shutter to think

tea time!

I photographed an intro to tea class at the oxbow marketplace in napa for the newspaper a couple of months ago. i would, someday, love to go to china to photograph the tea farmers during harvest. it just seems so beautiful. whole leaf tea is what my mother and grandmother always drank. esp. my grandmother who came from the guangdong region of southern china. and this afternoon i went to my first tea tasting in berkeley, called teance. its amazing that for centuries asian countries, including india, have been drinking incredible teas while the rest drink the crap out of lipton and the like. it is like drinking a 2 buck chuck rather then a 20 bottle of wine. good tea is like good health.

"Muelle de la Caña"

A wooden sign on this dilapidated dock reads:
"Wharf of the Cane
Where fish and kids have played and jumped
Where the sweat has left workers of sea and land
Where we began a tradition to never throw trash in our ocean."

Telling of the islanders of Vieques; how poetic and dear their island is to them. It is all they have. And they probably at one time had a sugar cane industry.

zeee plane ride...

ah the plane ride from puerto rico to vieques was an adventure in of itself that i just had to post our teeny airplane!

a wintry wanderland

I recently photographed the showroom of Michael Holmes for the newspaper's home and garden section. Michael has one of the most imaginative, whimsical minds I've met and designs all of his decorations and ornaments. 

Vieques, black and white

Here's a little layout of life in Vieques -

 

Vieques

A little toenail of an island, just a quick buzz ride across turquoise water, east of Puerto Rico. what i loved, swimming endlessly in warm tropical waters and wild horses. what i missed, Puerto Rican food and $2 Medalla beer. We settled for imported, store bought processed bread, cheese and meat, and bar food. Oh and I bought my own 6-pack of medalla because i just couldn't pay $5 for a can of Puerto Rican beer. In Vieques, there is very little of Boricua culture. There is little to no work, except in construction of restuarants and homes of ex-patriots who've fallen in love with island life, or work in tourism & restaurants. Even then, Americans tend to populate the jobs. The islanders don't work. They don't really need to, thanks to government subsidies from years and years of explosive Navy test bombs. And there are parts of the eastern side of the island that is closed off to the public because of a number of UXOs.

Along the Malecon of Playa Esperanza -

some old pictures from a holga

lifestyle portrait photography

introducing hailey, 2
golden gate park

Food from November...

Worlds of Flavor culinary festival at the Culinary Institute of America in Yountville