Yoko Furusho

Images by Yoko Furusho

Haväng

Haväng is such a beautiful place, especially now in the early autumn. Haväng translates into "Meadowsea".

Foxes trekking through djungel

Sometimes I wish that I hadn't changed the language on the blog to english, because my english writing isn't very good at all. So... I am thinking about changing it back to swedish, so that I can express myself ;) Heh, but then I'm so honored by the people from other countries that read my blog that I can hardly bear myself to do it. Although you are few, I really appreciate every visit!

But that's not what I wanted to write about actually. I just saw the new movie version of fame and during the artistic students all four years they failed making it in the business. Singing, directing, acting etc. And then at the end of the film they sang about believing in themselves and never letting their dream go. But, if they couldn't become anything in the harsh world out there, what good is a strong dream? The film was inspiring and yet not.

We had a designer visiting today, he had worked for volvo, he was a really good sketcher but his way to the top had off course been tricky. And he reminded us of the competition out there and that it was a hard business. And I thought, heck - why did I have to be interested of all the things that were hard to do as a living?

Luckily I am the only one who wants to design for children in our class, most people want to design cars or things for people with rare handicaps and the rest of the students want to make video games. That's us! So as a children's designer I might not have as much competition. Or maybe I will. Who knows. Not swedish students. Our guest teachers said that swedish schools specifically were very bad at preparing their students for the real world.

Wouldn't it be great if you could find out that you would make it in the future, and that you didn't have to worry... then you could just chill out during your education. And simply embrace everything in your disposal at school :)

Hello

Hello you people! Here comes a little sketch, a better one will come in a day or two :)

Sunday

Hope you've had a lovely sunday!

I started with breakfast in the green.

I know what this is :)

This is a illustration of a girl and a mountain and some animals... but I'm still not sure what the last thing was.

So, in school, in my "advanced sketch" class I am one of the stupid kids since my hand isn't made for drawing really straight cubes and swinging around with a marker like a fairy. I'm really slow at understanding perspective, shadows and reflections. And our classes are really short... we get four hours every friday and then we just get a bunch of homework and we're supposed to figure everything out by ourselves with these english handouts that are written in lolli-posh-english.

But, I remember when me and my sister went by these street painters in Latvia who were selling their art (mostly landscape and portrait). Everything was really nice in perspective and right color and such, but it was dead boring. And my sister said, what use is it to be great at art if you can't use your imagination to make something interesting?

So, I might not draw with very good perspective for now... but I would like to think that I've got a little more imagination than others :)

What is this?

We were supposed to copy a sketch for our sketch class... however, I'm not sure what I've copied? I think it might be a screenshot from Antz or something... or not a screenshot.. but what do you call the sketches you make before you start animating or shooting a movie?

I just want to say

I just want to say something to all the people I've heard say

"How is photography an art? All you have to do is push the button."

That, NO THAT ISN'T ALL YOU HAVE TO DO. And that that is truly a very rude thing to say. Then I would like to see you run a commercial agency... or a food magazine... or a fashion magazine... and dress all the pages with just pushing the button on your ixus.

What a twat thing to say!!

I mean sure, am I in a really shitty mood right now - yes perhaps. But every time someone has said that I've just kept my mouth shut and thought rude things in my mind.

I don't have to call it art, but I sure wouldn't claim out that eeeveryone could do it just as good as the people who work with it.

Let's disco

I cut my hair shorter and it feels nice, I bought a dress with a pattern with very small flowers which my mother tells me I shouldn't wear, since it gives a women an old lady look, my cat didn't wanna disco as you can see, but he really doesn't like to do anything but fart all day, I try doing most my farting in my sleep, Lollo doesn't, while cutting the grass in the rain a mosquito bit me, it left a bumb on my left arm, so I baked myself a cake, which unfortunately tasted like dry shit, today the weekend is over and I didn't get to do anything fun at all.

Other place

It would be nice to get away to something that is completely different from everything around me. I'd love to get surprised. Somehow.

P.S I wish Amanda recorded more songs... she's so pretty and talented ♥

School's back!

So, from two great photographers to my trashy sketches. School is for sure back, we've got more projects and homework than we can handle. And this one is from my first lecture scribble(is that a word?).

Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott

Photographs by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott

Hellooo??? How can I possibly have missed out on the two fabulous fashion photographers Mart Alas and Marcus Piggott? I thought I knew everyone! I'm always bragging when I open a fashion magazine, I take a glance at one picture and say for instance "Oooeh that is like soo Carl Bengtsson, I just know it, look at the colors". But now I opened the book "NEW ORNAMENTAL TYPE" by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson and found a completely wonderful photograph and I said to the people next to me: "this is the most perfect photograph I've seen!". The picture I was referring to is the top photo to the right. Not in very good resolution here though.

It seems however that these two guys don't even have a website yet. What!? That's embarrassing. Just like most photographers who work for national geographic don't have the time to make one either. But hello!! You know you can pay people to do this? I don't think they know. Someone should tell them.

Or maybe they're all like "oooew, but I have to design my oooown website, I can't just let some duuude do it". And true, most web designers(dudes) don't have any taste and the ones who do want cash(so they can buy milk and feed their kids). Ehhh, such crap struggle. Just keep it simple! That's how I thought with my site, Flora Hanitijo was my inspiration.

Anyway, check Mert and Marcus out on the net, and hope for their homepage to get finished soon!

Uli by others IIII

Photographs by Stian Håpnes

These are some photos from a series made for a norwegian fairytale. I'm not sure how it went... but it's about a princess and a prince and a big white bear. This was the first time Stian photographed me I think, it was always so fascinating to see how he worked. He was truly the most inspiring photographer to be around. Would he have been alive today I'm sure he would have done even more incredible photography. But I'm convinced that they have some really nice cameras in heaven too.

Uli by others III

Photograph by Patrik Filip Johansson

This was sort of a to-go photo. I was heading into Kabelvåg town with Patrik, Hampus and Nikolai. I took some gay photos of them (I don't know why but I loved that) and Patrik snapped this photo of me with my camera. Still one of my favorite portraits of me!

Uli by others II

Photography by Fredrik Ödman

Fredrik has actually updated his homepage, see it here.

Both these pictures were really fun to be a part of. Fredrik always has these funny costumes to get into. On the first picture I was wearing a whole bunch of tights and on the other a lovely vintage princess dress. Most often when someone takes a picture of you you know exactly how it's going to look. But with Fredriks images you have no idea. You get to see them a couple of days (if not weeks) later when he's done his ps-thing. It's exciting :)

So thank you Fredrik for letting me model for you, I'm looking forward to the next shoot!

Uli by others I

Photo by Annah Sæthre (backstageshoot while my schoolmate Emma Backlund was photographing me in Sopot, Poland)

I think it's really fun to model for other photographers than... ehm... myself. Finally you don't have to think about the exposure, shutter speed, light, shadows, angles, the model...bla bla. You can just kick back and hope the photographer won't get the worst side of you. Because everyone has quit a lot of faces. Both pretty and ugly. People who tell me "Oh, I always look ugly on photos" I simply respond with "That's not you being ugly, that's just photographers being crappy!". I just had a look at a whole lot of pictures of me I had copied from someone I used to know about three years back. And I truly looked like the ugliest girl in every single one of them. But instead of thinking Wow, I'm butt ugly I wondered why the person taking the pictures never once tried to stay still, look around and klick when the moment was right.

So - if you feel like you look like shit every time the camera gets near, try to relax your face really quick and if that doesn't work - blame the photographer ;)

Dream