Kristina Petrošiutė

From Klaipeda, Lithuania
Living in Reykjavík, Iceland

Visit her flickr + blog + lomography page

I am from a little town called Klaipeda in Lithuania. My mother and I lived in the attic of an old house. I spent my time mostly alone - playing piano and dreaming. My mother was (and still is) a music school librarian. I often visited her at her work. I used to snuggle in the shelf with notes and fall asleep while listening to students practice their fugues and sonatas. My father was a police chief, but it says nothing about him. He was in love with the sea, nature and photography. He had a tiny house and a boat next to the Baltic Sea. When I was a little girl, we used to spend weekends there. He would go fishing on his boat and I would wait for him on the seashore. I used to collect little stones with holes in them while waiting. There is a legend which says if you find a stone with a hole in it, you have to look through that hole to the sun and make a wish. Now I can tell you that all my wishes came true except for one – my parents never were together again.

I inherited love for music and culture from my mother. Love for nature and photography is my heritage from my father. I also got my first camera Zenit ET from him.

For the past five years I’ve been living in Reykjavík, Iceland. In the beginning, the original idea was that I would come here just for few weeks to visit my fiancé to spend our summer holidays together. But after two weeks I just couldn’t go back to Lithuania. Everything looked so familiar here right away – the streets and houses, the ocean and mountains. For the first time in my life I felt that I could be truly happy. And now actually I am. Every single day is beautiful and fulfilled. I love this island in a way I can’t explain. Sometimes I feel ashamed that I don’t have these feelings toward Lithuania. Here I feel related to every single mountain, field of lava and moss. I feel I am a solid part of this island. Every time I leave, I get an extreme fear that I won’t be able to come back, and every time that I return I feel a wonderful peace and happiness that words can’t express.

I used to take pictures when I was a teenager. Mostly they aren’t anything I am proud of. For many years my Zenit was collecting dust on the top of the shelf. But at the end of 2010 I met a girl who inspired and encouraged me to get acquainted with photography and my old Zenit again. I am still just learning - slowly but efficiently. Through this year I’ve collected quite a few cameras, but Zenit is the one.