New Year, the time of the year when people make resolutions.

I didn’t. I won’t.

But I decide to take a deep look into a mirror and ask some questions. Even if I wouldn’t like the answers I thought it might be worth asking. Questions touching the core, the essence of our being. Questions of who I am. Or who do I think I am. Where do I want to go — or where am I to start with?

You know, the very simple ones, the ones we all should ask ourselves occasionally.

Such as: Am I a person you…

In English the word “shackles” often refers to chains used for punishment — something which is used to tie you down. In sailboats they are used differently — they connect some essential pieces together.

There is a variation called the soft shackle. Lightweight, it is like a bracelet, and it is tied with a knot that is impossible to break. It holds easily the weight of your body — or the weight of your boat for that matter. Your life sometimes depends on it holding.

It has two lines running in parallel. Yes, you can tie it in many ways…

A project I started about ten years ago… and almost immediately abandoned as flash became obsolete and HTML5 was still in its infancy. But – things have changed and I thought it would be a good time to rekindle this one. I was changing ISP the other day and on the server I found a folder full of panoramas I had shot years ago.

So I encoded them into strict HTML5, made a three layout intended for touch devices (such as your iPhone or iPad) and all modern browsers.

No. It was not Photoshop, nor going digital. Not iPhone, nor touch devices in general.

And it was no apple from a tree someone ate a long time ago.

But there was a definite, decisive moment.

It was the moment we turned the camera from the world into ourselves. When we lost the curiosity and became self-absorbed in our own image.

Remember the parting words of Steve Jobs (Stanford 2005): “Stay foolish, stay curious”?

We forgot that.

Or maybe we just did not think it was important.

Or was it “we” after all, the professional photographers and journalists — or…

Looking at the offing. I am lost in the narrative of others — same time feel I have lost my own.

There is no wind. But there will be.

Will sail further.

(I have started to write these musings and more personal pieces in MEDIUM lately

If you like my scribbles here, please give me a clap or two (or ten) below — see the hands-symbol? — it means a lot to me and it is really rewarding to see people really read — even appreciate what you are trying to say. Then again, if you consider it utter trash… don’t. )

Winter blues, you know the feeling? Well, if you live in the North Pole as we do, you most likely do.

Lately it has gotten pretty bad. Like: insomnia, anxiety, stomach aches, worrying yourself sick how the kids (actually teenagers already…) are doing, etc.

In the simplest of terms: I haven’t been feeling that great and it’s starting to take it’s toll on family and on health. No, nothing major yet, but I can see the dangers lurking.

So I thought: well, although I am known professionally as a photographer and visual professional, I do have an academic history in…

It is kind of a paradox that as easy as life is nowadays for so many of us, these moments of simple, pure happiness do not occur more often.

When have you been the happiest?

Sure, if you are asked “when were you the happiest?” you can always refer to the birth of your first child––very hard to beat that as a metric for ultimate happiness––but it is a bit too easy an answer.

What I am talking about are the totally unexpected moments of pure joy. The moments when time ceases to exist. …

Summer came

and with it

balmy and breezy weather.