2014 was a weird year.
Can't really explain in any other way. It was absolutely bonkers.

I started off the year with lots of ideas and a promise to myself that I was going to try to be more brave - I even called 2014 the Year of Creative Bravery- and I set a few projects in motion that I felt so much about. That got totally turned upside down by one, shall we call it, incident.
Lights Out went viral.
It happened over night and changed everything.
All my projects, my blog, my jewelry and my plans sort of had to slow down for the rest of the year to just let all the adventure unfold. And it did. Slooooowly and unsurely.
It's been a year of so much waiting and hoping and dreaming and sometimes I've been extremely frustrated and other times I've felt as calm as a "filbunke" (Swedish expression that means very very calm. Like super slow.)

I've blogged for many years (since 2008) but I really wasn't prepared for people talking about me on the internet. Commenting on my body and looks both in positive -but mostly in negative- ways.
Especially since people seems to be of the impression that I am now rich and famous and should be able to take the bad with the good.
It required me to really reflect on some things. Like, how do I read the comments, the good and the bad, without letting them get to me. Well, the bad at least.
Because internet comments works in mysterious ways. I can get ten really lovely ones and then along comes a meanie and says I'm fat and ugly and untalanted and then that is all I can hear. Over and over and over in my head.

I read somewhere that the reason why negative comments hurt so bad is because when we read them we hear our own voice saying all those bad things to ourselves, and that makes it hit us harder.
I pondered on all of it for a while and then I decided it was time to write about this in Being a Woman in a Short Film Gone Viral.
To say "no, I don't accept this. It is NOT OK to talk about me this way."
I know it won't stop the mean comments but it very much made me stronger. I had said No, to them- but mostly to myself.

It also really helped that my post was picked up by a local radio station that wanted to have me talking about my experience on air. It was so much fun and I realised I had really thought all of this through and had come out of it with a better confidence.

Plus I have a folder in my phone with screencaps of every nice comment about me, so when I do get a bad one I can look in that folder and be a happy person again.
It's the small things, you know.

Now to the part about 2014 being the year of creative bravery.
I started off the year super hard and wrote my most personal blog post ever. To be brave.
It was about how being bullied as a child has affected me all the way into my 30's. It still does, actually, and I think it always will. But to write this text made me feel a whole lot freer. I don't need to pretend that it didn't mean anything to me. It meant a whole lot, and I strive to keep pushing against my fears and make myself become amazing because of it.

In other brave news I did something that I never spoke about on my blog.
I applied to a photography school.
It's been something I've been wanting to do for a long time but never really had the guts to before.
So I applied. I took photos for the application tests and I got called on an interview.
It felt so good. I was so happy when I left the school and thought: I have done my very best.
The day before midsummer's eve I got a letter that let me know I didn't get in, but was put on their waiting list.
I was nr 6 that day.
When classes had started I was nr 1 in line. And there it stopped.
I can't explain to you how sad I was. I had hoped so incredibly much for this.
The thing is: My number one dream in life has always been acting but a few years ago I kind of gave up a little.
I was tired of trying and started to make jewelry and take photos instead because that I could do on my own. And I fell in love with it.
So when another dream fell through it hurt a lot.

And then everything started to happen with Lights Out and I started to feel hope again. For acting. My first and biggest dream.
Could it be possible?
And that's where I am today. Thinking that maybe it is. Maybe it's time to give my ultimate dream a new chance. To say to the world yet again: I want to be an actress.
In film, on stage. Writing with David. That is my dream, my plan and my goal.
And the jewelry and photography gets to tag along but they are not on the forefront right now. Acting is.
It is scary to say. But I'm being brave now. It is 2015 at least.

When I looked through all my posts and photos from 2014 I realised that even though it has felt like everything has been put on hold because of all the waiting and hoping, I have still done a lot of things.

Here's the short version:

TRAVEL

We went to Copenhagen a beautiful spring weekend to do something together after spending so much time thinking/reading/talking/working Lights Out and everything surrounding it.
Here's those posts:
Friday Evening
Sunny Saturday
Lazy Sunday

On midsummer David and I went on a weekend trip to Varberg and Tjörn.

We spent Midsummer's eve in Varberg.

And midsummer's day at the beautiful Tjörn Island.

We went to Österlen a few times too of course.
A spring day in Rörum has some really nice photos, I think.

And the beautiful summer week.

When it was our wedding anniversary we went on a roadtrip that was so fun and exciting!

Anniversary Roadtrip: Friday. Where we found a fairytale forest.

Anniversary Roadtrip: Sunday. Part 1. Includes an old railway bridge, a frog and an abandoned house.

Anniversary Roadtrip: Sunday. Part 2 At the wonderful and exciting and weird car cemetery.

I love all of the blogposts from our roadtrip! It was the best way to celebrate our first anniversary as married, and we hope that we'll be able to go on a roadtrip adventure every year around that date.

And then in November we went to Los Angeles so that David could meet up with his agents, managers and producers. It was a great trip and now I really can't wait for 2015 to really get started.

PHOTOGRAPHY

During 2015 I had photoshoots with the gorgeous Ruby and my Tangled Triangle necklaces.
With the beautiful Ida for my This Growing Collection.
I photographed my father Peder Losten for his new record Fritiof & Grabbarna.
I started my photography self portrait series A Lotta Dancing by dancing in a forest outside St Olof in the south of Sweden.
I also modeled my Tangled Triangle necklaces in a photoshoot I did together with David called Old Timey Diva Meets Tangled Triangle.

FILMS

David and I made a couple of new shortfilms that we wrote together.
Pictured
Not So Fast that might be my favourite.

Coffer
And See You Soon that we made for Raindance film festival's 14 second horror film competition.

I made a video for the release of This Growing Collection where you can hear me sing.

And in december I made the wonderfully silly Advent Calendar sitcom A Whole Lotta Christmas.

But, of course. The most revolutionary things that happened for both David and me 2014 revolved around Lights Out. We won Best Short at FANT Bilbao.
Lots of festivals around the world screened Lights Out. To name a few: Dead By Dawn, FilmQuest, Fant Bilbao, Telluride, Horror Show Uppsala, International Short Film Festival, Hallucinations Collective, Festival Tous Courts, Horror Vision, Alcine 44 Spain, Braunschweig International Film Festival, Terrorfest Barcelona, Örebro Filmfestival, Fantastic Film Festival of Malaga, Synesthesia Film Festival, Meme Pas Peur, Gorefest, Narkolepsy Short Film Festival, Reading & Leeds Festival, Fascurt Barcelona, Cortopolis International Film Festival, Festival du Film Merveilleux.

Lights Out has been seen by a staggering amount of people now. Our youtube upload has 8.2 million views at the moment. Our vimeo upload has reached 9.6 million. There is another person that has uploaded the short and has almost 3 million views on it. Plus a bunch of others.
So 20 million views is probably to count it low.
So crazy amazing it really can't be grasped.

And there's a lot going on behind the scenes that I can't talk about yet but soooooon, hopefully!

Also:
The Theatre group I'm part of- Teater Esther- premiered the play Perfect Life AB that was written by our director Frida Hartvigsson after discussions from the group. It was a dark comedy that left the audience with a lot to think about afterwords. Teater Esther is such a huge part of my life. Perfect Life AB was our first own play and I'm so proud and happy to be a part of that awesome group!

The week before Christmas I attended the Christmas fair in the shopping mall Nordstan here in Gothenburg with my jewelry.
If you got a Lotta Losten jewelry piece for christmas: Hiiii! Hope you love it!

So let's get this year started, OK?
I have never really felt like this around new years before; I believe 2015 will be an adventure.
Wanna tag along? One of my wishes for the year is for me to blog more, so pop in here often.

Another thing I hope is to get to know more people- both on the internet and in real life, because one bad thing that all this waiting and hoping has done is make it quite a lonely year. When so much exciting stuff is happening that I can't talk about (yet!) it gets so much easier to just not talk to people.
So if you feel like I havent talked to you enough during 2014: 2015 is the year when I won't stop talking!

Hi!
This year I've found a new way to express myself that suits me perfectly. Self Portraits.
I installed a self timer app on my iPhone a little over a year ago and was immediately hooked.
I've been thinking a lot about self portraits and what it is that makes it so intriguing to me.
I think it's many things. I don't take a lot of selfies in the meaning of holding the phone infront of me and taking a photo. I like selfies a lot, but for some reason I prefer to see myself in the surroundings I'm in, not just a photo of my face that day. It's like I want to remember the place I was at and the mood I was in at the moment I take my picture as much as I want to remember how I looked that day.
Another, more important thing, is my love for theatre. I've been acting since I was very young and always really loved the way the stage contains a story. That is one of the things I love with photography as well; to set a scene and create a fantasy situation in the world I live in.
Self portraits is such a great medium for that because taking a pretty photo of a beautiful landscape is one thing but often I think there's a person missing, someone who can take that amazing scenery and bring it back to a situation that tells a story.
A really tall mountain can be pretty to look at but it rarely tells a story. But if you put a person next to the mountain you not only get a better idea of how large the mountain really is, you also see the photo more from the eyes of the person in the picture. What must it have felt to be there, at that wonderous place?!

I take self portraits on lots of different occasions and for many reasons.
I think it has made me a better photographer too, actually. It forces me to create a scene in my mind and really think of what the feeling in the photo should be.

In this post I will show you some tips on how to take better self portraits and what tricks I use to create moods.
And remember, all of these are taken with my iphone (both my old 4s and my new iPhone6) so no fancy camera equipment needed!
Here are my favourites from 2014.

DOCUMENTING AN EMOTION:

One of the reasons I love self portraits is to document a feeling I had that day. Sort of putting my emotion in a scene.
It takes a bit of acting but mostly just being myself a little bit more than usual to really get the feelings through the lens.
This photo is from when I had the stupid cold in Los Angeles in november. I was bored out of my mind and needed to do something! I was in LA for fucks sake! In a fancy hotel room for that matter!
It felt almost surreal to be forced to stay inside all day in this strange luxurious place that David and I could never afford for ourselves (David's producer booked the room for us) while the sun was shining outside. We had let roomservice know that they wouldn't need to clean our room that day because I was just a pile of fever and snot and weird dreams so the feeling of being all alone in a strange place was even stronger.

I work at a group home with 24 hour shifts. There needs to be someone there during the nights for safety but the person working the nights get to sleep at work. It's a weird feeling to stand in my nightgown, brushing my teeth in the bathroom at a completely quiet and dark workplace.

Summer at my parent's house. David is talking on the phone with people in Hollywood. Astor the cat watches sceptically as I'm dancing barefoot.
Sometimes life is wonderful and weird and quite silly.
(This also reminds me of the hundreds of photos I needed to take before I actually timed the jump perfectly, hah!)

Bored on my vacation. That should be illegal, right?!

A few weeks ago I went to the doctor to take blood tests. I have a stupid thyroid that needs to be checked a lot. Blood tests aren't really my thing though, so I fainted. But I got a lollipop from the nurse, so that was nice.
Here I'm waiting for David to come pick me up, all white in my face and wobbly legged.

And sometimes it's all about getting the feeling of sunshine into the picture to remember on cold winter days.

Like in LA when the cold kept ahold of me and the setting sun felt like the best medicin there ever could be.

FINDING PERFECT LIGHT AND NEVER LETTING GO:

Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a spot with perfect lighting and revel in it.
I can't really explain it, but colours and light can make my heart sing. It feels like music to me when I watch a photo (or anything really) with beautiful tones, light and colour.
This spot in a staircase with a dusty window is just perfect and gets me every time.

I MEAN LOOK! TRIPLE SELFIE!

This was all about showing off my new pink bike shorts that kept my thighs from hating on eachother during the warm summer months.

Oh.
Yeah.
This one and the one below. Music to my colour and light loving eyes.

The sombre tones adds to the atmosphere and I think you can tell I was having days when I wasn't feeling my very best. Those days are to be remembered too, you know.

One of the things I've realised since starting to take all these self portraits is that often times I don't even think of the person in the photo as me. It's just a person, or an emotion.
That is so freeing, you have no idea!
For me it has really been a great way to stop thinking about my body in negative ways. It might sound weird, but think about it, when you see a stranger you don't give them and their bodies the same scrutiny as you do yourself, right? They are just people. People with different bodies, emotions and looks, but you can't see on the outside what they think of themselves on the inside, and when you see a stranger for the first time you only get an idea of them.
This is something I've been thinking about when I look at the photos I've just been taking. I don't see myself as me with all the things that I am. I start seeing a "perfect stranger" that is just what this photo needed. It's so hard to explain but I hope you get the idea. -Let go of the things your mind keep hanging onto and see yourself as a unique person that is meant to look just like you do.

OUTFIT PHOTOS:

That "new to you" vintage find just needs to be documented! Even though the buttons bulge a little- but maybe that was intended?

In LA in my best dress feeling so very ready for a sunny day when Sweden was having rain rain rain for months.

SETTING A SCENE:

This might be my favourite thing to do!
It's all about using the scenery around me and get it to inspire me to create a little story.
Like a game of hide and seek in a Greek temple in the middle of a forest in Sweden.

Or a fantasy land where pink rhododendron flower petals covers all the land.

Or taking the messy kitchen combining it with a lens that should have been wiped, a person in a sailor cardigan and the skirt on sideways with a bleak look on her face and calling it ART.
Ha! I love this photo. I call it "Bored Sailor girl in mint green kitchen with unpaid bills and a loaf of bread."
It's a masterpiece, right?

Finding a fairytale forest and wanting to stay in this dream world forever.

(The iPhone is standing on a tree stump leaning on a pine cone, by the way.)

Nothing is as scary as the Lights Out Hallway.
Over the knee socks and a doll like face sets the scene.

Walking around like a ghost on a dark morning.

Having a cape makes it necessary to take spooky photos on the cemetery during dusk (and scare people out walking).

Is there still time?
Airport bathroom. Nothing more to say.

Knock Knock!
A little series of photos creating a story about an abandoned trailer in the middle of nowhere California.

Anybody home?

Who's there?!

HELLOOOO! Let me in!

I'll just let myself in then...

I edit all of my photos with the app Snapseed. It's brilliant!
You can change the exposure, contrast, saturation and all that but you can also edit small areas of the photo; like if there's a spot that is a bit too dark you can lighten it up a little.
The app has a bunch of really nice filter styles too and you can change how much of the style you use and also edit brightness and saturation in every filter. You can put a tilt shift effect to your photos, create a center focus and much more.
Snapseed costs a little but it is so very worth it. It's like a mini Lightroom for your smartphone! (No, I'm not sponsored by snapseed. I'm just a big fan.)

DOUBLING IT UP:

Then we have the extra curricular. The app PhotoMirror is a really fun way to turn your photos into weird and wonderful art pieces.

This spooky hotel corridor with a Lotta inside it is even spookier when there's two Lottas in it.

Bored Squared.

Happy and excited Squared.

Bonus Pic. David and Lotta as King and Queen from a deck of cards.

The self timer app I'm using is called TimerCam and I usually set it to 10 or 15 seconds so I don't have to run to get in place. As for making the iPhone stand I use what I have around me as tripod. Books, a fruit, a folded up sock; anything really! I never ever use the flash because it just makes skin tone and everything look horrible.

And yes, it feels a bit awkward in the beginning but don't worry, you'll get used to it soon enough. And before you know it you'll start seeing scenes everywhere around you!

I hope you found this inspiring.
If you do start (or already are) taking self portraits I would love to see some!
Add or tag me on instagram or twitter (I'm @lottalosten everywhere) and show me your scenes!

Tjingeling!
/Lotta

Hi!
Today I wanted to share something with you that I've been working on for quite some time now. It's a little project I'd like to call A Lotta Dancing and it's exactly as it sounds. It's a lotta dancing.
The idea to this has sort of snuck up on me for a while. When I was a child I used to hate going on walks because when I saw a beautiful glade, a fascinating tree or a wonderful hidden cave at the side of the track, the grown ups always walked past it, and I wanted to go there and sit and dream for at least an hour or so.
This has not grown out of me. I do love to go on walks though, but that feeling of wanting to stay in the magical surroundings and just be there is still as strong within me.
Nowadays that feeling is accompanied by another urge. To dance.
To move around in a way that that exact place encourages me to. All by myself, just to absorb the environment as much as I possible can.
In this first installment, of what I hope will turn into a series, it's a large forest making me feel like the tiniest human being alive.
Dancing barefoot on sticks and moss and letting the light seep through the branches onto my sholders. To imagine myself being completely lost among the trees, yet not be scared.

I'm combining my love for photography, magical or weird places, self portraits and dancing and turning it into this: A Lotta Dancing.
I hope you like it. There is definitely more to come because this world has so many places that needs to be danced in.

Talk to you soon!

/Lotta!

Hi!
I thought about blogging this yesterday but it was election day here in Sweden and my mind was way too focused on that for me to sit down and blog.
It turned out to be a very depressing election because the racist party became Swedens third largest party and the feminist party that I voted for didn't make it into the parliament.
It's just so awful.

But let's focus on something else entirely for a while! Something interesting and weird and hauntingly beautiful in its ugliness.
The car cemetery David and I visited during our road trip a couple of weeks ago. This day was our wedding anniversary and we filled it to the brim with amazing adventures. (For part one of this day click here )
This place is situated far into the woods close to the Norwegian border and people go there to look and be fascinated by the surreal atmosphere.
There are said to be a couple of thousands of old cars (some of them go as far back as the 1950's) in this car cemetery and the land is owned by two people who live on the property as well.
I've read that people in the area think of it as a sort of cultural heritage that needs to be left as is, but at the same time nature is not really loving it; the trees are not healthy and the ground must be filled with toxic waste.
No matter what, it's an extremely interesting and strangely beautiful location and the entire experience made a huge impact on both of us.

It's a place that get's the imagination going and we felt like we were thrown into a post apocalyptic world where everyone else was dead except for the few of us walking around the remnants of a long ago destroyed planet.
Fascinating, scary and very exciting!
I hope these pictures can give you a little bit of that feeling.

Nature takes over.
Imagine the years it must have taken for the trees to grow this big, that's how long the car has just been lying there untouched.

Mossy license plate numbers.

Indecipherable.

Almost melted together.

Cars almost entirely eaten by nature.

Forever queuing.

I stood here for quite some time just staring, my mind reeling with fantastical movie scenarios.

The moss intrigued me to no end. I have so many photos from here of cars covered in moss. It just loks so beautiful.

Really really old cars. But the grill is still shining.

Old signs from local businesses.

Can you feel it? That deserted, surreal feeling of being all alone in a far away future?

Sooooo, new week! Monday means theatre rehearsal for me, but before that I'm going to be working on my etsy shop for a while. New pretty things to be added soon!

Until next time:

Tjingeling!
/Lotta