Barae Emerging

So it feels like Spring is here. The night air carries the scent of plum blossoms and I don't need a hat and a scarf. To celebrate, I changed the blog colors again to reflect the colors of the plum blossoms.

The latest work in the studio has been with a model named Barae (rose picture in Japanese). She's a dancer and performance artist and has done a lot of modelling for photography. We got to use a very different type of lighting and two set-ups. She used a maiko-style white base for the make-up and Daniel and Maya added stronger colors throughout the shoot.

Barae had hoped to do an antique doll-style but it reminded me a lot of the idea of human dolls as seen in Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell. I tried playing with those ideas a bit, but the new album that I am including ended up more like The Juon or The Ring as it seems that Barae is emerging from a screen.

As usual, it was great to work with my fellow shooters Bonnie, Camilla, Mia and Mumi; thanks to Tim and Mumi for organizing us all; Daniel and Maya for their great make-up; and of course Barae.

2007-- emerging from the holiday coccoon.

It's been a long time since I entered anything. Christmas holidays were good, but not so great for writing. I did get a friend to read a draft of my contemporary and got a lot of good feed-back. It seems that I have a lot of stuff to add but I'm pretty happy about it because these additions will likely get me out of the plot holes I was in. I was trying to write my way out of a rut but I just knew that what I was writing wasn't working. It feels good to have a clear path again.

Most of the holiday was spent hanging out with my husband and watching movies and learning how to use photoshop and my digital camera more effectively.

As usual, the challenge for 2007 is discipline. Getting projects done to the nth level and not letting my personal goals slide by.