Photographer Spotlight: Manolo Yllera

Yesterday on the way home from the gym, am driving through the forest and I realised that everything was on the verge of being totally rejuvinated. On the verge of bloom. The forest park is all green and pretty again and not parched by frost and snow and more often than not the sun is bright and yellow above the pine trees. It's definitely Spring and colour is back. The Spanish do colour so well. And I always go to Nuevo Estilo or AD Espana to seek it out. And so I know I love Manolo Yllera's photography.  e does work for AD Espana and Nuevo Estilo. He looks for the colour in any room and focuses on it. So I went to stalk him on instagram to see more of his perspective.

We're looking forward to Easter...so much so that we took the Easter egg basket to pick wild flowers in the forest. It's officially Spring.

Kaziukas

Every first weekend in March teh city of Vilnius has a craft fair and the vendors roll out their traditional foods, specialty tea, Easter bunnies, woodwork, straw/hay floral arrangements, beeswax candles, knitwear and linen-tailored shirts and dresses. My midget and I went to have a look. Our favourite? The Easter Bunnies.

So what did we get? We got smoked cheese--smells like smoked red herring and tastes like haloumi. Very yum. And a Pony Ride.

For most of March there'll be craft fairs put on by schools and other towns. This Friday at my midget's school there'll be a craft fair in the gymnasium and parents are expected to make and bring their own crafts. I am making candles in teacup and mint-eucalyptus bath bombs and sugar body scrubs which I'll put in little Ikea spice jars. Seems relatively straight-foward, right?

Foyers

If you're looking for foyer/entranceway ideas. Mirrors, clocks, storage baskets, armoires, chests, baskets and benches, warmth, welcoming objects and a little girl who insists she must be in the photo.

Children and Prisoners at the Opera

I only know about Joyce Didonato because of her performance at Sing Sing. Singing at a prison: the ultimate in captive audience, right? I had heard about Joyce on the BBC and listened to a clip of her explaining how she aroused the interests of the female inmates.

I started googling the Opera because I was looking at what the upcoming shows were at the National Opera in Vilnius. They have some great productions for the family and I was looking for something that would arouse the interest of my midget. I figure if opera is universal, as Joyce has said, then the midget must find something she can appreciate about it. So I take my midget to Zuikis Puikis this weekend.

Graffiti Vilnius

This one you may know from a previous post I did on the restaurant called Keulė Rūkė, Vilnius. This work is actually on the front/entrance wall of the ribs joint. Trump and Putin blowing smoke up each other's ass.

 By a bridge which bisects the river Neris

Curiously the Lithuanians have no problem with graffiti on their city buildings. It's contemporary art, they think. I hate graffiti and I hate them on buildings.

Years ago, I had a colleague from work who wanted to take me to her favourite hang-out spot in Berlin. She took me to an area called Kreuzberg. I suppose in her mind it was a super-hip (translation vomit-inducing hipster) and artsy, cultural melting point (translation: disaffected and disintegrated/marginalised migrants making it work to the best of their ability). I had many problems in Kreuzberg (the beggars at the train station, the garbage everywhere) but I mostly hated how the locals had desecrated beautiful churches with graffiti. It's like a mark of disrespect in my view. Growing up I learnt that poor should not equate to dirty. Also it's a sure sign that I am in a town where the youths feel disaffected, dissatisfied, under-employed and side-lined when there is graffiti and the garbage is piling up. Simply put, I associate graffiti with ghettos. And I especially hate when the well-to-do glamorise ghetto-living so they can live with the guilt of their wealth. I spent half my childhood living in an innercity/ghetto. There is nothing glamarous about that life.  Don't come to a ghetto neighbourhood to sightsee and for a bit of fun while wanting nothing to do with/not trying to understand the locals.  So I do not think of it graffiti as art usually. And I am never impressed by any of it. Just like I was never impressed by so-called "hipster" Kreuzberg and I certainly do not find graffiti Vilnius to be cool. Just me, I guess.

All photos from Ultimate Travelist @utravelist on twitter.