Flashback Friday 06 – Flight of the Corridor to Oland

What happens to me every Friday is that I take  a MASSIVE trip through memory lane. Today’s trip is a special one. When the sun came out and the days started getting longer in Kalmar, my friends from the 3rd floor of our hostel announced a planned camping trip to a little (not so small though) island off the coast of Kalmar called Oland. The idea was to hop onto our bikes, grab a free bus ride across the bridge to Oland, ride halfway up the island along the coast then all the way across at it’s narrowest point. Total distance one way was about 45 kilometres. I rode there and back. In a single day.

I found the bus really interesting. Apart from how the bikes were actually transported across the bridge, it had a mirror inside that was cracked and I had a blast taking pics of our faces in that mirror.

Oland was quite an interesting island. Part of it was nice and modern just like Kalmar then there was a part of it that felt like you were being transported to the middle ages. There were windmills all over and the field were yellow and bright in the sun. It was wonderful. One windmill we stopped at had a plaque on it that stated that it had been built in the 1600s. It was still operational by the way.

The landscapes there were quite breath taking. My favorite one is below.

For a more expanded account of the bike tour to Oland, do read the journal entry about that trip here. I am sure you will quite enjoy it.

Till next week, have fun y’all 😀

Flashback Friday 05 – Easter in Kalmar

It was the first time that I was doing Easter holidays outside my homeland. Predictably, I didn’t plan to go anywhere over Easter (not that I could afford to anyway) so I resigned myself to a quiet Easter spent in my hostel room watching movies and chatting with friends. Little did I know how much I would get up to that weekend.

It’s like spring heralded the beginning of barbecue season in Kalmar. I think I attended at least 5 barbecues in a period of 4 days. That’s not even counting the pre-parties I went for. This image was from the  barbecue my friends held on the top floor of our hostel. The sparks made such wonderful light trails as we set about getting the fire as hot as possible as soon as possible using someone’s hair dryer. That’s a trick I so have to use at a barbecue real soon 😀

At that same party, we were playing this game. Don’t remember what it was called. But it was a whole bucket load of fun. The idea was to get 3 pieces or more in a straight line. The French people kept winning 😀

Talking about French folk, I spent a whole lot of time that weekend with two angels – Eve-lise and Adele (pictured bottom right and top right respectively). They were part of the French contingent of the exchange student community and probably the best friends I had the whole time I was there. This photo was taken at yet another barbecue I showed up at during that weekend. This time it was the exchange student community who hadn’t gone home or abroad for Easter coming together to have some fun. Something interesting that I just noticed about this picture is that the two on the left are German and the two on the left are French 😀

The exchange student community at Kalmar kinda felt like a mini United Nations. We had students from all over the world coming together with one common goal – Education. This also meant that there were a lot of beautiful young ladies there as well 😀 but I digress. That barbecue did end up being a photo shoot because the evening sun was giving off some glorious soft light and the photographer in me just wouldn’t let that slip by.

This is arguably one of my best portraits from the whole of my 4 month stay in Kalmar. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing and Cathrin was such a joy. She translated what I had seen in my head into the pose. I ended up always taking a photo of her whenever she was around me.

Finally, as part of my cultural experience, I got to go for a pre-easter event at the Kalmar museum a.k.a ‘the witching night’. You can get the full story here. There were kids all over the place in the museum and my friends were helping out in the origami room, teaching the kids how to make various origami animals using art paper. A clear favorite was frogs. They were so cute that I just had to take a photo of one of them.

My apologies for the very random nature of today’s post. For an easier narrative, please visit the journal entry that covered that Easter period as well as the photo album with many other pictures from the same time. If you have no idea what I am talking about, you can get first 4 instalments in this series here, here, here and here.

Have fun this weekend folks. Safety starts with you, so don’t go doing anything I wouldn’t do.

Flashback Friday 04 – The Photo Walk

What it does people?!! Karibu sana (welcome) to the fourth edition of the Flashback Fridays segment. In this post, let me take you down memory lane to a land I left long long ago.

One random week day some time in mid May 2009 I went walking on a small island by the harbour in Kalmar with my friend and fellow photographer Agnes Rube armed with my trusty Canon 400D and her with a 40D

It was a chance for me to explore a part of Kalmar I hadn’t yet visited, as well as talk to Agnes about life in Nairobi as she was set to come to my university as an exchange student soon after. And I did see some interesting stuff.

Yes, there was a rail in the woods. Story was that a long time before, there was a small industry on that small island that used the rail system to move the goods around the factory. That factory got shut down and pulled apart but the rail was left as a testament to history.

Sometimes they say that the best place to look for inspiration is up. And that we did. What I miss about doing photo walks is that it’s an opportunity for one to explore their creative eye uninhibited by fear of robbers or city council askaris breathing down your neck.

That beautiful building is the Kalmar museum. It was wonderful walking through that museum and reading the history of the Nordic communities that settled in Kalmar and built the Kalmar slott (Castle) that survives up till this day.

Finally, I don’t know why but I found this sign absolutely hilarious. Being that this was the harbour and all, there was a real and present danger that cars could fall off the sides and into the water. However, I am not sure this was the best way to show that 😀

And on that funny note, it’s time to end the post. Lovely weekend y’all!!!

Flashback Friday 03 – The Rock Night

There were good days and bad days in Kalmar. This was one of those good days. As the official photographer for Corehouse, the student-run club, I was tasked with covering each and every major event. This was one of the major events that they had happening at the Corehouse. A number of local rock bands were invited for the evening and students encouraged to come and support the bands. Needless to day, attendance was pretty low. But I had fun with it regardless. I was in control of the lights and the smoke machine. And this is what happened…

This was the sound check. And the light check. And the smoke check 😀

The coolest rock group on that stage 😀

The crowd (my friends) getting all up in the musician’s faces 🙂

And finally, air guitars 😀 My favorite moment of them all…

If you wanna read more about how exactly this all happened, do not hesitate to visit this post on my other blog. And till next week, have fun y’all!

Flashback Friday 02 – Kalmar at Night

On this second installment of Flashback Fridays, we delve into a photo walk I had on a late pre-summer night in Kalmar. Photo walks were a way I could spend time shooting with a fellow photographer to get tips on composition and what not. This photo walk was mainly focusing on getting good long exposures. Let me not say much more. Here are the images. The shoot started at sun down. That was about 9 PM because summer was starting. And that was one of the best sunsets I had ever seen while I was living at Falkensbergsvagen.

My first stop was the Kalmar Tower. It stood tall and proud in the middle of the city centre right next to the river. I loved how the light emanated from it 😀

I loved how the lights at the Kalmar Theatern kept changing colours so it was a very good candidate for a long exposure. This was a 5 second exposure 😀 Pretty eh?

And finally,this one is  just to prove I was out pretty late 😀

That marks an end to edition 2 of Flashback Fridays. Here’s wishing you a great start to the weekend 😀

 

Flashback Friday 01 – The Beginning

I believe that for anyone to understand his/her future, they must first look back into the past and analyze what they did so that in the future they don’t need to re-invent the wheel.

It is with that in mind that I am starting this new regular section. I am going to be looking back at images I created with my first DSLR, a Canon EOS 400D back in 2009 while on an exchange trip to Sweden. Most of these images live on my Facebook profile and thus have never been seen by most of the world. I feel that by sharing them, I can also take a look at what I used to do right and maybe garner ideas to further improve my photos in the future.

Right. Enough talking. The first photo today is actually a photo of a plant. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Allow me to explain first before you send Cereberus and his hell hound friends after me.
So it was mid afternoon in Kalmar, I had nothing to do and the sun was already coming down. Seated in the kitchen thinking deeply about home, I looked at the window and noticed how the sun was falling on the plant. It was mesmerizing.

Second image was taken as I was seriously suffering from a block. Couldn’t read to save my life. As the mantra goes: if all else fails, take a picture. Which I did 😀

I ended up scoring pretty high in that class 😀

That about does it for this first post in a great series of posts. I kept a journal the whole while I was in Sweden which you should most definitely read. The first journal entry (which corresponds to this post) is available here. Enjoy!