shutter to think

Cantagalo boys

I live in Ipanema, a neighborhood  under favela Cantagalo. Weekend nights are busy. Through my window the sounds of baile funk music til 3am, fireworks, and people talking echo off the granite hillside and concrete apartment buildings. The weeknights are sometimes so quiet i often wonder what is wrong. why so quiet! When i first arrived to Rio, I took a walk up to this community high above the apartment building where i live. I took the elevator up what felt like 100 feet high above and held my breath as I quickly hurried across the walkway bridge to the community on the morro (hill). I didn't get very far when I saw these boys...inquisitively tough and sweet; a close knit of friends and family. A stark contrast to the wealthiest neighborhoods in all the city that lies below them. They are the lights that twinkle bright on the morro.

Gurney Graveyard

Outside a Roosevelt Hospital, Guatemala City:

Zona 3 - Guatemala City

Some latest scans from Guatemala City:

Out of the Rolling Ocean

With the last six frames left of a roll, I headed down to the beach to capture this amazing blue glow I saw from my yard. My favorite time to shoot and it lasts only minutes. The earth, sky and ocean in the same blue color palette. This day was the last of a weekend-long the bluegrass festival...it was summery fall...surf was good that day as was the music from the park.

Visiting a dark past on Angel Island

I visited Angel Island for the first time in October. We took the ferry and rented bikes to cruise around the island. Considering I was born and raised in the San Francisco/Bay Area, I feel like its a shame that it me took so long to visit a part of my history, not just locally, but about my ancestry.

The island is a state park, and the dark history that haunts it is just part of its rich story, which you can read here: http://angelisland.org/history/. During the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, this island served as a detention center for all incoming Chinese immigrants. You won't find "detention center" in our American history, though that is essentially what it was. Instead you'll read: United States Immigration Station (USIS).

The buildings have since been renovated, new paint, the grounds immaculate, and the only real sense of how life might have been here are the etchings of poetry by prisoners on the wooden walls of the dormitories. You might say that I was a really disappointed, but not surprised, in the softening effect of our American history.

For more history on the "Immigration Station," please click on this link: http://angelisland.org/history/united-states-immigration-station-usis/

When two worlds collide

Over Labor Day weekend, this city gal found herself immersed in a quaint village in the middle of Wisconsin. This time I wasn't on assignment. I was hired by a colleague, who otherwise assigns me stories for NPR, to photograph her wedding. Honored and touched, this moment also terrified me: I'm photographing my picture editor's wedding! As soon as I touched ground, met all their closest relatives and friends, I soon enough felt like I was part of their extended family. Here is a colorful snapshot of mixed iphone and hasselblad images from Ephraim, Wisconsin.

Thank you Coburn and Brad, and your families and closest friends, for a memorable time and having me document one of the most celerbated days of your lives....

strange bookfellows -- Mother Jones Magazine

I recently shot an assignment for the May/June 2011 issue of Mother Jones Magazine (thanks Mark!!!) of 72-year-old Bill Bennetta, a fomer journalist and biologist who runs a non-profit disecting schoolbooks for factual errors and flawed explanations. This man was incredible to work with and enthusiastically assisted me to produce some good portraits (love it when the subject is totally into the photography!). I'm so thankful for his energy and his ideas, although after the shoot i probably wore him out!

Check out the latest issue of Mother Jones, which also features one of my latest obsessions, photographer Vivian Maier (lucky me to be in the same issue!).

Stange Bookfellows - Images by Lianne Milton

as winter fades

...two of my favorite cities. winter in NY and winter in SF, photographed nearly in the same week.

archive: a dip in the bucket

Many people don't know this but I would love a 1961 2-door convertible Ford Falcon. Thats right. Specifically. One that runs well, and not a pimped out hot rod. The color would be blue. or white, but definitely not red. My first car was almost a mid-1970s bmw. it was orange. we saw it on Mission Blvd in Fremont, but my mother thought that the diesel gas it took was too impractical and worried that this cute little car would leave me stranded, out of gas, somewhere. So she bought me a 1983 mint green Honda Civic. For $100. It was the closest thing to a vintage automobile that i could get. and that was in 1993. damn. It didn't last long, after I blew the head gasket. ah well. I also have a thing for vintage motorcycles, but thats a story for another time.

Here's a portrait of a short, surreal moment. As I looked down into the viewfinder (hasselblad), I felt like I was taken back in time. It reminded me of my family pictures - my mother's side. The stoic, for the record, kind of portraiture. This is a quinceneara I photographed in Napa. Originally I was suppose to photograph a family that I had met prior but I couldn't find them. So this family let me photograph them.

and from the sidelines, they watched:

birthday snaps

Here's couple of snaps taken during my birthday last week that I spent with my boyfriend, our dog Reese, and a couple friends in Monterrey. We also went to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, which had an impressive salt water tank and sea horse exhibit. :o ). but the rest of the exhibits or habitats were smaller then expected. We also were scouting surf & skate spots, and checking out the beaches during the beautiful evening light. We then stopped at the Lone Cypress Tree, a famous 200-year-old Cypress, along the 17-mile drive in Pebble Beach. (equipment: a dusty old 500C Hasselblad, the popular Holga, and trusty G11).