Working in Rio. 

A week before the Olympic Games Rio 2016 was about to start I got the opportunity to travel and work together with Kenneth Nguyen at a photo og video production assignment. The result should serve to transmit the experience of the Olympic Games in this dream destination. It was an absolute unique experience, and I must say that Rio as an olympic host has everything to be proud of. This I'll get into in an other post.

Not a beach post.

For this post I decided not to show the regular landscape pictures of the sugarloaf mountain, the christ or the beaches because really... it's easier to just google it. Instead I want to take you with me to Recreio. One of my dearest places in Rio, solely because of a special family I know there. I've already written about them on my old blog.  But let me get straight to the point.

One of the photo series that made me develop my heavy interest in doing reportages, visual storytelling and portraits is the visual story of my dear friend's littlesister that became a mom at the age of 16. I followed her pregnancy from week 28 till after she gave birth to Victor Zendy. It moved me that she allowed me to portray this very personal process of hers and it's this feeling I cherish the most when photographing. Trust, honesty and intimacy. 

Today Victor is almost two, the cutest thing I now, calls me tia (auntie), and loves Hulk. Check out the story here, and please be aware that the quality of the pictures are awfully compromised, which is one of the main motivators for me to start this site. 

I had one demand for this whole trip. It was to go see Radhe and Victor + the rest of the family. Here are some photos <3

In the age of two Zendy both gives out plenty of hugs and kisses..... and fist pumps like a real Brazilian.

Powerwoman.

This is Radhe's grandmother and mother of many children (forgot the exact number but around 6-7?). She is somewhere in her 70'ties and runs the local restaurant. Won't start to talk about how good her food is. Last year when I was back in Brazil together with my dear friend Paulo del Valle, we also visited Recreio. At that time she was in bed with a broken leg and looked tired and awful. How soothing it was to see her with full speed and even more beautiful and colorful than ever before. 

Lovesquad. It wasn't Kenneth's first time in Recreio either. He visited the family on his own back in 2013 on a work trip to Rio. 

Nicholas. 

To the far left we have my great friend and cousin of Radhe, Isla.

Radhe.

My heart can't get over her and him.

The saddest part is when we have to leave again and I never know when I will see them again. Until then Fabres ♥

So amor e saudade.  
 

The actual travel. 

This the second post from my trip to Italy with my dear friend Anne-sofie. Back home in Copenhagen I was completely run over from having one too many things to solve before the departure and I almost missed my flight in Copenhagen because of that. So the trip was off to a bit of a stressfull start.  

NAPOLI (NAPLES)

Pizzas

The good thing about Napoli is the pizzas though. I've never had better pizzas. Seriously. We both had food-orgasms due to the perfect sourdough, stone oven baked crust and the always tasty toppings.

A major traveling tip: If you don't use the app Yelp yet, you should go sign up ASAP! We used Yelp through out the whole trip and it was priceless when navigating towards great food experiences. We had luck that the reviews of restaurants in Napoli were mainly written by locals or italiens, which brought us to the best of the best. Probably the reason why we only had amazing pizzas!

THE CITY

We flew out late to Rome, stayed for the night and went on a two-hour long train ride from Rome Termini station to Naples early morning.
To be honest I don't like Napoli. For different reasons I took close to zero pictures. Bits and pieces of the city are pretty, but the overall atmosphere is very gloomy and sinister. The city has a dark (and interesting and complex) mafia-history and you can sense that constantly. On one hand it motivated me a lot to portray it, but I wasn't in a very courages state of mind. With past experiences I've learned that I shall always respect my limits  in terms of risking it for pictures. If I don't feel empowered that day, it's never going to end good if I neglect that feeling. Napoli has a lot of poverty and the crime rate is high. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) I was robbed just in front of our hotel. It instantly ripped up in the trauma I have from the assault in Brazil and of course it affected the experience we had there - but I haven't actually met anyone that liked Napoli. Robbed or not.

SORRENTO

After a night in Napoli we were more than ready to head towards our main destination of the trip: Sorrento, the main city on the Amalfi coast.
We went by ferry with the company Alilauro directly from Napoli to Sorrento. We found and bought the tickets online and it was by far the fastest and most comfortable option. A general observation is that the infra-structure works really well in Italy and buying entrances or tickets online is very accessible which makes the commute much easier. 

Sorrento is pretty calm and a lovely city. But I would recommend any day to choose a hotel away from the very center to avoid it being too touristic. but there's no doubt that Sorrento feels less touristed than for instance Positano. 

Positano

Since I saw the movie Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) that was filmed partly in Positano I've been wanting to see this little old fishing village. So we did. Unfortunately Positano is a bit more touristed than I've expected, but can't blaim. It's a nice little coast city with a small beach, harbor and charming hill-side houses stacked on each other.

Almost every photo in this post is taken in Positano and I'll let them stand alone for a bit.

I had one of the the best ice cream popsicles I've ever had in Collina Positano Bakery. 80% dark chocolate and nuts covering a soft inner of vanilla ice cream and a dash of raspberry puré. So worth the visit.   

Anne-Sofie is one of the girls I know that rocks the best style. She always freakin knows what's cool, before everyone else knows. It's impressive and I really have no idea of how she does it. Also she is really talented at what she does (working in the field of design and tech). 

instagram

Why Italy.

The summer in Denmark has basically been non existing this past 1,5 month so a dear friend of mine and I agreed that we needed to feel the sun for a week and unwind a bit underneath a palm tree or two. After a bit of research we chose Italy and the Amalfi coast as the destination.

Italy has been a very dear country to me ever since my first visit back in 2000 when I was just 9 or 10 years old. It was the first country I experienced besides Scandinavia. I went with my parents and my little brother, Lukas, and I remember we explored the museums, the streets, the FOOD and the people of Venice, Florence and Tuscany. The experience is dominated by memories of a very special kind of heat and smell. Smell of very ripe tomatoes and pizzes from stone-ovens. After we returned back home to Denmark, my parents cooked italian food non-stop for like half a year or something. It was kind of magical. 

Back to year 2016.

What I usually do when packing is mainly thinking of the kind of activities the trip will consist of. This travel had three key activities: unwinding in the sun, eating loads of tasty gluten dishes and taking some summer-ish pictures. So roughly put  all I needed was bikinis, stretchy clothes leaving space for the growing belly bella and my photo gear. In all seriousness when it comes to packing, my needs are pretty simple and as often as possible I travel with cabin luggage. I like to have all things close to me and the best bonus is that it saves me from waiting for checked in luggage at the arrival time. 

The things.

When traveling with a cabin suitcase I always bring a smaller bag for instance a tote or a fanny pack carrying the things I need close at hand while flying. I don't remember if I ever travelled without my laptop since I got my first white MacBook back in 2006? It has become a true essential for me in order to empty my SD cards as they get loaded along the way. No need to explain why passport and wallet is always with me, but hand-cream, lip balm and gum are small life-savers for me. My skin literally cracks open immediately in the airplane if it doesn't get enough moisturizer. To make it even worse 'm secured a solid nosebleed on trips lasting more than 3 hours if I'm not making sure to put some oil up there in the drills . The air-con is a bit of a bitch to me. The gum I always carry to equalise the pressure in the ears but also to offer my side-passenger a piece if we have a tight bad breath situation. The four-leaved clover is a gift and has been with me ever since I got it.. I'm not very superstitious normally, but I ain't happy travelling around without this one. 

Shoes. 

I never ever travel without comfortable shoes. Sneakers over heels always and I pick out my foot-wear before anything else. On this trip I went a bit overboard with three pairs of Adidas. The Ultra Boost white and clear grey, as well as the newly released Ultra Boost Uncaged (Gift: Thanks for providing me Adidas Denmark!) and the Adilette W sandal. 

The suitcase. 

I had a minor problem just before I had to leave, that left me with no cabin suitcase at hand. So what happend was that along came the lovely women at the danish PR agency Geelmuyden-Kiese and saved me by lending me the new Cosmopolite 3.0 2016 from Samsonite. These words aren't sponsored and even if they were, you guys must know by now that I'm pretty frank about my words and reviews of products. My opinion can't be bought, such a cliché thing to say, but it's super important for me to emphasize on in these SoMe marketing days. Anyway the suitcase is not just pretty, but also super light weighted, combined with a strong case leaving my things secure. One of my favorite features of it is how the wheels offer 360° flexibility when moving. You can both drag it on two wheels and push it on all four. It allowed me to carry it in different and comfortable ways, which is something I and my weak arms valued a lot through out the whole trip. My only concern I had about it was that the case ended up having a pair of scratches, even though I did my best to take good care of it. So if that is something that bugs you I would probably go for a soft-cased suitcase.