Finnish photography and tennis… in London

by arjamatkalla

It’s been a while since my latest blog entry. The language course is approaching and today I had a nice telephone interview and oral test for the course. I found myself speaking fluently, thanks to the interviewer who had a beautiful accent which I seemed to adopt immediately as well as I could – partly uncounciously.

There is something going on in London that I wish to tell you about, namely an exhibition of the Finnish pioneer in fashion photographing, Claire Aho, at the London Photographers’ Gallery. I want to encourage you, who are in London now, to visit it. I myself wonder about the possibility to visit David Bowie exhibition at the Victoria & Albert, but sadly I heard that tickets can only be pre-ordered and they seem to be sold out a long time ago. Well, you can’t have it all.

Today, after work, I went with some tennis enthusiast friends to a sports bar in Helsinki to watch a great Finn, tennis player Jarkko Nieminen, to play against Novak Djokovic (ATP-ranking 1) in Monte-Carlo ATP Masters tournament. Well, the world No. 1 won, but I give all the credit to Jarkko who fought a good fight.

This match reminded me of another match a few years ago at the Centre Court of Wimbledon. Jarkko’s opponent then was a Scot, Andy Murray. Since that match Murray has entered into the top three tennis players of the world and has reached two Grand Slam titles and the Olympic gold medal. It is always great when someone, who fights to get to the top, finally makes it and gets his dreams fulfilled. My life-long dream, instead, has been to visit Wimbledon at the end of June during the Grand Slam and watch the men’s or women’s final at the Centre Court and eat strawberries during the break.

Well, since I won’t be in London at the time of the tournament I’m planning a day trip to All England Lawn Tennis Club’s Museum at Wimbledon should I have a few spare hours during my stay.

As to weather it’s been raining here in Helsinki a lot now, but on the other hand it means that the snow is finally melting away. Hopefully the weather in London will be a lot warmer in May and I get to see daffodils and other flowers in the parks. The spring in Finland is taking  v-e-ry  slow steps this year… It’s only two months till Midsummer, the high point of the Finnish summer – and it’s still freezing cold.

Don’t forget to visit the Claire Aho exhibition and get to know her pioneering works at the London Photographers’ Gallery.

Here is the link to the exhibition:

http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/claire-aho-studio-works-3

– Arja

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