I had always thought that LA has that sky because of smog or something, but the sky was a dusty rose in Paris too.

The color palette strikes me as very Dave McKean, for some reason...

[Okay, Blogger is uploading pictures again. Gah.]

This is the view from my apartment. There's a whole row of townhouses across the street, but I find it puzzling that many of them don't have lights on at night. Katherine says the people who live in those houses are probably in their other house(s).

The only consistant activity I can see is in the Max Mara store/offices. From my fifth floor apartment, I can see right into their coffee room, this one office that has a very overpopulated bulletin board on the wall, and sometimes racks of clothes would appear at various windows. Pijus thinks I should consider industrial espionage as a sideline.

Snatched back administration of my domain name, moved web hosts.
(To everybody who noticed this was gone -- thanks for checking in with me, much love to you all.)

Am eating nectarines too.

There's also the dynamics of the session itself. (Or the moment, if it's a snap.) You can argue who has more control, the one behind the camera, or the one in front of the lens. In the later part of his career, Mr. Avedon, whom I adore and respect, was convinced that the photographer has absolute control. I understand what he means, and while I agree that the photographer does make a lot of decisions, still, there's no shot if there's nobody on the other side. Not every shoot can be like this, but the best is when there is space for an exchange. The relationship is hopefully not antagonistic. Hopefully, if they're sitting there, they want to to some degree, and there can be a level of trust. How giving is this person, and how giving am I?

Let me look at you, let you return my gaze, and let's see what happens.

We all have camera faces. Sometimes I envy the first photographers, I don't know if it was easier to shoot people in the moment then, with the subjects not thinking about putting on another face before the shutter fires, or perhaps not knowing to yet.

Remove the glasses, smooth the hair, chin down, smile, pose. I do it too, I know. We've been trained to do it growing up. Some of us do it less, some of us do it more. Or like Katherine here. Pijus will attest to this: if you point a camera at her, she'll quickly turn away, or stick her tongue out and make a face. It's probably an extreme example, but it's a defense mechanism. In that way we're still in control. It's about control and representation, how our image will be seen on a screen or on a print. We want to be seen a certain way, ready, composed, presenting, not human and flawed, vulnerable and open as we can be.

I don't think it's all bad. I like the pictures of me and my friends and we're all smiling at the camera. It's appropriate sometimes, and everyone's just having fun. But I like the ones where we're just in the moment and being ourselves too, and most of all I do think it's one of the challenges of shooting, what is to me, meaningful portraiture. I feel like I can do a headshot in my sleep, but my eyes would slide right off of the gloss. Richard Avedon once said that the surface is all we have to work with, and it's true. For me, ultimately, it's about emotion and light. Get past the smile and the glamour shot, what I want is expression and emotion.

That's, something I was thinking about today.

Today, New York and Los Angeles are a lot farther apart than I had thought, than I'd like them to be.

I miss you all.

My grandmother's moved to Shenzhen.
Mom said she refused to throw any of her stuff away.
I imagine that the little blue plastic basin she washed me in when I was a baby, and all the little hats and bonnets that my sisters and I wore as children are now stowed away in her new apartment somewhere.

I think I woke up wrong this morning. Perhaps not wrong, but strange, at least.

I'm a bit sick, head still woozy, and in that haziness of half waking, I heard a man yelling. A voice from the street, but it threw me back for a split second, to when I would wake up to my dad yelling for, at, the maid, my grandmother, or... If you didn't wake up and get yourself out of the house before ten, eleven o'clock, that's what you would wake up to. Anger.

In a moment much too like panic, all my senses told me I was back there. Before I could really open my eyes and steady myself. It jolted me.

I don't remember my dad yelling so much now, when I stay with him in his new apartment. I don't know if it's because they aren't forced to be in the same house any more, to occupy the same space. Or maybe his apartment is too small to warrant yelling at that kind of volume to span the space from one end of it to the other.

Sometimes, I don't think it's always worth it to hold together.

Sometimes, it's better to let go.

Kitty wants me to stop wearing my Tiffany bean necklace.

"But it's designed by Elsa Peretti--"
"You're not a crushed bean!"

I like my bean. I don't know how many years ago it was, but my Dad bought it for me on a family trip to the US. It's simple, elegant, and goes with everything.

But she has a point. Maybe it's time just to change things around a bit.

I'll give it a rest for now and take my other necklaces out for a spin.

Show 'em how it's done, Katherine and Pijus.

There was a brief spell during college when I tried out ballroom dancing. It was a lot of fun, but I couldn't find a partner. :P

It's the truth. I've never seen her so put together and gorgeous until they broke up. She told me it was her new hobby.

Went to the Coronet Theater with Lluvia last night to see Eddie Izzard and three other people do "one word improv" (audience gives them a word and they have to improv a scene). Eddie is just good.

In other news: am hanging out at Kitty's treehouse. It's airy, breezy, the sun's out and it feels wonderful. I *heart* you, jie jie!

Just finished watching the Germany vs. Italy game with Miyuki.
AARRGGHH!! For the second time in three days, I want to rip my hair out.

Now I have no teams left to root for!

They've already changed the display twice since I shot this.