Only in Belgium

I am back from my travels - I went to meet my mum and our friends in Belgium last week. If you follow me on Instagram/Twitter you know now what I ate, drunk and what was the weather like.

But you have not seen yet a protest of Flemish firefighters that we have accidentaly became a part of. It was -12, police was on one side and bored firefighters on the other side and our Belgian friends were extremely excited about the street in front of the PM headquaters was completely empty. They have never seen it that way - apparently there is a permanent traffic jam there so they immediately wanted to have it documented in pictures! And this is how we ended up in the middle of the protest - someone opened tha park gate for us and here we were!

Later on I saw in the local newspapers that the firefighers poured water all over the police...

So here we are: Mamma with the police and firefighters in the background, Andre and Wout celebrating the lack of the traffic jam and the general view of the street and some worried firefighters (they would have to work two years more before retiring...).

Other highlights of the stay included lots of Godiva/Leonidas/Boon chocolates, tasty beers (and this is from someone who is not a big fan of beer!), proper winter, early starts and late nights (Belgium people work hard and party hard) and coffee (do not ask for tea in Belgium, you might end up with a beverage that does not have much in common with what is popolarly known as a cup of tea...).

I definitely need to come back to have a proper look at a new Rene Magritte museum.

Oh Justin

Latest Twitter finds

Racy meadieval nuns:

http://www.gotmedieval.com/2012/01/needs-more-naked-mmm-marginalia-91.html

New year, new projects

While Simon is getting our breakfast ready ( you must know that our favourite morning hang-out Tea Tree Tea cafe went bust couple of weeks ago leaving us without a place to comfortably roll out in our pyjamas to have some morning coffee and a bacon roll just accross the road! We are simply devastated, it was hearbreaking to chat with the guys on their last day and then see a permanent darkness behind their big windows!) I will fill you in what is going on with us these days.

Yesterday we were meeting with three good friends to talk about a project we will be working together this summer - some more hints will be coming soon, meanwhile some photographic record of that wintery morning:

If anyone tells me again that food in Scotland is not good, will have to eat their own words and swallow them with some freshly squeezed carrot juice!

All images taken near a brilliant breakfast spot Roseleaf Bar Cafe in Leith and in the cafe itself! Thank you for taking us there, Sejin!

Simon posing

Simon was posing yesterday for a new series of photographs by our talented Korean photographer friend Sejin Moon. I was involved as her subject in the very first shot in the series (I will let you know when images go on Sejin's website as it is her PhD project, so that you could have a look) and yesterday I was proudly helping with the styling and husband-instructing for Sejin's new photo.

I am full of admiration for Simon - the photoshoot was long, quite demanding as his pose was not the easiest one to hold and he directed the lighting setup so that it matched photographer's concept. I hope Sejin will be happy with the new image for her series!

Meanwhile between the shots...we've had some fun (this is NOT Sejin's photo idea! It is pure Simon when he is happy!):

Christmas on Instagram

These of you who follow also my other blog know now that I am posting now on Instagram as well, but as (still) not everyone has access to these feeds, some of the images will be available here as well. I am pretty much pulling Annie Leibovitz nowadays (as she famously said that she nowadays notoriously takes pictures with her iPhone) - either taking pictures with my phone (bad bad bad) or in the studio with my medium format film camera (love love love).

I am also starting to notice some patterns which suprise me but frighten me as well as  when I started this blog it's purpose was more to be a kind of a personal diary/archive rather than amassing thousands of followers! It is quite refreshing but also frightening to find myself in a community of 20-something aspiring photographers who tend to float the feeds that contain:

- pretty pictures of food (thousands of 'likes' when you post a picture of macaroons)
- cute dogs (preferably french bulldogs)
- anything by Chanel (preferably en masse)
- girls in geek glasses and bright red lipstick, preferably accompanied by a topknot hairstyle or at least a blunt fringe (I assume that the fact that not everybody can pull off a red lip makes these kind of pictures extremely aspirational. I certainly cannot pull anything bright on my lips, cannot put up a topknot due to the hair lenght issues and my glasses come out only in emergency as their lenses are so thick I look like a mole when wearing them - 3 x no!)
- overphotoshopped landscapes (especially when authors went overboard with HDR treatment)
- anything treated with a vintage yellow filter (cannot wait for this 'fashion' to blow over)
- ligth flooded interiors

That list could go on and on and I already need to make an escape.

Meanwhile some pictures that joined my feed during Christmas for you to see if you are not following.

1st image:
Top row: my scrimpy Christmass tree (I just hate when January comes people just chuck out their lovely christmas pine trees so I decided to get a miniature one this year and try to plant it somewhere after Christmas instead of throwing it into the skip!) and a faulty reindeer display. Bottom row: girls having fun at Claudine's Post-Christmas get-together (it must have been a picture of Simon in his Santa's little help headgear that made us laugh so much) and my friend Simon, who came appropriately cladded for our pre-Christmas drink at the National Galleries of Scotland cafe.

2nd image:
Top row features traditional Christmas cake (with a skidding robin) and Christmas pudding (with a brandy flame). Bottom row shows you a Christmas bubble at our friends in Haddington and an indecent snowman that Simon spotted at a farmer's market in Edinburh (well, he spotted the snowman and then quickly added the indecency from some potatoes laying around...):

Eternal Dilemma

Polish actor Lukasz Garlicki as a multi-type-incarnation of 'Warszawiak' as Poles call the inhabitants of their capital city. Usually in conflict with people from Krakow ('Krakowiak' as my ever vigilant reader Gosia told me in her message, the correct form of that noun would be 'Krakus', sorry!), a former capital city of Poland.

I think I am seeing the same division here, between people from Edinburgh ('all fur and no knickers') and Glasgow. Edinburgh might be the capital but Glasgow has the vibe and charisma. And the knife crime....