Precise, particular, dark, occult, funny-peculiar, funny-ha-ha.

'A snowfield, near a forest, round dawn, somewhere in Sweden. The Knife are art-directing the shoot for their new press photographs. They are wearing long black coats, long black wigs and masks that make them look like crows. Why?
'If we could choose not to do any photos at all, we would,’ says Karin Dreijer Andersson. 'But it's quite impossible. Because I don’t think it has anything to do with the music. So we use the photos now to show what our music looks like.'
'It’s very cold and dark and suggestive maybe,’ says Olof Dreijer of the duo’s new 'image'. 'We feel like that if we had been there with our plain faces, that would destroy the illusion of the music. So we tried to dress up as the music. Occult and dark but at the same time, funny.'

This is the world of The Knife: precise, particular, dark, occult, funny-peculiar, funny-ha-ha.'

Free

I am still a photographer, but I love to write, so that’s why I’m writing again. Please excuse my semi Steiner-style for this next post, as I have been doing a lot of research on childhood education and human development lately, and also have been reading some really bizarre articles from crazy people that I respect and admire, about all things life-related. I haven’t got the Internet set up in my new space yet, so books have re-entered my life and I couldn’t be more grateful. All these words and snippets of information have made my mind wander to new and exciting places. And made me re-think about what I believe and what I love and what I love to do. So I took some notes and here they are.

I am passionate about a few things. Plants. I love them. I love being in rooms filled with flowers and growth, intertwining life and movement with the existing and stationary. I love being outside, surrounded by trees, with a carpet of foliage beneath my feet. I also love music- and what a subjective statement that is. I love music that hits me in the heart, the more unexplainable, the better. I love music that speaks to me through melody, swings my mind all over the place, teetering between the past and future, and hovering over the present. I like music that is full, music that is empty, and music that sits somewhere between. I just really love music. And I love colour. I really do love colour, all colours. I love colours that go with other colours, and colours that don’t. I love dark colours and light colours, bright and dull ones. I love what different people do with different colours for different reasons. I love that everyone has preferred colours, because it makes me wonder whether preference is inherent, or whether it is nurtured. I love conversation and intelligence, thinking and observance, learning and responding. I love tactility and texture. Shapes and shivers. Temperature and time. Accents and abilities. And I really love expression, and I love people with expressive faces, and expressive words, and those who seek with undying devotion to find the medium they express themselves best with. To tell the tale within them, about them.

One thing a musician I respect endlessly said earlier this year really spoke to me. I revisited it today, and the more I dwell on his words, the more relevant it becomes:

"To be free is something that I would really love. And I don’t know what that means, but I think a lot of people are in search of it, in some capacity. It doesn’t mean being free and living in the wilderness, it just means like, you know, introspectively and what you, sort of, exude- you know what I mean? It’s kind of an amazing thing. And I’ve met people that I feel like they’re free. And I guess they present themselves that way. It’s really special, and it affects so many people around them. And I’d love to get to that point one day, where I’m totally in control of who I am as a person, and in that way I can help others. And not in like a philanthropical way or anything like that- well, that would be amazing, but I don’t think I have the capacity to do anything like that right now. It’s kind of a crazy emotional journey that everyone has to go on, and I guess music is my avenue to discovering it.”

So. Am I free? Are you free? Are we free? I can only answer for myself, but I can say that allowing yourself to be free is definitely a good thing. As in, actually giving yourself permission to achieve what you want to achieve, and to literally live what you love. This is freedom, to me.

Anyway. To finish this odd plod of writing off, here is that verse we all know- ‘The truth will set you free.’
Cue Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer,’ and we just stepped onto the set of Almost Famous. If you haven’t seen the film, please do. And when you’re done, I’ll be waiting with Led Zeppelin III and a spare set of headphones and we can sing along to all of the songs together. What an amazing album.


This is Farrah and Elize. Farrah loves lipstick and so do I. She is hilarious and very real. Elize is the one who changed the way I saw life and the things that happen in it, through a camera.

Kim & Joel | Wedding

You are invited to 'Kim and Joel's Over the Hill and Far Away Wedding', read the invite. The 1970s Classic Rock-lover inside of me skipped with excitement- a Led Zeppelin reference! On a wedding invite! But the description was a little more literal than I had initially anticipated. Beginning my journey in near-darkness, I drove up the Blue Mountains, ears popping with the increasing altitude. The sun rose and the world commenced its usual daily course. I like being part of the transition between day and night- and driving during this time makes me feel a little bit like I am a Goddess living in a tale taken from Greek mythology- having the power to sweep through and change the world from darkness to light.

Sometimes I would look out to the side of the road, seeing small glimpses through the trees, of ridiculous views casting down into the deep valleys below. I rested my elbow on the drivers-seat window, feeling the temperature drop outside through the response in the glass. And then I drove a little bit more. Then some more. My ears popped again during the decrease in altitude, as the car flew down the other side of the mountain. I continued my journey for some time. Then some more again. Down a very long road and another. And probably drove for a bit longer after that as well, until a string of colourful bunting flags made from dancing floral patterns greeted my arrival.

Capertee Valley is the world's second largest open canyon, second only to the Grand Canyon. It lays at the foot of the Mountains, up and over and across from them, and on this day, I felt blessed to experience standing on such a largely untouched, and beautiful part of the earth.

The sky overhead put on its best performance- showing off glittering sunshine, bitter haunting storm clouds, near-terrential downpour, and beginning the cycle again as the suns' rays pushed aside the remaining wisps of grey- casting bursts of warmth onto the wedding that lay below. But I'll let the photos do the talking about that.