My first photo exhibition

The part-time course in black and white photography and darkroom techniques that I've been taking at the University of Jönköping has now come to an end. Our group is celebrabing this by exhibiting at Jönköpings gamla rådhuset, the old town hall in Hovrättstorget on the main shopping street of Jönköping. It's a great central location for us in an interesting building built in 1699.

Each member of the group has chosen 2 photos each to display, which in some way should compliment or support each other - a so called diptych. We had the opening on 29 May and the exhibition is on until June 10. See a few shots from the opening day here.

Such a cool photograph of my father, taken on the RAF base in Sudan, when he 24 years old. Restored using photoshop.

Virtual framing

Frosty berries, taken in December 2009 and framed in Photoshop

Back in the day

The snow is finally melting, but this was a winter that is going to talked about for a long time. But today my thoughts turned to summer when I was playing around with a few photos that I'd taken a couple of years ago on a beautiful June summer's day. Alice and I had taken the ferry over to the island of Visingsö on lake Vättern and had rented bikes to cycle around.

My digital SLR was still a new toy, and very few minutes I'd had to stop and take a few shots. Unfortunately, as is the fate of many of my photos, they have ever since remained unseen on my hard drive. That is until today, when I decided to play around in Photoshop to try and give a few of my snaps the vintage feel that is so popular at the moment. I saved them as photoshop actions which I can then apply to other photos in the future, but there are many available for download on the net. The site moderskeppet explains them here, with some links.

These are the results of the morning's endeavours:

New Year, Fresh snow.......

I really do live in a winter wonderland. Views from my veranda and front garden taken at 7.30am this January morning.

P!nk

Tuesday night A and I went to see Pink in Stockholm at the Globe arena - which had been spectacularly floodlit in pink especially for the occasion. The concert was fantastic - a carnival theme, not as in Mardi Gras, but more vaudeville and burlesque. I never actually realised Pink had such a great voice until now - she was pretty spectacular live. My favorite number had to be "So What", while Alice liked the low key acoustic version of "Mr President".

This was one of the occasions where I was reminded that I live in Sweden (if I should ever forget!). The Globe was full to capacity at 14 000 people and everyone seemed to be having a great time watching Pink. However this didn't manifest itself in the audience reaction, which at times was reminiscent of the polite applause the principal might get after the end of year speech in the school auditorium. I know that Swedes in general don't often raise their voices and are not prone to outbursts of excess emotion, but this was in fact a rock concert and shouting, cheering and screaming yourself hoarse are usually obligatory.........

September

....... in Sweden has been gorgeous so far. I've been out into the countryside of Habo to capture the mellow evening light.

Goodbye Daphne

We lost a member of our little family during the summer. Daphne allowed us to share her house for 6 years and kept us entertained with her wobbly walk and toe-nibbling, chair-stealing antics. We will miss your little pipsqueak meouw, Daffs.............

The Cake Barn

Well, Garnheim's Bed & Breakfast (aka. my house) has officially closed its doors for the season after a month of guests, mainly family over from England. We have had lots of fun and eaten LOTS of cake.

The cause of this cake gluttony is several visits to "The Cake Barn" as we have dubbed it - or "Lustfyllt" which is its Swedish title, a beautiful converted barn with an all-you-can-eat cake buffet.

If you happen to be visiting Habo (18km north of Jönköping on road 195) then this is the place to go. There are also many antiquey bits and bobs for sale, as well as the owner's pottery. A lot of thought seems to have gone into this concept as every corner is like a scene from an interior design magazine. Judge for yourself from the pics I took.......

Customer Service Part 1

Several people I've talked to seem to think that it's really expensive to eat in London. I disagree. The secret is to leave Swedish eating habits behind (like eating a big meal at midday during the week) and adopt British ones. Buy sandwiches from Boots and eat them in St. James Park, and instead have a main meal between 5 - 7pm when many restaurants have specials on.

I'm going to give a shout out to 2 places I really like in London. The first is Bistro 1 in Covent Garden where the prices are great for such a central touristy location - 2 courses in the evening for just under £10. It's a small restaurant, with a homely atmosphere, serving simple, hearty food. They even have another couple of restaurants in other central London spots. Check them out here.


The second place I have to mention is the Brick Lane Brasserie House of Spice (Brick Lane is the mecca for Indian Food in London) who win my Customer Service Award 2009 ;). We'd just done the spooky Jack the Ripper walk and I was feeling peckish and fancied taking a curry back with me to the hotel, as no one else in the family wanted to eat. This particular restaurant was pretty full, while many of the others were practically empty. Not only did the owner do me a special half portion (to suit my student budget) but actually gave me some of his silverwear to take with me, as he didn't have any plastic forks. He gave the kids little chocolates to eat while we were waiting for the food and even put in some free poppadoms for them. When we then asked for directions to the nearest tube station he came out into the street with us to direct us, even though he was pretty busy.

That's what I call great customer service folks :)