I shot this photo for an article about Lamu, its doors and their carvers that is going to run in an internet magazine we’ll be launching in September (more info about the magazine as the launch approaches).

I was almost surprised seeing this photo after we had left the carvers’ workshop. The man in the photo, Omar, was the quieter of Alberto’s – who was writing the article – and my two interviewees.  Where in their words the two men seemed rather pragmatic towards their craft, the photo seems to tell a different story, one of dedication and love towards the work.

The plank Omar is working on in the photo will be a part of an elaborate exterior door that are very typical to this Swahili coast. The finalised doors are quite precious pieces of workmanship costing around €1,000 apiece and taking up to two months to carve.

In terms of photography here, getting used to two things took me a while. Firstly, the equatorial sun presents quite a challenge for good photography. Shining from directly above, the sun makes the light very harsh and quite dull for the most of the day. Exposing accurately, using fill flash and maybe most importantly, shooting in early mornings and just before the sunset have been my answers to the challenge.

The second thing requiring some time to get used to has been the general suspiciousness towards photography that especially many adults seem to have here. Doing good portrait photography requires always lots of social skills but that seems to be even more the case here. Photography here requires quite a lot of social effort; getting into situations where people aren’t that weary about cameras. That’s naturally also a good thing, providing an extra reason to find oneself in interesting social interactions. However, realising this took me a while and hence the visual topic of the first post: kids – they are always a lot more relaxed about having their photo taken…

These photos are shot on the lovely island of Lamu on the Northern coast of Kenya. I’ll be writing more about our time in Lamu in my future posts.

Note that by clicking the photos you can open them in a light box view, allowing to effortlessly view the photos in a larger size.

The exam time has kept me busy & updates sparse. Here’s, however, a photo I snapped while on a break from library.

It wasn’t quite that snowy & cold 1700m below.

It was cold inside and outside a half day’s walk away from the Annapurna base camp.

Rainy Weather in Dar es Salaam from Touko Sipiläinen on Vimeo.

Any above-moderate rain seems to turn Dar es Salaam’s streets into padding pools. One can imagine my surprise when I first witnessed this lack of drainage. Later on, however, it turned out that it seems to be a relatively normal part of the everyday living in the city. Seeing the hostel patio having turned into a jetty was quite a cool sight anyway.

Dog Race I from Touko Sipiläinen on Vimeo.

Dog Race II from Touko Sipiläinen on Vimeo.

Went to Brighton last weekend, and what could’ve been a more obvious way to spend the saturday evening than go see dog racing..!

It was my first time ever in a dog (or any animal) race and I was understandably quite excited. The track scene was quite impressive with families having their Saturday roasts and young people geared up for a night out.

And then there was the gambling bit. I did some modest betting, and surprisingly ended up on a profit with a tiny margin. Thanks Strong Link and the other dog whose name I’ve regrettably now forgotten.

The boys on the first video were great and will probably become accomplished gamblers once they grow up a bit.

Got quite excited about this video and wanted to share it.

via Yimmys Yayo