Favorite photos

Photographers unknown

These three are a few of my all time favorite photographs (by others).
I have such a weak spot for old black and white photos of people with dogs and cats.
But I mean... how could you not like these three? Look at his beard, and the kitten!!! What? It's perfect.

I'm trying to read a book for an upcoming class, but my goshiness is it depressing! It's all about how we're all gonna die and we're ruining the planet and all that is bad. Since I'm very considerate of the environment I hate when I read texts that are actually aimed towards people who don't give a flying rats bum about the planet. I give flying rats bums. So I hate reading texts that pretty much say it's actually YOUR fault and YOUR fault only.
I met some friends of a friend a few days ago and some of them asked if I was an environmentalist (because apparently I sounded like one). I sighed and said "No... I study design and therefor I'm doomed to know all about everything created and therefor I panic when I see someone use a plastic object once and then throw it away"


What's awesome on the other hand is that I've got such great followers so thank you a bunch for all the answers on my last post. It was super helpful! I send virtual hugs to you.

Music box

As some of you might know, I'm doing my bachelor project in design this semester.
My brief for the project is still rather vague, but it's something like creating a creative object that either gets you mind going or makes it stop spinning. It's supposed to be some sort of abstract puzzle, like my composed animal was.
I know I have a lot of creative people reading my blog, so I ask you - if you get stuck, either when studying or while creating, what do you do to clear your head? Do you go for a walk? Sit in front of the computer, see a movie, read a book, clean the house, go shopping?
And also, do you want to do something that will get your mind going so that you know how to continue, or do you want to do something that clears your head completely?
I'm thankful for all thought and ideas!

I got stuck today, so I sat in my bed and listened to my music box that I've had since I was little (see picture above)

Watch out for bears

Me and Robert went to the forest yesterday... and realized that there was ice on the lakes so now I have to go skating. And there was this beautiful area in the forest were water had frozen under a bunch of trees, so it looked like trees growing out of a lake.

Gosh... it sounds like there is a party on our roof!!! But I'm not invited since it's a crow-party. The crows have been like crazy around our house. I can't believe our cat isn't more bothered about it. Lazy pouchy. 

Cat catcher

I sometimes feel that Lollo thinks I'm a bird and that I'm something he can hunt. Well, just like in the fables were turtles outsmart the hares and sheep outsmart the fox, I thought it was time to dress out as a bird and kidnap Lollo while he was napping.
He got so mad for being forced to model that he ended the session with laying a big frustration-dump in his sandbox. But he was actually a really patient model this time, I had a hard time picking which photos to edit because Lollo was posing so good in many of them.
Next time I'd love a bigger bird disguise. The backfeathers are actually from a crane, me and my boyfriend took them from the birdroom at the zoo (from the floor, not from the ass of an actual crane). Hah.

I'm happy some of you are already interested in the horse prints. As I've told the ones that have emailed me, I'm heading to the printers next week to have  preview and then I'll set a price. But it wont be more than 30 EURO, that much I know. I'll give a big shout out when the shop opens.

And thanks to all the people who email me saying nice things, I'll try to respond to all of you.

Which print to choose?

Hello! I'm considering printing a 30x42 cm print of one of the horses.
I can't really decide which one of these two?
I would love your input!
Thanks!

There's an interview with me over at LOMOGRAPHY

Walk with the ostrich

Lollo the cat had one of those days. Those days that went by and you never even remembered what you did. He asked his taxi, Olle the ostrich, to take him for a walk. He sat on Olles back, watched the pale landscape and sighed. They went by the berry bushes and Olle the ostrich asked Lollo if he wanted to stop for a little snack. Lollo just tapped his tale on Olles butt and snapped that he should keep walking. Let's hope tomorrow will be a better day for Lollo!
I recognize this feeling. Feeling small, chubby and bored. Sitting on your butt. Haha, don't you?

Larger images from The girl with 7 horses can be seen on C♥HEADS MAGAZINE

Also thanks to some sites that have mentioned the project:
Unicorn/Dream magazine
Ever So Lovely
SNAP! Magazine
AnOther
Trendhunter
COOL & SKULL
Happiness is...

Grumpy cat says hello

Oh gosh. I saw on my statistics page that someone had found my blog by googling "Bajs i en sjö". Translating "Poop in a lake". I also saw that if you clicked on images there were only three images apearing. Only from my blog.
A little birdie told me that another birdie I met a year ago said that I had matured. I didn't joke about poop all the time. I'm not sure this is true. I seldom think before I talk. Luckily I have found friends and a boyfriend who likes this quality. I'm not so sure my mum likes it though :)

Thank you for all your kind feedback on The girl with 7 horses. I'm happy that the project is complete.

And thanks to all the mentions elsewhere, BOOOOOOOM!, My Love for you, Colossal, PetaPixel, Oitzarisme, Fine little day, Boat People

The girl with 7 horses #7

Once upon a time there was a girl who had 7 invisible horses. People thought she was crazy and that she in fact had 7 imaginary horses, but this was not the case. When autumn came the girl spent a whole day washing all her clothes. She hung them on a string in her garden to let the gentle autumn sun dry them. Out of nowhere, a terrible storm came and its fiercefull winds grabbed a hold of all her clothes and all seven horses (authors note: since they are invisible they obviously didn't weigh much). The girl was devestated and spent all autumn looking for each horse spread around the country, wrapped in her clothes.

Prints from the story available HERE

Photo project by Ulrika Kestere, from october 2011 to january 2012

Latvian illustrations

There is something special about how Latvian artists illustrate. Especially back in the day. They all had the same style sort of. I especially like this cartoon, Zaķīšu pirtiņa, which translated into The rabbits sauna. And it's about how rabbits clean themselfes in the sauna... and then there are hedgehogs, a moon runnings around and a super big horse. Can't go wrong!
The book I'm reading on the photos is Tolkiens Bilbo, with illustrations by Latvian Laima Eglite.

Animated Lion Lady gif

Hmmm.... still trying to figure out how drawing a GIF would work. First try doesn't look so good, but practice makes perfection... höhöhöh... one could hope!
Mr Pouchy (Lollo the cat) keeps insisting on going out (although I keep telling him you don't wanna do thaaat) and then he realizes that it's raining wet snow so he sits under the stairs and farts sourly.
My throat is all slimy and sick-ly so I'm sitting at home with my lemons and garlics.... under the stairs farting. Just kidding.
Or am I?

Lollos crazy time

I had big plans on leaving the house today, but the sky suddenly turned pitch black and then the rain ate up the house and now I'm not so sure about leaving this dry place anymore. I should be brainstorming for my bachelor but me and Lollo ended up playing family with our plastic animal children. Lollo always want's to play the evil father who beats our children. The game ended quickly. It got to violent.

we♥it inspiration

All Images from weheartit, from my ulicam heart
Photographers unknown


What would searching for inspiration be without we♥it? If I want to find a supernice supercosy picture of a bunny or a girl with freckles, this is the place I go to. How genius was it to gather all daydreaming people and make them share the photography they like? Only downside is that it is often hard to find the true source of the picture. Most things come from tumblr sites without credit to the artist. That's why I can't credit the pictures above. If anyone knows a photographer please tell me!
It will be interesting to see how long it can stay daydreamy though... and when people are going to start adding uncosy pictures. There is already a bit to much bieber, twilight and emo girl pictures stumbling in at every search. I don't know why someone with dyed hair and piercing sitting in their room have to tag themselves with mermaid.

Little sweet creatures

First day of school today. People were presenting their bachelor project ideas and I had a hard time defining mine. But I think it's become a sort of "dreamspace" workspace for creative people. A space were you take a break from the creative things you normally do... things that might not feel like a hobby anymore.
I also drew some rabbits. Here they are.
Lollo just put his pouchy over all my pens so I'm going to stop drawing now. It's good to have someone tell you when you should take a break. 

Strange desaturations

There really is quite a difference between black and white and black and white.
Whenever I get the chance to teach photoshop I try to inform people about how to desaturate their photographs correctly. I think the upper picture looks so strange! And that's just by turning the magenta tone a tad wrong. Apart from the BW it's a 4 second exposure... so half my face is on half my face. Hah.

And - it seems that the braid GIF has been re-blogged and re-tumblred and what now over 40 000 times (and counting) - without any directions back to me. Please, please, if you reblog my photos, respect the copyright and link back to me. Thank you!

Fishes

Here's a few more sketches. The mermaid is actually in colour... but the colours were sorta too much so I killed the saturation.
I'm happy you liked the GIF, time to make some new ones then!

Animated braid gif

Haha, ok so this is my first try at making an animated gif. I thought I would make something I'm familiar with. Braids.
Showing three strand braid, fishtail, dutch braid, french braid, braid buns etc...
Next time I think I want to try drawing a running animal.

More colour

Hmm... I'm thinking about making an animated gif... does anyone know some that are really nice and arty? I like those that loop nicely.

I like having weather. But today the weather is too much weather. Rainy.Windy. Grey. Hm, anyone else that feels that the grey skies have been hovering way too long?

Drawing with colour

Robert gave me this gorgeous moleskin for christmas and some soft aquarelle pens. The moleskin was so beautiful that I for some time didn't dare to draw anything in it. But since I'm trying to stay away from the computer at the moment I thought I could practice drawing with some color since I seem to have gotten a bit tired of the black ink. So I went to the library and picked up some "Mammals in colour" books that I could draw from. I'm such a new beginner with colour that I'll need to copy some pictures before I'll start drawing my own things.

When you have "hobbies" like photography and drawing but somehow don't see them as hobbies anymore, you kinda need new things that you don't take so seriously. That's why I've started to play the piano and yesterday my ballet started up again. I like how both ballet and playing the piano feels graceful... and harmonic somehow. When I danced oriental for a few years I had a teacher that was into weird choreography. So when we had shows she liked the dancer to flip the bird to the audience and yell "I'm not a whore!"... ok not really but almost. My friends have some funny memories from watching our performances at least. And although oriental clothes can be so beautiful my teacher always wanted the dancers to dress so ugly.

Bath

Hello dear readers! Winter break has been going on for a while now and I'm actually getting rather bored. What to do what to do? I don't feel like drawing and a have no original photo ideas. Maah. I wish it was summer and you could head out to the beach all day and get tanned and sandy between the toes. Mmm....sandy toes.

Oh, by the way, does anyone now some super smart free sites that help you build a homepage? I'm looking for the portfolio homepage type. But preferably not with a completely locked frame but something that's flexible. You who've built with indexhibit, is it easy to understand?
And I really don't want sites were you scroll the pictures from left to right. Every picture should be alone. Any who, if you have any tips I'd be super grateful! 

Reach for the stars

It's a new year and it's time for some new goals.
Don't hold back and reach for the stars.
With a little discipline and a lot of hope you can get anywhere.

I've got one week left from my winter break. I'm heading up to Lofoten in March to teach photography again and I'm trying to gather all the information I'd like to pass on. I want to make the workshop more daydreamy and more Uli this time. I found the funniest text on our photo schools blog. It's from four years back when I was still a student and our fashion photography teacher got sick and I had to jump in. This is what Patrick wrote about the matter (in swedish), so sweet.

"Än en gång blev eleverna utelämnade i det karja, kalla och okärleksfulla vädret. När den store men just nu sjuka gästlärare Siren Lauvdal ställde in sin workshop, men då, som en riddare i skinande rustning ridande på ett vitt arabiskt fullblod över dom stora Lofotfjällen kom Ulrika "Dotter av Uldis" Kestere och med sitt bländande leende och meterlånga hår som svävade i vinden, Sträckte hon sin Wacom Penna i luften o sa.
- Jag ska göra en Workshop för er. 
på sjungande skånska. och så blev det. Ulrika lärde oss allt hon kunde, och några timmar senare var vi igång med att fota."

Birdwatching Cat

I had gone to a horse stable the other week were they had a lot of storks. And since storks are sort of the animal of my home country, Latvia, I thought it was time I included them in an illustration.
What's happened here is that Mr. Cat came up to the roof to get some peace and quite and to look at birds from a distance. Instead all the birds came to him and it wasn't as relaxing anymore.

When all color has gone

I've been meaning to shoot the last picture for the series with the cloth horses... but the weather has been so difficult (meaning: strong winds and lots of rain) so I haven't found the possibility. Therefor I'm posting some old photos with a lot of juicy color...something I can't find outside at the moment :) Grey is the word here in Sweden! I tried making a red cloth horse the other day... but it doesn't play out well with the grey colors in nature.

I did something nice today, which was to clean out my photo stuff shelf. It has been looking like a hobos crib for a few years now and I found some batteries who had peed themselves (how come they do that when they get old?) so I thought it was time to handle the mess. Found some old walkie talkies as well. Might invite my boyfriend to sit in a bush 3 meters away from a tree were I'd be hiding and talk secret code. 

Dog Painting

A christmas gift from my boyfriend, I think I might be one of the few people who really likes something like this! But you know I have thing for dog photography so off course I like dog paintings as well. 

Happy New Year

Happy new year ulicamers!
I'm looking through my old files since I'm making a new official homepage and I need to change up the pictures a bit. You really realize how much you've learned when you look into the past. In a way I'm happy I was really confident about what I did even when it was really bad, because it encouraged me to keep doing it and to then get better. But also, I really appreciate all the people who were supportive and encouraging back in the day.

If there was a wish I could make for next year it would be that everyone should really start to love the planet more. And I don't mean it in the obvious, stop using your car way, but if everyone just makes small changes it will become a superbig change for the world. Don't let the water pour forever, turn out the lights when you leave the room, use your bike more often, don't shop supercheap things that break after 3 months, don't buy a new cellphone every other month... etc. When studying design you learn everything about the long process from material to product. Don't over-consume on things. If you want to treat yourself something, get a nice massage or buy nice chocolate from the local chocolaterie :)

♥ Uli