Borneo - Prisoner in Paradise

Like that song/album title from hair metal band Europe back in the early 90's. Being a "Prisoner in paradise" isn't the worst that could happen, but it makes you wonder. Safe and cared for becomes boring, slack and pampered. Anyways, got this chance to freeload a 2 night/3 day deal at the Shangri-La's Rasa Ria Resort just north of Borneos Kota Kinabalu city. We were party crashing on wealthy Aussies and Europeans, slacking poolside with the surf slapping lazy on the almost empty beach just nearby. Buffe breakfast on bluecheese, poached eggs and fat pastry after a well slept night on dune pillows in a just perfect airconditioned room with a sea view. This was my first visit to Borneo and I could never have thought it would be like this one. One of my many "un-traveled" travel plans in life is to climb Mt.Kinabalu (South East Asias highest peak) and maybe doing a serious jungle walkabout in former headhunting territory, livin it rough with my Canons, a return airline ticket hidden in the waterproof ziplock. Maybe next time.

Had also the chance to support the upbringing of some of the true locals by checking out these orangutangs being taught how to survive solo in their future jungle "home". These guys were as pampered as the hotels guests and how they will make it out there on their own only time will tell. Between 6-10 years the forest ranger informed, can see why! Me for one, somewhat liked the 2 nights wrapped up in luxury, but feel way more relaxed in the small and cozy Hutton Lodge (a hostel/guesthouse) in Georgetown/ Malaysia were I am writing this.

This is how happy someone got after getting a somewhat confirmed recognition of existence from one of the apes.

Some "better" shots of the Boreno "Orang Huan" (forest person).

911

Got one more boat for ya…yoroshiku

I like this one. Looks like the welder in charge of this one just was thinking of something else that day the bow was done, something else than welding a balanced and straight, wave cutting stream lined fighting vessel. Maybe thats why its not in service and mainly curious local tourists come down on the weekend to check it out, not more to do in these neck of the woods I've come to understand. This being the industrial Thailands polluted northern gulf coast. Big 911 on the bow, why not just name it the Titanic…going down...

Posh Viking

Google it!

teeny tiny little ant

sick of my self from time to time...

The Deck

Environments built to last, built for strength and stoic endurance. Offshore supply vessels are very hard core. I like 'em and have from time to time the chance to work on them. Dirty hard work makes you appreciate the life you live and all obvious comforts it brings with it. Dirty and hard manual work keeps you on the edge. Man made objects and tools to get the work done in an environment far from made for man.

Father and son

A snap of the guys in the yard today, heavy rain all night, still in the air.This is Father (right) and the only one left out of 4 siblings. He has outgrown his dad by far, still a shy and scared little puppy inside though. There is a second generation fattening up in a safe place, 2 black little things soon ready to face the yard and all the unwritten rules within it. Pretty rough and mean place to be a dog right here, its an "eat or be eaten" deal. I am the alpha male in the pack since I am holding the power to provide food on a daily basis. These guys are really tired of liver flavored dog food but it keeps the fur on their backs and the worst of the hunger away.

"A perfect image should be like the way a David Gilmour guitar solo sounds"

Greener on the other side...?

These are NOT mwcp photograpy...just 5 moments (of many) I like to have been present at, situations I can imagine being pretty cool to have experienced first hand.








Jonas Thormar in the antarctic 

Imagine being there, at that exact spot and moment. What would you have done, how would your eyes see it?






                               Elliot Erwitt in the US.

                                Steve McCurry in Kashmir

Sebastiao Salgado in the Brazilian jungle

Ian Mackeye and Henry Rollins (unknown photographer...Glen E. Friedman?). I have been covering Tokyo's undergrould music scene for many years. The metal/hc/punk scene especially, to have been around with a camera in Washington in the 80's when Minor Threat, Bad Brains etc was making history, that would have been mighty cool. 

I know I am not the only one that gets excited seeing great photography moment. Would be interesting to hear what my fellow photographers sees as their inspiration.

Represent

Below is a link to the blog post I would represent my photography (if someone asked me today!). As with all, how you view even your own work differs depending on mood, lifestyle, experiences and where you are in the world. Stuff happens all the time and if you lived in a box nothing would change perhaps, I never have or will live in a box so I accept changes and roll with the punches pretty well by now. I feel a great comfort that I once were at these places shooting these moments. There have been for the last couple of years and continues to be a mind blowing roller coaster of various moods to get todays images. Techniques, gadgets and tools can't really change anything fundamental, the eye may grow old and tired, blurred out but the vision stays the same. Is it a way of evolving or just being lazy, developing or being lost? I don't really mind too much whatever it might be, because I know from seeing these old images that what once was still is.

Check it out HERE!

Dust in the wind (that Kansas song…)

Some digital monochrome left over files. If shot with film these would be sitting in a hardcover folder in my bookshelf, seen by nil. As long as there is electricity of some sort these can be viewed by anyone with a computer…anywhere on the planet. Whatever, all is relative. Purpose is futile, time is now.

Sleep

Images from hotels I stayed in the last couple of days. Just another place to rest your tired body, still, to find a room with nice light is always a boost. I wish I had an image from all the beds I ever slept in. So unproductive and uncreative thing to do, sleep that is…waste of time kind of…though I love it when the texture, mood, temperature and light is good. For me the best time of the day is going to bed, but then I can't wait to get up in the morning to do "stuff". I can't really remember the "best" room/bed but I can remember the worst. The Philippines, a hotel in the northern town of Quezon by the name of Diamond Inn . It was FILTHY to the max, almost to a comical level. The shared loo was filled to the brim with frozen turds, looked like someone had flogged a horse and skinned it on the almost "alive" bed. It was so fucking cold outside and some stupid public holiday so all LP jewels were taken. A room/bed memory nevertheless

Well, one of the best bed might have been at a dormitory at the legendary Astor House Hotel in Shanghai after travelled there overland with my best friend via Siberia from Finland as an eager teenage backpacker. Freezing cold huge room in the attic shared with other people from all over the place. Thick dune covers and real oldschool mattresses proved to be the highlight from Shanghai that time. This was -92 and things were different in China then. Einstein stayed there once. 

As you can see from these images, things are not that shoestring anymore when it comes to lodging for me. Well, I have paid my dues of flea bitten dorm rooms and train station floors and do really enjoy being solo and away from other people while sleeping nowadays. Can I get a clean bed, a quiet room with a window I am all for it. 

Sorry...

Why am I doing this?...but who doesn't love these colorful dogs they have in Thailand. It's a rare pedigree breed indeed.

Notes From Underground

This I like. Spend time on the open sea. Since I decided last year to give my pro-photo life a siesta and seek new frontiers, learn new shit, see more stuff and just continue living life I have come to spend time in some pretty interesting locations. Went on a survey to a jack-up rig in the gulf of Thailand to check things out (won't go into details about the work scope of this). I finished what I came to do, then had all day just waiting to get a ride back to shore. Took a bunch of pictures, had about a gallon of NesCafe and finished reading my travel companion for the day, written 1864 (Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky…was thinking all the time that this must be Henry Rollins favorite). You would be surprised on how many avid readers of interesting literature I have worked with at sea.
Anyhow, you would also be surprised of how people in this industry live their professional lives, how "a day in" looks like for the people working out here. I was in the merchant marine for 10 years before I started photography and still dream almost daily about this "lifestyle" if you like (No Mom, it was not because I thought it was fun, it was the best option for a ticket out of hell!). The dirty business of tapping mother earth of hydrocarbon is different from shipping consumer goods and raw materials from one port to another, but the lifestyle, work ethics and environment is very similar. Like it or not, nevertheless, without it you wouldn't be able to read this blogpost on your slim iMac's.
It's a way of making a living and to experience what mankind is capable of in terms of defying a common way of thinking. Since I am too curious-for-my-own-good and a MF'ing pragmatic-thinker I more than often tell my self - how the fuck does this work!…how could some dude come up with this and make it work!?…by being a realist reading between the lines?!….anyway…good to be able to experience this. Gonna try to take it further...

Called a "Billy Pugh"...

Even the lunch comes in one...

Back to shore...

Cloudy sky, rain nearly breaking through. Clouds melt away under clear sky just to minutes later fill the gaps and give a filtrated grey-white cast over the whole scenery again. Tricky to shoot digital in this, but it gives some nice and strong contrasts to anything not being "grey-white" and "fluffy". I was shooting with my trusted G9 since this is my new "work" camera. It's though and is being treated really bad almost daily in environments the Canon technicians never would have though of putting it through. Give me a sponsorship Canon and I will put your gear to the test the blue-collar way.

Alohawaii (f.11 with a twist)

mold 2 ( Brit. mould)nouna furry growth of minute fungal hyphae occurring typically in moist warm conditions, esp. on food or other organic matter.• The fungi belong to the subdivision Deuteromycotina (orAscomycotina).



Just a slow Sunday in Songkhla, checking out this and that (I'm just a little ant)...





Propped up giant

Moon-ish landscape in the jungle  

Oldschool travel

Deserted Mosque construction site

I received the verdict last time Canon service tech guy looked at it. Mold due to humidity and lack of use on a regular basis developed a "branch" of fungal between one the three layers that makes up the sensor on my 5D. This would be visible only at around f.11 the technician believed and if I could live with this it should be alright. Since I shoot with 2 bodies and I had no time to wait the two weeks they needed to clear this to 100% I said -"No worries mate, I stay clear of f.11". Well, to be honest I do not really use this deep depth of field very often and since I do not shoot for clients with this body I didn't really care. Shit, getting careless…not good, not good indeed, hate careless people!



So check out these two images below, see that very artistic branch as of a dead tree of some sort on the bottom frame (right side if vertical)? Sensor mold in action folks...