I have known Karre for quite awhile. We met while attending the Karlovy Vary International film festival in 1996.We were all involved in some film project or another. We were out late one night, this mad Finnish guy and a mad French man by the name of Thierry. It was a very late night, falling down steps of the old city, talking and too much drinking in a club called "Peklo", Czech for hell. We spent some time in hell and became very good friends. We worked on various film projects afterwards together. Nothing came from it, who cares, friendship matters. I can call Karre a friend. He has had a film company called Mayye Eye Productions. We formed a Finnish film production company together with Ola Sundell called SuPo Films. I represent the production company outside of Finland. I have gone to Finland several times for meetings. We are still searching for projects to work on together. I enjoyed staying with Karre and Pranom. They are Finnish farmers, growing vegetables and fruit and selling them together at a market. They have a house in the middle of the forest, 4 children together, plus four cats and 20 chickens. I was there during the summer, with no darkness and too many mosquitoes that bit the hell out of me. What to say? Karre works on producing film for news and Finnish documentaries. His lovely wife Pranom keeps it all together, how they all do it, I do not know, but they are happy. Presently Karre, believe it or not, is a professional boxing trainer. He has studied martial arts all his life and works with Finnish boxers. We have never got into a fight, I am happy to say.
Karre and Pranom met in Bangkok on December 5th, the King's birthday... nice. They have a true romance and relationship. I have been inspired throughout my life by many people to go to Thailand. I recall listening to many Thailand stories while I was living in New York. I remember talking to all of my friends who had been there. There are too many to mention, but the ones that automatically come to mind are: Johnathan, who kept wild exotic animals in his flat. He had some business in Thailand with the animals that I still do not understand to this day. At Johnathan's I remember making eye contact with kinkajous and being in bed with a python. Another wild boy named Bradly moved to Bangkok permanently. He'd had several Thai wives and I heard that he died of unknown causes. I do not know if that is true. He might be running wild in the jungles. The amazing Peter Smith, who has had two Thai wives and several children. He still lives between Thailand and New York. He is a talented writer and so full of life. On the other hand, my best friend David Good (who I grew up with) travelled to Thailand with some bad results. He was very talented, but had addiction problems and I think Thailand pushed him over the edge. He died from his addiction. I would like to say something to honour him here, but it will have to be in some other writing than this. After all of this, I felt it was my duty to experience this place. I did not know what to expect. Some say it is a magic land. It is a beautiful country of amazing people, nature, food and so much magic. I would like to go back sometime. It is not what it used to be, it is more expensive and people are not so innocent as they once were. As they do, Westerners have spoiled it in many ways. Please look at the following photos and I will comment on how I feel. I certainly do not want to do tourist photos! I specialize in portraits of people. I try to say something about the people I find special. I must strongly comment that these Thai photos are really not typical of my work and what I do. Through these photos I want to give some kind of feeling of Thailand. These were done in a hyper-reality sort of way to express it all in some kind of surrealistic drug induced vision, but then again, it is Thailand.