Jill's Journal —Week of 27.06.2025
Lightning in a bottle + the humanity of photo competitions + La Mokina
Happy Friday, everyone. Zürich continues to be a heatwave and I just got a new pink swimsuit in the mail this morning, which I tried on and am still wearing while typing this. Let’s celebrate with some happy human things.
Lightning in a Bottle: Vibrant Video Stills
The Humanity of Photo Competitions
The Romance of Everyday Things: Cafeterita
1. Lightning in a Bottle: Vibrant Video Stills
The most dynamic photos I’ve captured this year are (arguably) cinematic stills I grabbed from videos. Yep, effectively screenshots. Increasingly I’m using my trusty little GR camera for video, but sometimes they are grabbed directly from my iPhone.
This week, I went swimming in the Limmat River with my friend Yender, who is also a photographer — but we were just there for apéro and cooling off with all the others by the water. While there, he learned how to backflip (!), and I was able to capture one of the first flips. Backflips and dives happen in the blink of an eye, and thanks to video I was able to get several magic moments.
These are my favorite photos of the week:
2. The Humanity of Photo Competitions
Recently I’ve been a guest curator for Ephemere as well as worked for the Swiss Photo Club Awards (SPC) here in Zürich, both of which afforded me a lot of time spent looking through 1000s (!) of photo submissions.
Last weekend I worked at the SPC exhibition where all eligible photos that are entered are printed and shown in a real-life gallery. Opening night, photo sales, closing party and all. People bring their friends and families, and it is so lovely to see people excited proud to see their photos displayed. Artful photos of animals, travels, loved ones, the streets they walk every day.
It always warms my soul to see what people have submitted — moments from their lives that are special and beautiful to them. Look at what I saw! It is so vulnerable. It is so profoundly human. I love it so much.
3. The Romance of Everyday Things: Cafeterita
I find that when I look at my past photography, as time goes by, I come to cherish scenes from my everyday life — the messy desk at work, the tiny apartment in Tokyo, random pictures of my hands, the unmade bed from many lives ago. So many photos of streets or strangers, and then there hidden in the stacks are these little treasures with many times their emotional resonance.
Here’s a photo I took just now in the midst of writing this:
I grew up with one of these, trained from a young age by my Cuban mother to make her multiple daily cafecitos in the cafetera. Bustelo coffee, to be exact — a pan-American icon for those with Latin tastes. I didn’t know they were called moka pots until decades later.
When my wife Giti recently went to Milano for the first time, I asked her to bring me back a little Bialetti. They are, of course, available here, but I refused to buy one in Switzerland on principle. What size?, she asked. The smallest, I said. Fast forward to her returning with a teeny tiny little Mokina… smaller than my hand, capable of brewing a single precious magical ristretto for a fairy. I had never seen such a thing in my life and howled with laughter, tossing it in the air, tears rolling down my face… I meant… normal small. Coffee for a doll!
You said ‘smallest,’ she said.
And I think of all this every time I make a cup, and will now every time I see this photo.
See you next week or so!
Keep shooting.
xoxo
⎡JILL⎦
Coffee for a fairy! I shall remember that. Really good bathers! Looks like they are having fun. The coffee photograph..... my mouth is watering..... I have to go now! 😅