Hej!
Okay, are you ready? Let's get this blog post rolling!

I love cemeteries. LOVE them.
In Gothenburg we lived right next to a huge old cemetery that I used to visit a few times every week; to run, go for a walk, make a shortcut through it on my way somewhere. We even filmed a few scenes for a movie there (didn't turn into something though). Cemeteries are moody and dramatic, and they contain SO many aspects of life. Yes, death too, but to me it's more about life. All the people that were once living and breathing, all their friends and family visiting them and remembering them alive. All the beautiful gravestones that were made by amazing artists (that might even be buried on that very cemetery by now). All the people keeping the graves in shape for people alive to see.
There's so much life in a place for death!
Anyways, when we found out that we were going to Savannah the first thing I did was to google if there were any cool cemeteries there that we could visit. I found the Bonaventure Cemetery and it looked AWESOME on the photos.
On Sunday we took an Uber there, armed with my camera and the tripod for my iphone. I was imagining all the spooky photos and self portraits I was going to take.
And then when we got there it was closed.

But, "how did you get these photos then?" you might ask.
Weeellllll....
Two girls were standing outside the fence looking equally disappointed about the Closed Signs that we were. They said it was closed because of the fallen trees and mess after Hurricane Matthew. They also said that they had seen the guard sleeping in her car at the front. And that they had seen some people sneaking inside.
David was looking around and all of a sudden he was inside. He had found a hole in the fence. "Just a little peek?"
Okay.
So we went in there, and quite a few people followed.
It was so beautiful! And because it was closed it was quiet and calm and even more of an adventure!

We could see the remnants of Hurricane Matthew everywhere. It made the place so spooky.

We walked around looking at all the names on the grave stones.

Some were big and intricate.

Some were just plain sad.

Some were funny. Lang and Lange sounds like an awesome detective business.

A little family cluster.

And then we saw this monument from afar and it was like my heart started pitter patter super fast.

The trees, the light, the structures, the hanging moss, EVERYTHING!

I took a bunch of self portraits here. You can see all of them on my instagram, but here's the one I took at this exact spot.

Let's just walk around in silence for a bit, shall we?

This environment reminded me of a forgotten land, like Atlantis, or a level in a Sonic the Hedgehog game.

It seems like we're never getting away from Hollywood.

And then we found my name on it...

And here's little Gracie. Alone in a fenced in garden. That made me the most sad. She died so early and then they put her here, locked inside, like she was doomed to be forever lonely, parted from the rest of the world. I don't even believe in any afterlife, but it still seems sad to me.

Only 6 years old.

And here's Ida. Born in Sweden.

Such rich jewel tones everywhere. I was walking around there with constant heart eyes.

Gray and David.

Then we met the two girls from earlier. They said they had seen the guard driving by, and that she had thrown out a couple of people, but they hadn't been seen yet.
We thanked them for the heads up and made our way quickly to the hole in the fence. We did not want to get caught in there!
Hearts beating, eyes scanning everywhere, ears listening for sounds of a car.
We got out. And then, just a breath later, we saw the guard and a police car driving by inside the cemetery at the exact place we were walking just moments earlier.
We sent a thought of Thank You to the two girls for warning us, but then we realized: they were still in there. We wished we could have warned them somehow but there was no way.

We were walking down the road ten minutes later when the girls drove by us. They looked solemn. We waved.

And that was that adventure. It was fantastic! I wish we could have stayed in there forever. Maybe some day we can go back, and walk in the front entrance like normal people. But I would not change this day in any way, because it really was the most beautiful experience.

But wait! We're not done yet!
Sunday evening we had the panel after Lights Out screened and it went great. The audience was lovely and we met so many wonderful people afterwards. Every time we do something like this we want it to go on for longer. When they say "we have time for one more question from the audience" it makes both of us think "Oh no! We want more questions!" Haha. It's just so much fun.
I didn't bring my camera for that, but on Monday morning it was back around my neck for the hours before we had to leave for the airport. Let's take a look at that.

We were on our way to eat breakfast. Walked through the square with the guy and his umbrella (yeah, yeah, it's a flag. But it would be cuter if it was an umbrella, right?)

And here we were! At the Gryphon Tea Room!

So. Incredibly. Beautiful.

We ordered the Afternoon Tea even if it was not afternoon yet.

And fancy lemonade! Look how happy I was!

The bill came in an old book. This place used to be an apothecary back in the day. And then it was a book store.

And now it's a tea room.

After that delicious breakfast we went to get some coffee. We passed a pumpkin display.

And then we found a bench to sit on for a couple of hours. People watching, talking about everything we've seen and done during the weekend, and imagining what it would be like if we lived in Savannah.

I would love to live there if it weren't for the extremely warm and humid summers. Savannah reminded me of the town Lund in Sweden where I used to live between 2003 and 2007. A cute, small student town, with lots of history and interesting spots.
Yeah, I hope I get to see more of Savannah in the future.

And that was all from our weekend in Savannah, Georgia.

/Lotta

Hej, friends!
This has been a very quiet space lately and I have been thinking that maybe I should blog but, nah, not today, and then time did its thing and now here we are.
Anywhoooo. A while ago, almost two months or so, David and I went to the mountains to relax after shooting Annabelle 2. Plus, we celebrated 3 years as married around that time too so we thought it would be a perfect reason to just go away for a few days.
The drive there was supposed to take 2 hours but a huge fire started at the same time we left LA so we were stuck in traffic for a loooong time. It took us 6 hours to get there and we were very tired and hungry when we arrived at the cabin.

We were a bit scared though, because we could see the fire clearly from the balcony. What if we came here and had to evacuate in the middle of the night because the fire spread to us? We sat outside, wrapped in blankets, eating sandwiches, watching the flames, and checking all the news sites hoping we were safe.

In the morning the white smoke covered the mountains like cotton. It seemed like the fire weren't coming towards us but it was still going strong. We had breakfast infront of the view and decided to not do anything substantial all day. It was perfect.

I spent most hours of the day looking at the view. I shared a glass of wine with the evening sun.

And then when the sun was setting it became clear that the fire had not gone away.

This mirror was luring me all weekend. I have SO many photos of that mirror.

We went to the mountains last year too, after shooting Lights Out, and it feels like this is going to turn into a tradition. The fresh air and pine trees make us so happy. I think it's because it reminds us about Sweden a little bit.
Anyways, look at this view. Just look at it. And breathe.

So scary. Yet so beautiful.

New day. David called his family and friends and picked bark off of a tree as he was talking. The things you do when you talk on the phone, right? Some people doodle, some strip a tree from its clothing.

I was taking photos of this strip of road surrounded by trees. I took at least four photos a day of this exact view. With my Nikon, with my phone AND with our polaroid. It's just something with the smooth shape and the colors.

David had been extremely busy for more than a month, so he had a lot to talk about with people back home.

One day we went on a mini adventure. I had read about a heart shaped rock that was supposed to be worth seeing. We didn't really care about the rock but thought it would be nice to see at least one of the local sites, get some fresh air and a walk.

David climbed a tree.

I was in Spooky Root Heaven.

I mean. Look at this!

So cool.

Nice of nature to create a step for us humans wanting to hike without killing ourselves.

And there it was! A heart shaped rock!

A couple was climbing around there and I tried to take sneaky photo of them to show the size of the heart. I didn't do a very good job, but you can at least see the top of the heart in the bottom of the photo.

We also found a beautiful glade that looked like it came straight out of Jurassic Park or something.

Right outside our cabin we had this beauty. Love how the roots seem to hold onto the rock like their life depended on it.

To come "home" to this view was something special. The cabin was situated in the tree tops.

We found a bunch of board games one evening and played backgammon. This is David's thinking pose.

New day again! This was our last whole day in the mountains.

That mirror again.

We had one last thing we wanted to during our stay in the mountains, and that was to have a sort of Anniversary Picnic with a view. When we first came to LA last year we didn't have any money so our favorite thing to do was to drive somewhere with a nice view and eat sandwiches. We call it Dinner with a view and it is lovely.
So, this day we packed some sandwiches and drove to a spot we had seen from the car the day before. We hoped we would be able to get to the view without trespassing or something, and we were in luck! We found a cliff that we climbed and right on the edge, on the very top of the rock, we sat down to have our Dinner with a view.

The view was spectacular!

All around us, breathtaking nature.

We had to sit close to not fall down the very steep mountain wall infront of us.

Dangling my feet.

It was so wonderful. And a bit scary, because we were really high up.

Look at this handsome devil!

One more, because Look At Him!

When the sun had set and it was starting to get dark we climbed down from the rock on the mountain and drove back to our cabin in the trees.

And then it was a new day again and we headed back to LA. But first I had to take a photo of some spooky roots.

I know this was a while ago now, but better late than never right?
My computer died (because I happened to get an entire glass of iced coffee in it...) and then the admin page for my blog went bananas, but now! MAYBE! I can get back to blogging once in a while.

Tjingeling!
/Lotta

Hej!
On Sunday when David had to go to his office on the Warner Bros studio lot for a couple of hours, I decided to come with him and do some exploring of my own.
I ignored the blistering heat and took a whole bunch of self portraits that I wanted to show you.

White dress and sun hat playing their parts perfectly here.

I actually dressed for the occasion, sort of. I knew the white dress would look amazing as a contrast to the dark places I had in my mind (you'll see soon) but it surprised me how well it worked in this environment too. It has a real southern feel to it, doesn't it?

Oh, I just love the look of a falling apart greenhouse! The light! The colors! Yeah, this is a favorite.

I moved on to the dark alleyways in-between houses. Tried out the light and dark with some twirling in my white dress.

Found a brick wall to dance in front.

And imagined myself in a World War 1 movie drama.

"Hmmm... I wonder who stole Ms Mullin's motorcycle...I'm going to find out!"

Walked into a dark room and saw my own reflection in this mirror with the strange double effect (Looks like a double exposure, kind of. Or a photo taken with long exposure). Needless to say, I jumped a little in fear. Then I took photos of it, 'cause that's how I roll! Photograph what scares you!

Running (away from the Warner Bros tour bus).
They drove by every third minute or something. I stuck out so much in my white dress so I obviously got a lot of curious stares.

Ps: Love the floaty almost liquid looking feel to my dress here.

Then I found an old barn. Let me tell you: it was HOT in there.

Did a little double exposure edit to this one.

I use the app Edit.Lab for that. It's not perfect, but the best double exposure app I've found so far because it doesn't crop the photo to a square, and you can position the photos easier than in other apps. But like I said, it's not perfect. It is a bit buggy and you are quite limited in the blending. But it's still the best of the one's I've tried (Photoblend, InstantBlend and Edit.Lab).
And as usual, I'm using the self timer app Timer Cam and a small tripod from LOHA.

Anyways, that was all I had today. Really love taking these self portraits. It triggers my imagination so much!

/Lotta

Hej everybody!
It feels like this has been taking forever (which is probably true) but I’m finally ready to show you my new web shop!
As a lot of you probably know I used to have two Etsy shops that I closed when we left Sweden for Los Angeles in 2015. One for my jewelry and one for my photography. I couldn't keep them open when I didn't have all my things with me, and it was such a new adventure that demanded my entire focus.
Since we are staying here for the unforeseeable future I wanted to get my work going again, but I wasn't completely happy with how I used to handle my shops and everything about them. I needed to feel excited about a possible return to my creative work, and that has been tough. I needed to start anew.

So I have been thinking and planning and thinking and procrastinating and planning.

And this is what I’ve come up with:

A brand new shop for all my creative work! I can’t keep them separate because they tend to mash together in different ways.
I also want to expand my ideas for my art and I just felt constrained by the two previous shops.
So this is the place for everything I create without any other rules than that it has to be made by me.
I’m moving from Etsy to Big Cartel- a fresh start and a place to make my own.

So let’s take a peek at what you can find in my shop right at this moment!

My book Alone in LA. A self portrait magazine style book, filled with photos taken all over (and around) LA during the year that Lights Out went from Short to Feature. I was alone a lot and decided to discover LA through walking and the self timer on my phone. Shop and read more about it over here .

A whole bunch of prints from Alone in LA, printed on hard paper for an affordable and easy way to get some art in your home. See all of them in my shop.

And my jewelry!
So far I've got a few cage necklaces, some splinter pendants and earrings. More will be added soon!

All my jewelry is made by me, completely by hand without any templates or tools making every single piece completely unique! They really are pieces of art to wear on your body.

Shop jewelry here.

And then I've got a few of my best art photographs. There's more of these to come, as well. They are more expensive since they're taken with my Nikon, printed on wonderful Kodak paper and, most importantly, are lovely pieces of art.

Shop my photography here.

Like I mentioned earlier my intention is to expand what I create to include other things than the photography and wire jewelry I have right now, and I feel very excited about the opportunities this give me.
I’m just not one to limit myself, so here’s to a new home for all art sprung by the hands of Lotta Losten.

Say hello to my new shop everybody! HERE