today

A day that woke up empty and got filled with friendship, sun, beautiful light and love.
Wish you a lovely week!

 all images from instagram.

11 march

I took the above image in Tokyo in March 11th 2008, 3 years before the horrible disaster that has changed Japan forever. 1 year now. Still no words.

Some random interesting links:

Children of the Tsunami : http://hellosandwich.blogspot.com/2012/03/children-of-tsunami.html
Inside the Meltdown: http://hellosandwich.blogspot.com/2012/03/inside-meltdown.html
A project to support: http://www.swiss-miss.com/2012/03/kasama-yaki-made-in-kasama.html
A life change (brazilian sorry): http://shigues.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/voluntariado-parte-1/

the art of portrait

 

I feel so many limitations when it comes to portraits. I hate asking people to take their portrait and doing it without they noticing makes me feel like a thief. Very often my "subject" will understand that it's being observed and I always feel so bad for doing it. But it costs me even more to go and talk to someone and ask "can i get your portrait?"
The above pictures was a rare event. I actually asked the man in the top image if I could take his picture and he reluctantly agree. I was with a group of photographers so somehow I felt more brave. He was at the entrance of his shop and after the portrait fuss I heard his wife from the inside of the shop saying "you can take my portrait, I don't mind! and she looked so decisively to the came. She has a tought look but a gentle smile, must be a strong woman.

So I felt very jealous when I found this project by dannish photographer Jonas Normann called "Sidewalk Talk". His portraits are very simple yet very engaging and they are really beautiful.
Also he made a beautiful video about this project that you should see:


A tribute to the people of Vejle from sidewalktalk.dk on Vimeo.

Well it's good to know that you have still so much to learn.
And you, do you like shooting portraits? Do you ask people?

another sunny day

a sunny walk in the neighbourhood today with a warm hint of spring.

instagram

i have joined the instagram fever. it's addictive and fun to capture little details of my everyday life. you can follow my daily bits here @moshimoshiii (ha!). are you on instagram?

bolo de arroz

today i ate a portuguese muffin a.k.a. bolo de arroz. and for a moment i was instantly in my childhood.

back bone

it takes back bone to lead the life you want

all is full of love

snow in london - part 3

ah! thought i've had enough? nooooo! here's more snow pictures! i know you're all "come on sara, we're so tired of winter, bring us something to long for spring!" but you want to know something? i like the cold. it's nice and cosy and makes you appreciate wonderful things like scarfs, or central heating, god bless who invented central heating, that makes coming home such a happy moment (and a special person does it too).
so here's some black and white very cliche pictures of the snowfall! hope you enjoy :) i'll stop now. promise.

snow in london - part 2

i couldn't help it! more pictures of snow! after the big snowfall on saturday night, sunday woke up in a beautiful white world. we walked through regent's canal to primrose hill to enjoy good snow fun with lots of londoners. we found a big plastic bag and used it to slide down the hill as it was a real sled.

and as i said... it snowed on saturday! and it was a-m-a-z-i-n-g! no matter how much snow i see i still have a childish happinness about it... we laughed, we jumped, had snow ball fights and even slided on a hill.
snow is so beautiful!

light and shadow

yesterday i spent the morning in bed. london is freezing these days (they even say it might snow tomorrow or sunday) and i caught a cold. nothing too serious but felt much better after some rest.

when i was in highschool i did the drawing course at "sociedade nacional de belas artes". one of the exercises i loved most was to draw a hanging white sheet trying to capture all the subtleties of light and shadow only with pencil. challenging!

yesterdays sun entering the room reminded me of this exercise. even freezing london is sunny!

 

happy new year

oh no, i did it again! went on months without talking to you and now it's a new year already! bad me and bad my time management. however you would be glad to know that one of my new year decisions was to be more present on this lovely blog. although i'm probably speaking to 3 people this blog is very important to me and i don't want to let it go.

so here's to new starts! last weekend was the official london celebrations of the chinese new year and we went to do some dragon sightseeing. it was nice but didn't that many chinese around, mmm... why? dunno...

in the images below i only used my 50mm lens. i love that lens!

on brave friends

It’s hard to see close friends suffering with deception in their lifes. It’s hard to see really good people in pain for no good reason. It’s sad to see them deal with crazy stuff you think only happens in movies. It makes me angry how can someone be so selfish to harm another, specially when it’s the another you are supposed to care above everything. It’s sad to see love break with such an impact.
But on these incredible sad moments I’ve discovered how strong my friends are, how they managed to find strenght where you thought it wouldn’t be any left and they move life forward with new energy and new love. And I can only think how hard it must be and I feel so proud.

london

are you really my friend?

photo by tanja hollander.

like many people i have mixed feelings about facebook. i was never a great enthusiast but i have my account like everyone else and i admit to enjoy strolling through peoples lifes like a voyeur and drop my "likes" every now and then. and i also like to see what my distant friends are doing and believe i'm closer to them with comments and likes. at the beggining i was a "purist" - no, i will never accept anyone who is not my true friend! i soon ate my words when work colleagues and old highschool friends i didn't even remember the existence started asking to "become a friend". i quickly forgot my purist principles and now have 420 friends (too many? too few?) and often ask what is the sense of this community?
many times i abstain myself of saying something personal because shouting to 420 people my feelings or too many personal details feels too ackward. so then it's no longer a group of friends but a group of acquaintances. sometimes i think of using it as marketing for my photos and my shop but it would feel like i'm imposing something to supposed friends and i have created a special page for that anyway.

ok, i'm blabbing here. this long intro to share with you a really interesting project photographer Tanja Hollander created that i found through etsy's blog. she had similar thoughts about FB and on experience of reflection on the modern ways of communication decided to visit every one of her over 600 "friends" and photograph them in their homes. i thinks it's an amazing idea and a very personal journey too. can you imagine talking to all of your facebook friend's face to face?

etsy's blog post | are you really my friend? | the facebook page!

the other day silvia was also talking about her relationship with FB too.