Thank you for getting my set with @janesinner and @andrealaz to the front page. I'm glad people enjoyed the concept and little story so much. We shot it in Portugal early last summer. I came from Scotland, Jane came from Russia and Andrea came from Brazil via Germany!
You guys probably know that I have had quite a fascination with Russian culture for years (since I read Dostoyevskys The Devils thinking it was some kind of occult text during my black metal days!) so I was quite excited to meet Jane, I was trying to talk to her about Tolstoy and Shostakovich and Tarkovsky and Nabokov and then thought I had perhaps scared her a bit. Like if some Scottish loving person just wanted to talk to me about a Robert Burns all the time... Actually I wouldn't mind. Anyway I found her delightful and did think that her green eyes, freckles and red hair would match quite well with me in a shoot but I didn't want to be creepy and suggest it as I'm 6 or 7 years older than her I think! But after a day she actually asked me if I would like to make a set together which was lovely.
It was over 30 degrees and shooting against the glass means we were dripping with sweat but we managed!
The day after we shot the two of us went into Lisbon together to see the city and we had such a beautiful day. The coloured patterned tiles of the buildings in the old town were like nothing I have seen in Northern Europe. We tried all the special foods of the region like pastel de nata and salted cod. We met a nice man on the underground who was watching us struggle with our huge tourist map and offered to give us a whistle stop tour of his city because he loved it so much, he showed us the statue of Fernando Pesoa and lots of beautiful buildings and told us the routes to take to the castle. Then he went on his way to a macrobiotic lunch!
We got this funny little electric tram around the old town and at one point we were stopped with a problem on the line, at the very same moment as some people discovered a pick-pocket, so he was trapped inside with his victims and everyone was shouting him in Portuguese. It was quite a scene. An old lady in a black coat also had a very intense argument with a very fancy old lady which resulted in one kicking the other in the shins. I have no idea what it was about. We spend the whole day exploring and getting a little lost until we had to get the ferry back to Troia where everyone was staying.
That was a lovely trip and spontaneous meeting and I'm happy we shot our set as a memento of it. It was also wonderful to be reunited with @andrealaz , we cross paths now and then in this or that country and its always a pleasure.
The book in the set is Nabokovs Pale Fire which I've been trying to read for a years but never seem to have quite got into it as much as it impresses me. Maybe I'll try again this year once I've got through my current list.
And it's got to be said that I learned everything I know about kissing girls from @gogo ^_^ x