It’s been an incredibly interesting week at the Qigong course where confusion is at times replaced with clarity and understanding, only to be smothered later with yet more confusion.

I don’t mean confusion as in what’s being taught is by any means nonsensical or, that I ‘m not getting it. Not at all. It’s just that there’s so much to learn and that even when I try hard, I still get confused as to what to prioritize and how to store the knowledge I’m exposed to in a sequence that helps me lower the inevitable steep learning curve and perennially improve my training.

Our teacher, Arjan, works through his system in an organic, non-linear way. Which, when coming from Sweden, where everything is organized and structured in absurdum, was initially a little perplexing. But within a day or two, I had let go of that excessively orderly approach and decided to go with the flow. Instead of forcing my projected expectations (based on how things are done elsewhere), I decided to just listen, replicate what I saw and had heard and merely accept that time will eventually come when I’m ready to understand the answers to my many queries. That answering them now in the inception phase would only add to my incertitude and probably make even learning incrementally more difficult.

I am curious by nature and conditioned by the society I live in. This new perspective on implementing something before actually understanding what it is, based at least initially only on faith and trust, certainly makes for an interesting, intellectual challenge. My gut feeling tells me this could be a healthy way for me to learn new things going forward.

At 56, taking on something so wide and deep as learning (even the basics) about Qigong is invigorating. For even if I sometimes feel like my head is going to explode from the constant stream of new things we go through during each session, I am already conscious of the tangible, positive physical effects the training is having on my arthritis.

One may think Qigong would not be anywhere near as exerting as, say, a long run or a spinning class can be. But let me tell you, after a five hour day filled with various full-body stances and movements as well as arm blocks and kicks – all done repetitively in slow, controlled sequences, I’m as exhausted as if I’d run 15k, but without any lasting muscular fatigue that I usually associated with jogging. One of the key upshots I noticed today (when we spent most of the afternoon doing slow motion kicking) was that it took only minutes to recover – and that afterwards, I was super energized, albeit still very, very sweaty.

It’s interesting – and possibly a cultural issue – how much exercise has come to be defined by a level of almost debilitating exertion. The immense popularity of crossfit training being just one of many examples of ways for folks to get a few hours of hard, physical activity integrated into their often stressful, jam-packed lives.

From what I understand so far about Qigong, especially medical Qigong, is that what one can learn will have positive physical, mental and possibly spiritual implications on a timeline that extends far beyond what just goes on whilst practicing. And it is exactly that prospect – the width and breadth of benefits brought forth from Qigong, as a means to both heal and to stay healthy in the long-term, that got me here in the first place.

The umbrellas above are totally unrelated to this post. Well, as they’re probably made in China, the origin country of Qigong, I guess one could argue that there is after all, though far-fetched, a connection.

The fifteenth of August, 1998. Twenty one years ago today. That’s when Charlotte and I exchanged rings just before we were pronounced man and wife by the family priest, Ola Stålnacke in Brunnby Church, near Mölle-by-the-Sea in Skåne. It rained most of that day, and boy, was I nervous before and during most of the wedding ceremony. But afterwards, as we climbed onto the horse driven carriage, or, perhaps it wasn’t until the Rolls picked us up a little further down the country road, that I started to relax. We had an amazing wedding party during the evening with a whole bunch of great friends and plenty of family.

Our marriage has been consistently smooth, with only minor bumps and hicups along the way. I know of only a few other couples that have been married as long as we have and that still enjoy each others company as much as Charlotte and I do.

It’s certainly a little sad being so far apart on our anniversary. But thanks to FaceTime, we’ll chat later this afternoon about our wedding 21 years ago today.

Charlotte, happy anniversary, my love!

For a while now, I’ve been promising myself to once again quit, or, at least take another prolonged break from the confines and shackles of social media. Studying Qigong below the hills of Chiang Mai seemed like an optimal opportunity to initiate this decision.

My main argument is and has always been that these channels, apps or whatever the fuck you want to call them, prove time and time again to have a degenerative influence on my creativity and emotional balance.

When I arrived here in Asia a few days ago, I deleted Instagram, the only social media app installed on my phone. It took a few hours getting used to not unlocking the phone’s screen several times a day and flipping through what my online and offline friends and family have been up to. And unsurprisingly, I do not miss the infinite cavalcade of mundane escapades, jam-packed group selfies, life quotes or the “kum ba yah” gospel some try so hard to channel. Not even a little bit.

I’m not totally consitent – once in a while I’ll use my laptop to post a photo or a video on this page. But that habit is also falling on the wayside.

About a year ago, a press photographer and a journalist I’d met tried to convince me of how important social media actually was. How being active had provided them with assignments and valuable connections. They seemed to think I was foolish to not see the glowing benefits and all the low-hanging fruit of opportunities waiting to be picked in the fields in between posts, comments and likes.

I know there are edge cases, circumstances and situations that help argue social medias existence. But like most folks, both of those dudes were way too intoxicated from their addiction to be able to think straight and dispassionately about social medias overshadowing influence on their lives or the amount of wasted awake time they spent on a bloated myth that online interconnectivity really augments the quality of life.

Over the years, I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to make use of social media. Either as a source for artistic inspiration or by using it as a means to share my love of photography and art. To inspire others, you know? While I’ve failed miserably at the former, I know from feedback that some of those that follow my work in Västra Hamnen and in Santa Monica are inspired by my creativity. And I am sincerely happy if I have added even just a little shine to their lives.

That said, I have still always felt a deep, disproportionate relationship with social media. It simply takes way more than it adds to my life. It’s a conundrum how so many respectable, well-educated souls seem to genuinely feel their lives have improved significantly ever since we all gained the ability to share it online in realtime. It really boggles the mind.

I don’t know exactly when I’ll wave a final goodbye to all my social media endeavors. But as I’m currently on a galvanizing journey with the ambitious goal of releasing a lot more of my creative energy by using Qigong to re-connect or rewire my body, mind, and soul, this could happen anytime. If my only outlet for sharing thoughts, ideas and creative efforts is here on this site, so be it. I’ve been posting somewhat regularly here for more than 13 years and will gladly continue. In the grand scheme of worldly things, I honestly don’t think “unsocial me” should worry about the fear of missing out.

The mother in the Thai family that has the homestay where I’ll be for the next couple of weeks, cooks me dinner every night after returning home from her vegetable shop at the Kat Kom market in Chiang Mai. They probably don’t get a lot of guests that are pescatarians, but she still has no problem whatsoever conjuring delicious meals for me. Like last night’s coconut noodle and tofu soup topped with freshly chopped coriander. Two flavors that blend tremendously well.

I don’t remember when I last took a night train to Chiang Mai. It could quite possibly have been as far back as 1998 when Charlotte and I spent a week of our month-long honeymoon trekking the mountains somewhere north of Chiang Mai and south of Chiang Rai, sharing meals and sleeping over at several distinctly different hillside hosts, including the Akha, Lahu, Karen, and Hmong tribes. It was a similar adventure to one I’d had ten years earlier (1988) with an old friend (Magnus Ekström), and absolutely worth re-experiencing.

Of all the ways of traveling from point A to point B, trains easily top my list. I really love trains and have taken them across southwest USA, all over Europe, a bit of India, sped across a stretch of Japan on the Shinkansen and ridden both up and down the Malay Peninsula between Bangkok and Singapore.

Trains are of course slow, but offer a far superior social and visual experience when compared with planes. Not to mention how incomparably more pleasurable train stations are to airports.

Back in the late 1980s, I took a night train from Göteborg to Riksgränsen (Swedish Lapland) a few times and remember how wonderful it was to first be served a decent meal in the dining car and then enjoy a film in the adjacent movie car (where they even served freshly nuked popcorn!).

Last night’s dinner (above) won’t take up much space in the constantly expanding archive of most memorable meals, but it was tasty, albeit pricey, nonetheless. All vegetarian and freshly made in the train’s restaurant/kitchen car.

Inside our train car

Significantly more striking was instead how upgraded the 2nd Class sleeper train cars were. While the sleeping comfort wasn’t improved much, there was a huge difference in how new and modern-looking the interior was – including the onboard toilets – from what I remember riding in more than two decades ago. Which might not be so surprising, unless when thinking of how sadly archaic and fatigued most Swedish trains still are today. Swedish trains are, when not delayed, considerably faster, though. On the other hand, I really enjoyed watching the landscape slide by in slow motion as we made our way through thick forest on the way up north.

I was hired the other day to photograph tasty looking burgers, crispy fries and a bunch of drinks at a new restaurant here in Malmö called “Dockside Burgers & Bar”. Shot the above video with the Gopro Hero 7 and my iPhone X.

“Freedom Fries”, for those that don’t get that reference, was what Republican Bob Ney renamed french fries in three Congressional cafeterias in response to France’s opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq in 2003. While France doesn’t exactly have a squeaky clean history, in hindsight, their position was clearly correct, regardless of what actually motived it. Whatever you call them, the fries at Dockside are crispy as can be. More photos from that elaborate shoot are viewable here.

Charlotte and I biked into town last night to have dinner at “Mineral”, which, according to my dear wife, is still one of Malmö’s most popular vegetarian eateries. We’ve dined there before, so I kinda knew it was going to be good. I’ve just started a period of intermittent fasting and so, since dinner was yesterday’s only proper meal, I was famished and thought everything tasted outstandingly delicious.

We rode through Kungsparken (King’s Park) on our way home and I quietly promised myself to return sometime later this summer to capture a few night views from the park’s many beautiful sceneries, like the fountain above which I shot late last summer. Interestingly, I’ve eaten lunch at Malmö’s casino (behind the fountain) there, but I’ve never been there to gamble.

I created this collage from collection of photos I took of model Tora Rosenkjaer a couple of years ago. I’ve been weirdly fascinated with silhouettes and have had the backgrounds of hundreds of my studio photos removed to create them. Not unlike traffic signs, I suppose it’s the straightforwardness of silhouettes that’s so appealing to me. In an alternative version of this collage, I’ve added my favorite yoga quote; “Bend, So You Don’t Break.

Sunny summer mornings in Malmö are spectacular. Got up at 06:00 am this morning, took a peek out the window and discovered that there was hardly any wind at all. Got dressed, hopped on my bike and rode out to Lilla Torg (Little Square) to photograph a bird’s eye view of the city with the early sun shining with its most flattering light. Among other projects, I’m collecting unique perspectives for a September photo exhibit themed on Malmö.

About a half an hour later, I returned home, spent an hour on the yoga mat after which I got undressed, put on my trunks, bathrobe, summer hat and walked down the promenade for a refreshing dip in the sea. That, my friends, is what I consider a fantastic way to kickstart a Wednesday in July.

Yesterday, a friend from somewhere outside of San Francisco sent me a link to an old New Yorker interview with the painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Here’s the link.

I’ve been a fan of O’Keeffe’s work ever since studying at art college back in 1990. She had such a free-flowing, boundless relationship to her art and a completely uninhibited approach to composition. Georgia was once married to Alfred Stieglitz, the pioneering photographer based in Manhattan and whom practically invented the concept of “fine art photography” and also founded what was one of the first ever photo galleries. I remember being somewhat obsessed by the couple and how two such incredibly talented beings didn’t just fall in love with each other, but also, at least to a degree, found common ground to collaborate. Which up to that point in my life, I’d never remotely experienced in a relationship.

Though I have visited Santa Fe a couple of times and seen O’keeffe’s work exhibited at a local museum, I never visited her studio at Ghost Ranch up in the high desert. During my first visit in 1994 or 1995, I did however go hiking in the hills near Los Alamos – a small town about an hour northwest of Santa Fe near Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), where, during World War II, Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists created the world’s first atomic bomb.

My primary goal with that hike was to check out the caves at Bandelier National Monument – which count in the thousands – and were used by ancestral Pueblo people as dwellings. The area was also said to be a spiritual destination for many Native Americans.

In a couple of weeks, I’m heading to a completely different kind of spiritual destination, on a continent far, far away from both Malmö and Los Alamos. And when I return, I hope to spend some time back in the peaceful sanctuary of Vejbystrand, where I met the gentle horse above.

Back in Malmö after a few days of great weather and interesting explorations along the south east coast of Spain. Particularly Tarifa was a very pleasant experience. Very chic. When I look through my folder structure in Lightroom (the application I use to organize and “develop” my images through), the folder within “Europe” that has the most destinations after Sweden is Spain. I must really like Spain.

And yet I have a hard time defining my feelings for the country and if I actually want to live there – again. On the one hand, I really love the climate and geography – which remind me of my native southern California. The sun, coastline, beaches, mountains and palm trees make me feel right at home. The diversity is fantastic. I also enjoy much of the Spanish cuisine. Especially the stuff on sale at local markets – like the olives above from the spectacularly beautiful Mercado Central de Atarazanas in downtown Malaga. And I find most Spaniards to be both friendly and good-natured – despite (or, thanks too) our linguistic differences. One day soon, I hope to be able to speak fluent Spanish as I once did as a child in L.A.

On the other hand, there’s a brutally shabby side to Spain that makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Not from a esthetic perspective. It’s more socieltal qualms I feel. Driving up and down the coast we saw some of the most horrendously ugly towns and villages – most of which were seemingly inspired by Sovjet era urban planning (or, rather, lack thereof). Even in the middle of Malaga, where I would think someone within the city’s administration would at least take a peek at design proposals before granting construction permits, we saw mucho samples of architectural misfits. Still, Malaga is like I wrote in an earlier post, considerably more pleasant today than just a decade ago according to what I’ve read. And yes, there were numerous areas we walked through that I could consider living in. Soho being just one.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Spain’s architectural mismatching, and why, in a country so naturally beautiful and famous for its designers as well as architectural wizardry from the likes of Gaudí, Calatrava and artists Dali and Picasso, it continues to thrive.

The conclusion I came up with is simply, corruption. Pay enough to the right folks and you get to do pretty much anything you want in Spain. That said, I’ve also come to understand from folks that do business in the country that corruption isn’t at all as blatant or upfront as it once was during the Franco era. Today, corruption is somehow more sophisticated – masked and camouflaged by an extreme bureaucracy, not too dissimilar of a pyramid scheme; the higher up you are in the bureaucratic pecking order, the bigger the feed gets. So, as long as you’re willing to grease the inner workings of permit committees, regional and local government officials, it’s fairly easy to fill a hillside or a coastal valley with an armada of hideous high-rise towers.

I’m not arguing that Spain is any more corrupt than say, France, Italy or practically any county I’ve ever visited (close to 100). It’s just more visibly obvious. Especially along Costa del Sol, around Barcelona, the suburbs of Madrid and surrounding Palma. In addition to being standalone eyesores, the landscape these concrete monstrosities inhabit and dominate, however stunning, live in the shaddows of and become so “uglified”. But the corruption/beauracracy aspect of doing business inevitebly titls the playing field in favor of those that are in the know and have the means to take advantage of it. And it’s this moral corruption that feels so hopelessly wrong and utterly undemocratic.

Maybe I’m just being snobbish and unfairly comparing more purposefully designed and economically built housing solutions to my comfy, esthetically pleasing, exotically heterogenous bubble here in Västra Hamnen. Yeah, that’s probably the case.

From yesterday’s afternoon visit to friends Christian and Malin Gordin’s newly opened Bed & Breakfast Limonero in the ancient and scenic village of Gualchos – about 15 minutess above the seaside town Castel de Ferro and an hour and a half from Malaga.

Charlotte and I were impressed by both how charming Limonero is and the multi-level challenges Christian and Malin certainly have taken on by leaving careers and a comfy social life in Sweden to start fresh as BnB owners in the south of Spain. We wish them all the best and feel confident they’ll succeed.

This is a short ‘n sweet launch video for my new book, aptly titled, Turning Torso and produced in collaboration with HSB Malmö. The new book is the same size as my series covering Västra Hamnen, yet has a slew of new photos  from inside and outside Santiago Calatrava’s magnificent creation.

I’m obviously biased, but without Turning Torso, Malmö wouldn’t be remotely as interesting and as optimistic as it is today. The skyscraper is a beacon for greatness and an unequivocal symbol of how important it is to allow big ideas to flourish. Being commissioned to create a (second) book about the Turning Torso and thereby document an important chapter in the ongoing story about the “new” Malmö, makes me feel proud and provides me with a solid sense of purpose as an artist.

You can flip through the new book here.

Finally got around to updating some areas on this site. Like this slideshow from Nösund Havshotell. 

The client list needed a refresh and I’ve also added some new work related slides. Not to compare with Charlotte, but I too have a small collection of sites to maintain and with so much going on in life right now, it’s easy to forget/neglect less crucial stuff. Maintenence work is definitely necessary, but I tend to prioritize and point my creative efforts towards new projects, big or small, rather then updating/refreshing my various websites. How great wouldn’t it be if I could outsource that part of my workload? Tremendously great.

The other day I did something I’ve been meaning to do for about 20 years. To make matters a little bit worse, I can’t really explain or defend putting it off for so long.

While scrummaging around in our large storage closet at home, I discovered an old CD in one of those think plastic covers. I’d borrowed this still shiny Compact Disc from a friend whilst living in Visby on the island of Gotland. in 1994 or 1995.

I don’t remember the context, but it could have been my friend insisting that I borrow it so that he could hear me play a few tunes from the album (which I want to recall had a reggae theme) during one of yesteryears many DJ gigs.

Even after taking the CD to the studio, it still took another week for me to put in my pocket along with my friend’s new address, and walk over to our local post office and send it off.

I doubt I’ll ever hear from my old friend, even if he does remember lending it to me and appreciates the gesture of me returning it. You see, we haven’t spoken in about as many years as I’ve had his CD in storage. Albeit long in the making, it still sure feels real good to have finally done the right thing.

TCOB = Taking Care of Business.

Photo = Almedalen in Visby, Gotland

I can feel how it’s itching in my Far East nerve again. After having regularly visited the Asian continent –  particularly to South East Asia – for more than three decades, it’s a reoccurring itch for both Charlotte and myself. Hopefully we’ll be back within a few months. I miss the convenience of street food, the friendly smiles beaming from most locals and all the fascinating and mystifying idiosyncrasies that make being a photographer there so wildly inspiring.

One of my favorite trips was when Charlotte, Elle and I spend a few weeks traveling around Myanmar (Burma) a few years ago. I’ve collected a tidy batch of images from that adventure here.