As some might know, I’m in India at the moment, but my stay is coming to an end. I’m heading back home on Tuesday again, so less than a week.

I have been struggling lately where to put photos up, but have kind of decided to put most of my photos up on my business site http://mathiascederholm.com. It seems more logical. I will probably publish some stuff here too, but most of my stuff will be there and linked from here.

Text will most likely be published here.

Here are some of the latest photos I have taken while in India:

Travelling in India and Some more photos from India

I find myself in a place where even on bad days, I am content.
Even on good days. I am content.

Thoughts and feelings come and go, good and bad. But they can never touch me.
No matter what happens, I can not be disturbed.

Every day this world changes

But I remain the Same.

It is silent. The night is Still.
Only the wind can be heard blowing outside, turning around the corners of the house.

Stillness is guarded gently, he makes sure that peace and quiet is maintained.

But when does he get to rest? When is Stillness allowed to be really still?

2011 was the year when I got back home from travelling.
You think you know the country you come from, where you grew up, but as I came back I was slumped into a reverse culture shock that took months to get used to. If you ever get used to it.

One of the consequences of my travels, was an increased passion and interest in Photography, it lead me to starting my own business, getting a few gigs and overall spending most of my spare time in various photography related projects.
I am by far not done or close to my vision, that is a good thing, because your vision constantly changes, and if I ever thought I completely fulfilled it, that would mean that it was no longer a vision, but a static image that have lost it’s life.
Most of the time, I am happy with the photos I take. Some days, I completely hate them. But every time I feel like that, I see how my mind expands and start looking at things in a new and different way.

Some days, I wake up feeling like anything could happen. And really, they can. Imagine what could happen in 2012?

This is uncharted territory, filled with fairytale creatures playing hide and seek with us. They show themselves every now and then to lure us further into the forest, until the day when we can no longer find our way out again, forced to live in this magical place forever.

A life that live itself, moving from one beautiful place to an remarkable event and on. Every year a new forest, every forest a possibility and every possibility an opportunity to see something new, feel something deeper. To look back on what has been, is to send a silent thank you, to leave things behind us and move on, deeper into the forest, get a little bit more lost. Lost, we will stumble upon what we need, not knowing we were even looking for it.

Allow 2012 to be that year. A year were we get lost and find the magical.

A magical year.

What has been for me, are these photos. They show a part of my 2011. What I have done, where I have been, What I have experiences.
Who I am.

I hope you enjoy them. And I hope you will be part of creating a magical 2012 with me.

Here’s the link: http://mathiascederholm.com/web/en/2012-ett-magiskt-ar/

It started with iTunes not too long ago. Legal, digital music. Already back then there was opposition on all sides. Musicians not getting paid enough, scared of illegal sharing. Labels seeing their business model change and consumers having to put up with useless copy protection and lower quality than before, on something they paid for. Yet it was truly a revolution caused by illegal downloading such as Napster. When Spotify showed up about three years ago, we could see the next step in this revolution. Suddenly you could create online playlists and share them online. You could search and listen to music on the go on your cellphone without first storing it on your computer. The same debates about pros and cons are still there. Just slightly different.

But there is something in this that you seldom hear about and that is what happens when something becomes next to infinite. Even though there are limitations, they are next to nothing. Spotify market themselves as having more than fifteen million songs that you can freely listen to for about $5.
While the issue is considered to be money, about how much and when, I find myself observing a change in my behaviour. I find myself listening less and less to music on Spotify or in iTunes. To have everything at your fingertips is no longer a sense of freedom but a sense of indifference.

What I have noticed is that when something becomes free and unlimited, the same thing happens to music as with money in a state of hyperinflation. When you have it all, it’s value is depreciated.
Six months ago, I got myself a record player, bought my first vinyl record since 1993. Suddenly, music was fun again. You know that feeling you have when you’re a kid and can only afford one record and even have to save up for it. Now I find myself thinking every now and then that I should cancel my Spotify account and erase all mp3s on my computer. I probably won’t do that, it is still very convenient when you are on the move and great for finding new music. But the thought is there.

I allow myself one album per month at the most. I could get more of course, but I don’t want to. Instead I want to go down, buy a record I have been thinking about for a long time, buy it, come home and slowly open the wrapper and put it on. Hold it while the music starts. Ane Brun’s latest album, my favourite at the moment, “It All Starts With One”, is already scratched. It has a weird sound for about 30 seconds. I found it annoying and thought about getting it replaced, but now it’s part of it’s personality.
Music is no longer a throw-away thing, but something I care for. I am building a relationship with the album and its creator. I show respect to the artist and the hard work he or she has put into making it the way it is, to share a vision and a part of themselves.

In our society, limitation has become a curse word, but I look upon it as a calling to go deeper. It has turned into a kind of enjoyment and pleasure that I had forgotten in all this extravaganza.

I realized the other day that I had already put up some of my recieved postcards without writing about it here, so I had to take them down and re-scan them.

This postcard comes from Nick that I met in San Francisco in July last year.
On an almost empty street we were both standing outside a bar after a couchsurfing meeting and started talking. We only had time to talk a few minutes, but made plans to hook up later. That didn’t happen however, for some reason I can’t remember.

Nick is studying to be a fire engineer and had just been accepted to a two year masters degree in Europe, first going six months to Scotland, then another six months in Lund in the south of Sweden and finally a full year in Belgium. During spring break, he came up for a week to Stockholm and surfed my couch, while exploring the city and hanging out.
After he finished the semester he went to Serbia and then to Ethiopia and while in Belgrade he sent this postcard of the former Jugoslavian dictator Tito and his wife. He looks kind of evil, right? (Tito that is).

Last I heard, Nick was in Belgium.

I have updated my photography site with another Maria photo shoot head over here to see it: http://mathiascederholm.com/web/en/en-till-maria/

I took last week off and spent it in my family’s cottage house on the countryside, between Enköping and Strängnäs, about an hours drive from Stockholm. Arriving Friday evening for ten days of peace and quiet. I spent the first six days alone and then had company over the weekend before going back home together.

November has been mild so far. No snow and almost too warm to wear a winter coat. It’s grey and lifeless after the leaves have fallen off the trees and no snow that lights up the darkness that hits you by surprise every winter. Isn’t it weird how one can forget what winter feels like every year?
Every summer, it feels unlikely it can ever become cold and white with a darkness that never lets go, but every winter you wonder how it is possible to ever get warm again. In this weather, walking around in shorts and a t-shirt and sweating seem impossible.

A few times a year, I think we need some time on our own. To get away, turn off our phone. Not checking e-mail or facebook. Just sit in a couch and be bored. Spend our days reading, going on walks, sit in front of a fire drinking tea. Not read newspapers about sovereign debt or watch tv shows. Not go shopping or running from activity to activity.
I have found, that the best inspiration comes from silence. We are so used to constantly being bombarded by sights and sounds and consuming experiences that we never really allow ourselves time to let things sink in before we are well in to the next thing. When we take a time out we let this happen, start the sorting process inside us where everything automatically finds it’s right place. It becomes the foundation on which we have new experiences, a self-correcting therapy, and when we get back changes come by themselves without our intervention or force.

To sit down by the water of lake Mälaren watching the sunrise is both better therapy and considerably cheaper. No matter how many museums we go to, how many beautiful paintings we see or how often we go through the centre of Stockholm with it’s beautiful architecture, we humans will never create anything as wonderful as what we are surrounded by daily. A sun rising is worth more than all the Rembrandts’ and Picassos’ combined.

We live without breathing sometimes. Thinking we enjoy all the activities we are in the middle of but they never really satisfy, and because of this, we need to repeat them, over and over, throwing ourselves into new ones constantly. Better and faster than the ones before. While we are watching a movie, we are thinking about what we will do when it is over. When we eat our dinner we think about the dessert and while eating our dessert, we think about what to do when it is finished.
In silence, there is no after. In silence there is no before. There is only now.

The first days I feel restless. But eventually it gives up and I become bored.
I am bored because I am so used to doing things all the time. But I realize that boredom is not about not having something to do, but rather to constantly be looking for something to do. And when I close my eyes and stop, let go of all the thoughts of doing something, all thoughts about what has been or what will be, boredom disappears.

I no longer remember what happened last week and no thoughts about getting back show up either. Being here feels like an eternity, like every second lasts for hours so I can savour it, enjoy it fully. When I get back home, I feel like a new person.
It has only cost me some of my time, but the pieces swirled up in the last few months has finally found rest and everything feels clear. I notice the difference and I am filled with wonder that all of this came on it’s own.
Now I will go back to activities, experiences and doing and I find myself enjoying them more than before.