I would write more about it, but I kind of forgot by now... :)Oh and of course the reason for going to Riga in the fist place. Kylie Minogue and her X2008 tour. It's a pity I couldn't bring my camera in even with the VIP wrist band, but I did have a chance of a close encounter back stage after the show was over. All this thanks to Reno of course, who did the PR for the whole concert. The show too a while to start off properly, but when it finally did, it was difficult to stop it and the people were absolutely mad for Kylie. Poor girl had to sing several extra songs of which the very last one was completely unscheduled, she just loved the public so much! My favourite bit of the show was the huge diamond skull hanging from the sealing on which Kylie had positioned herself smoothly while singing a dance version of Slow. Loved it!

Holiday of joy and fun for Victor and for me

I should be so lucky especially for you, as I'm spinning around on a night like this where the wild roses grow. Your disco needs you, butterfly, 2 hearts in your eyes. I can't get you out of my head chocolate, I believe in you! Wow! Slow!If this didn't make any sense, then the next sentence will. I'm flying off to Latvia for one night only to see Kylie live in Riga. I should worry about my carbon foot print, but I figured, as I don't own a car, I can afford to fly around a bit more frequently than most people. Anyway, my friends are already in Riga and it will be great to see them again! Besides, it must be more than five years since I last visited Latvia's capital...I'll be back in London on Saturday night, but there'll be only enough time to pick up my suitcase and drag myself back to the airport, as Víctor and I are off to a week-long holiday on Tenerife! It might get a little quiet here on my blog while we'll be enjoying the sun, the sea and the volcano! Come back to see the photos, though!

Another shoot with Gísli

The last shoot with Gisli Betuel was good, but this one was even better. the aspiring model is on his way up and hopefully we'll see more of him sometime soon! The shoot took place at a modern estate in Old Street where we found these amazing red machine parts and used them as props. Love the randomness of this!

Darren is showing off his moves

Yesterday's photo shoot with the dancer Darren Murphy was quick and successful, just the kind of work that makes me happy even after a stressful period of several projects and illness. The shoot took place around Hoxton and Shoreditch. The are is just amazingly diverse when it comes to interesting locations and cool backgrounds, like the massive wall of graffiti.

Time to refresh with Millbank Interiors

The latest advert for Millbank Interiors is out now and you can find it in the July issue of GT magazine. The design has a new fresh look to it and for the first time I haven't used the red colour of the logo. You can find all the previous designs and more information on the London's longest running gay building company on their web site at www.millbankinteriors.com.

An English Saturday in London

Last Saturday was a special one. I dragged Sindy out early in the morning with a simple plan of visiting the Summer Exhibition 2008 in the Royal academy of Arts, but finally we managed to stay the better part of the day west of Piccadilly Circus. This is quite an achievement for someone who lives in East London and doesn't usually shop on New Bond Street or go clubbing in Mayfair. Anyway, here's how our little day trip to the West commenced.The Summer Exhibition at the Academy is a unique show that takes place annually. Unique because, as far as i understand, anybody of the general public can submit their work for the show and it ranges from paintings to architecture and photography to sculpture. All in all, it's massive! Most of it is not very memorable, but every wall seems to have at least a few very interesting peaces of art and lots of good ideas. Surprisingly, most of it has been sold and the prices are quite... professional. Something to look for at the exhibition is Tracey Emin's work. It's sexed up and disturbing (nothing new from her, of course), yet intriguing.Our next stop was across the road in a hidden courtyard where the new White Cube sits. If Hitler Had Been a Hippy How Happy We Would Be is the title of Jake & Dinos Chapman's exhibition. It's had a lot of press due to the exhibited original paintings by Adolf Hitler, which the Chapmans bought and modified by adding rainbows and other colourful elements. Some argue the paintings are not originals and some say it's tasteless to promote a mass murderer as a lost talent. Apparently Hitler wasn't accepted to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, so he went on to become a politician and end up murdering millions of people. These paintings are rather boring anyway and the real work of art is Fucking Hell. It's a miniature world of what a Nazi hell would look like. It took four years to make it and it's overwhelming. It's also impossible to describe, so just go see it either in White Cube or later in Italy where it's new home will be.The third and last stop on our tour was the Wallace Collection, which is housed in a pompous house off Oxford Street. The house itself is a piece of art and the collection is amazingly rich. Their most famous exhibit is, of course, The Swing by Fragonard. In their little courtyard there's a cafe/restaurant where Sindy and I decided to be extra posh and have an English afternoon tea (you have to pronounce it as if there's a hot potato in your mouth)!

Photographing the rising star in literature

Marcus is writing a book that is due to be published in May 2009. Seams like enough time to finish the book and get it printed, but things are not so simple in the UK. especially when you have a contract with the biggest publishing house in the country. So, the photos for the book and essentially for the papers and other promotional publicity had to be taken quite early. As the theme of the book will be rather dark and moody, then the images are following the same pattern. I'll write about this project once again when the book is out. Stay tuned!

The London Muffin Tour

Victor and i had an excellent idea the other day. His friend Louis loves muffins and we've found some interesting ones around central London, so we came up with the idea of having a Muffin Tour. Rather like bar-hopping, but instead we would hop through places that sell muffins. :)Our tour started today at the fancy Fortnum & Mason department store on Piccadilly Street. Their rather poor variety of muffins included delicious white chocolate & raspberry muffin and pecan & caramel muffin. Apparently the company that provided them with savoury muffins has gone bankrupt. That's a pity.

Out second and most important stop was the Curzon Soho cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue, where Konditor & Cook are selling the best muffins I have ever had! The flavour is spinach & parmesan! It's green and salty and über delicious.Our third and final stop took us to the Salad Bar in Neil's Yard to end our tour with their carrot & coconut muffin. On the way we saw many other interesting places for the next culinary tour. Meanwhile we popped into the Cybercandy in Covent Garden to buy some chocolate coated crickets and maggots (which are not as tasty as it sounds), and also a supermarket in the China Town to purchase chili sweet and wasabi peas.

I love (gay) weddings!

Bless them! Marcus and Landis are now married! And it was one of the sweetest ceremonies I've ever been to - small but colourfully decadent and full of love! One of the key reasons for the success was probably the theme of the wedding, which was inspired by Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette and the solid white chocolate skull on top of the wedding cake on the next photo! The boys, of course, are both fun, so their friends are fun, so the party was fun. Very simple, isn't it!

Free ballet, anybody?

Someone at The Royal Opera and BP has had a wonderful idea of showing ballet and opera live on 10 big screens all over the country. Personally, the last time I saw ballet was more than half of my life ago, so I guess it was a bout time to reintroduce myself to this classic way of storytelling. What better way is there to do so, than for free, outside, while having a picnic with friends!?The season kicked off with the ballet of Romeo & Juliet, direct from the Royal Opera house, for us in the Canada Sq park in Canary Wharf, surrounded by glass-and-steel skyscrapers. Right after Mariin mentioned that this must be the ugliest Romeo she's ever seen, it was announced that the dancer, Viacheslav Samodurov, was born in Tallinn. Ironic. Read more about the free events this summer.

Stu's birthday BBQ

Melon ladle, Russian chocolate and theatre tickets, and look how happy Stuart is for his birthday presents! The BBQ was wonderful and we were lucky with the weather. Harrow is darn far, though. It felt like going on holiday at the sea! When I finally got there, I was jet lagged for at least an hour :)
Lot's of gorgeous food and pretty, happy people, not to mention the never ending choice of wine, made this Saturday worth to remember (if I only could after all this wine!). After all, it was also the last day to drink legally on the public transport in London, so once I got back to Piccadilly Circus, my new best friend Blue Nun and I were hardly standing up.

Play Snake with the house

What an excellent idea! This was made in Poland and besides playing Snake with the house, they've done some other pretty amazing stuff there. One of their videos is more than 10 min long! Can someone find out for me how it's done?

Meeting the great French musician

The messy guy on my right is Sébastien Tellier, the French musician and multi-instrumentalist who represented France at Eurovision this year. Thanks to my friends JC and Steve I knew Tellier's music already something like 7 years ago and have loved it ever since!Tellier's music is art. If you haven't heard any of it before, go find some now. The guy is slighlt mad, I guess, or simply so easy-going that you simply have to respect him. At this party, where the photo was taken, he ended up drinking so much that he covered his face completely with his hair and put the sunglasses on top, looking like a Bigfoot ready for a beach.
photo by Liis Treimann

I ♥ London!

It's so good to be finally back in London! What could be better than someone eagerly waiting?! For these two days I've done nothing but smiled. :)

Belgrade after the Eurovision vol.3

This is my last post about Serbia and Belgrade as I'm happily back in London! These 10 days were fantastic, but it's good to be back. I had great time and met wonderful people and I guess I was lucky enough not to lose my wallet or get beaten up on the street for being gay/from EU. This did happen to some of my friends, though. Anyway, I'll keep this short. Enjoy the photos of Zemun, which is now a suburb of Belgrade, but used to be a separate town some time ago. It's an old Austro-Hungarian village kind of settlement and feels as if completely from another world compared to the rest of Belgrade. Picturesque and quiet with it's old houses and restaurants along the Danube, it's wort spending the better part of a day there.

Belgrade after the Eurovision vol.2

Although Serbia is landlocked, they still have a beach in Belgrade and it's awesome! And I'm not talking about only the weather, but also the liveliness and business of the Sunday afternoon Liis and i spent there. The beach is on the Ada island in river Sava just south of the city centre, and the water was refreshingly mild.
And here's my lovely companion, the Estonian Photographer of the Year 2007, Liis Treimann. Funnily, we had many common subjects to talk about - namely photography and cute guys, while toasting ourselves in the 30 degree heat. She was also more than ready to pose for me in the name of capturing some local hotties over her shoulder. Love her! :)

Rum Bum

Would you care to try some exotic sweets from Serbia? Have a Rum Bum! I must say, they're quite delicious!

Belgrade after the Eurovision vol.1

A local star at a local carnival. People are happy in this town. They smile, they sing and they dance on the street. The cafes and restaurants are full of people. The old guys in the park are playing chess, the ladies are gossiping on the perch and everybody looks healthy if not outright fit and muscular. Beautiful people, these Serbs.
The Belgrade Zoo is full of beautiful albino animals starting with this peacock and the lion.
And another interesting subject in front of my lens. Marko has just been to Greece, which is why his tan is amazingly intense, bringing out hundreds of freckles and turning his hair white. Only the northern Europeans have that natural talent!

Finally, it's over. 12 points went to Russia

So, Russia won the Eurovision Song Contest, finally. Dima Bilan's second try with the song Believe was successful and all the cameras will be sent to Moscow the next year.
Drama queen(s). Why exactly people like this song, I don't know. It's so over performed, over produced and quite boring. But also extremely popular. Congratulations anyway.
Russia and Ukraine, both happy.
Not just a photographer, but a reporter as well. Not. But I did give a short interview to some TV station. They asked my opinion on the results of the competition and I was very honest. I said I was utterly disappointed that France didn't win, but then again, the general public has never really had good taste. I also said that it's alright that Russia won as otherwise I wouldn't have any reason to go to Moscow, so maybe next year I will. :)