It's been so long I almost feel like I should introduce myself again, but nah, this is my blog and I'm still the same as the last time I was here.
No need for any "what have you done these last few months?" because we all know nothing happens every day is the same and when all this is over blah blah.
Let's skip that.
I wanted to talk about my new hobby. Film photography.
It starts years ago actually, but maybe this is when it takes off for real?

David got me an old Rollop Lipca for my birthday a couple of years ago. I've been wanting to shoot more on film (I took classes in film development when I was in my early twenties and ever since then it's been a dream of sorts).
The Rollop Lipca stood on a shelf for a long time. I didn't understand the manual- it was for a similar camera but not exactly the same- and I worried I would somehow destroy the camera before I even got to use it.
This winter though, I decided to get to know it for real. I took photos around the house and a couple of self portraits.
Last week I had them developed and it was SO exciting receiving the email with a huge zip file with my very first roll of 120mm photos.
Some of them were a bit too shaky, some where just not that great (you have to manually roll the film forward after every shot and it's not completely easy to get it exact, so there was one instant when the top of David's head ended up in the bottom of a photo of my fiddle Leaf Fig). But I did get a few that I actually really like. let's take a look, shall we?

Figuring out how to get the focus sharp for self portraits is definitely something that I have to figure out, but I really love the look of these two self portraits. They feel like great encouragement.

This window is a constant source of inspiration for me. The combination of dark shadows and bright soft light just gets me going.
I love this photo, it came out even better than I expected.

Dramatic backlit monstera, is another one of my things.

This one obviously came out WAY too shaky but I still wanted to share it because this journey is not about being perfect. I'm learning, and the great thing with film photo is that the mistakes can still be charming- I mean it looks warm a cozy as hell, right?!

But now you're saying "The title of this blog post mentions TWO rolls of film, so what's up with that, Lotta?"
Well, I'll tell you in a second, if you'd just CALM DOWN.
Before David and I got married, way back in 2013 we found an old Carena Micro RSD 35mm camera at a flea market in Sweden. We wanted our wedding to be photographed by our friends, with different types of cameras, so we ended up having it documented on a Polaroid, a DSLR, mobile phones of course, and then this little Carena.
The wedding photos turned out great, and I kept using the Carena all through that autumn.
Then in March 2014 I loaded it with a black and white film and brought it along for a weekend in our home town visiting our families.

There was one major thing that happened in March 2014, and that was that our short film Lights Out went viral.
And that happened the exact day as David took this photo of me sitting in my parent's kitchen sofa with sunlight in my eye, completely unknowing of how our lives were about to change.

Dramatic skies over the bridge Munksjöbron in our hometown Jönköping.

This is the gate to the courtyard of the apartment building where my parents and I lived up until I was 9 years old. I must have been feeling nostalgic walking past this place to take a picture.

It's also quite nice to see that my love for photographing places where shadows and light meet has always been there.

I took these three photos in Sund, just outside of Jönköping.

I think this was taken almost exactly a year later, in March 2015, when David's mother, Agnetha, came to visit us in Gothenburg right before we were about to leave to go to LA to make Lights Out- the feature film.

And when we left Sweden I decided to bring the Carena camera with me...

A blurry self portrait of me dancing in the apartment we were finally able to get in LA in 2016 after having to rent airbnb's for a year. We had almost no furniture for the longest time.

And then we bought our house.

And I filled it with plants.

And as usual I fell in love with the light and the shadows.

Somewhere around here I had forgotten about the roll of film and opened up the camera for a quick second before I realized my mistake. So a couple of photos was just white blur, but this one here turned out quite beautiful in all its faded moodiness.

And then we'll end this with another photo of the dramatic monstera- one of my biggest sources of inspiration.

Looking through the photos from this roll of film was quite emotional- our whole journey was in there.
Even though I kept forgetting about the Carena, I always picked it back up again.
Now there is a new roll of film in it and I won't let it sit for years this time.
And as for the Rollop Lipca, our journey together has just started. I feel so inspired, for the first time in a long time.
It makes me wonder, where will we be in 6 years? What moments will I have covered by then?

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

Hej!
I wrote a list of ten things about me, because I love reading those kind of random facts about other people.

Soooo, hopefully you enjoy lists like that too, because here's 10 random things about me!

1: I have a tattoo on my toe. It’s a very simple labyrinth. I got it when I was 16 at a place that did the tattoos the old fashioned way, no machines just a needle with ink in it. You can get a glimpse of my tattoo in the end of our short Not So Fast.

2: I have never dyed my hair. I was bullied for my red hair when I was a kid and my reaction was to LOVE my hair and always be proud of it. It is slowly fading and getting grey so I might have to dye it in the future just to feel like myself.

3: I decided I wanted to become an actor when I was eleven and joined a amateur kids theatre group and fell completely in love with acting.

4: David I were a couple when we were 11 (a lot happened when I was eleven apparently). We were together for 6 months which is like a life time at that age and I used to joke all through my young adult years that my best relationship was back when I was 11. In 2006 we found each other again (that’s another story) and this winter we’ve been together for 10 years.

5: I love popcorn and always bring my own when I go to the cinema. Because theatre popcorn taste like fart.

6: I collect vintage teapots and have 10 in Sweden. I brought one of my favorites with me to LA in my hand luggage.

7: I hate doing things I’m not already good at. That’s why I don’t do sports.

8: I have a big birth mark over my left eye that people sometimes mistake for a part of my eyebrow. I love it and refuse to cover it up.

9: I had epilepsy when I was younger. I’ve been seizure free for many many years and am considered cured but I still cover my eyes when movies flicker too much. And if I’m in a club and the stroboscope is going for too long I tell the dj I have epilepsy and they get super scared and turn it off. He he.

10: When I was a kid I first wanted to be a singer, then a dancer and after that I settled for actor. I still hope to sing in a band or make a record someday. I apparently have a tendency of wanting to make my hobbies into professions. I did it with my jewelry and photography too. I just can't see myself having a job that isn't creative. Dancing is mostly for fun though.

And that was ten things about me.

/Lotta