angels in the 20-something outfield, pennies for your thoughts?

Today was fun; it was a day off from my day-job. I chose to spend my time today doing things that I enjoy doing alone. I slept in until 10:00am. Sipped my Early Gray slowly while reading a fashion magazine. I wore my vintage, black-brocade, chinese inspired Zara dress, which I found for only $12.00 at a consignment shop last week. Blue skies; not a cloud in sight. I left my apartment around 11am. I took the bus downtown. A cappuccino and croissant from my favorite coffee shop later; I window shopped and people watched. Basic city bliss. 

I decided to go into the Neiman Marcus department store. I can't afford anything inside unless I hawk my life savings, but no one knows that except for me (Well, If I can't have Prada, I can at least be around to feel it's aura). I passed slowly through the fragrance department. I couldn't help myself; I stopped in front of his majesty Tom Ford, aka "my slice of heaven". At this point I'm not sure if it's because I'm drooling all over the merchandise or if he's just that friendly, but the Tom Ford counter man immediately noticed me. He greeted me with a friendly expression in his eyes that I read as his way of saying: "Yes, my child. You have reached the pearly gates. I am your angel. I have the key. I will let you in. Tom is waiting to bath you in Orchids and Mum"

For thirty minutes this Tom Ford angel and I latched on. I confessed my love for Tom Ford designs, especially for his fragrances. My Tom Ford angel understood completely. 

We began with the basic vision: what I like to smell like/feel like. He took me through elements: wood, flower, spice, tobacco, smoke. Some qualities I value in scents were revealed to me: warm, full, deep, clean, mysterious, rich, masculine and feminine. I settled on two fragrances that tipped me over the edge...into what felt most like my scents.

After my revival in Tom Ford heaven, I couldn't bare the fall from grace: to ask for the price of the bottles. So instead of asking for anything I smiled shyly at my Tom Ford angel as if to hint: "Earth is calling. My bank account is not. Tell Tom i'm not old enough to ride his ride yet". 

I don't know if it was the mumbling or the awkward side-shuffle I did to back myself away from the counter without anyone getting hurt (especially myself), but this angel spoke to me. He uttered the most precious thing a 20-something on a budget could ever hope for:  (In a flamboyant, matter-of-fact tone. Italian accent)

"Oh, honey. You don't need to decide! You go get them all. Mix them together in different ways. Okay honey, we can give you samples of the ones you like. You go home. You play with them.

*  *  *

There are some things that are self-evident in life. Other things require a near-religious retail experience to demonstrate:

1. Fact: there are Tom Ford angels who have been sent from heaven to gift samples to audacious 20-somethings on tights budgets.   

2. There is a difference between purchasing a thing - and - not purchasing a thing, but knowing it could be purchased at any time. What important part is to know when and how to gain gratification. Rule of Tom: Determine if the buying/owning part is the bliss or if the bliss is in the process. 

3. When you're 20-something, and you're attempting to grow-a-pair financially, sacrifices must be made. However, not that many sacrifices are made in the end. Sure, you can't afford a big bottle of designer perfume right now. However, you can own a sample size right now and add your own big-deal value. Coveted and worn sparingly, the value of a sample size is a big deal.  

Last week my career coach (yes, I have one. No 20-something should be without one) Dawn, asked me as part of my homework to talk with everyone I can about money and free-write on money in a journal. 

I'm attempting to break out of my "money mold" (aka,  the place where you always go in your mind/body/life when you interact with money) 

I can't help but find in myself the tendency to dance in circles around money without taking a step back to notice if my steps and rhythms synch up? The dance i'm dancing can it carry my song, or am I marching to someone else's tune? I don't love the idea of limiting myself from the epistemology of anything, including from knowing the knowing of money. 

In the last several days I've begun instigating. I am instigating and participating in several fourth right conversations about money with family members and friends. Everyone has something great to add. I like collecting knowledge. I am making many observations. 

Money is not a noun. Thus, Money rarely stands alone in the mind and in the world without the meanings we tie to it. It needs one or a combination of ingredients to become a "thing". "Money and ______..." Some ingredients added to money to make up  include: Emotions, logic, religion, family, values, race, movement, systems, government, acceptance, love, risk, safety, sex, anger, greed, worthlessness, pride, confidence, belonging, passion, talent, popularity, community, ease, fear, love, bravery, abundance, excess, abuse, scarcity, apathy, limitations, beauty, language, nation, ignorance, possibilities, opportunities, travel, freedom.......

Breaking down. Rebuilding the constructs in our minds. The rebuild inside alters outside structure to fit. Being sure thoughts are not merely turning around without crossing certain check points, bridges, tolls. Thoughts have origins like paper trails. Everything waisted. Everything cherished. Everything sourced. The seed is planted and so it grows. However it is planted and in it's condition. So it goes...
      
   

Fast and Slow

In the age of all things fast - fast emails, fast food, fast sex, fast money, fast transportation, fast wi-fi - I have decided to take on a hobby with a new-age opposite - something slow. Film photography, my latest hobby craze, moves so slow that there aren't many of us who have paitance for tricky set-up and long term processing. 

According to the popular vote analog cameras are out; digital pixels and automatic everything at the click of a button is in. trend according to geek can't account for the select of us "freaks" who find an unmitigated joy and value in taking it nice and slow with analog. I can't help but think that when it comes to the point and click if you move too fast are you missing out on magic? 

In the 1800's the idea of catching images of reality by harnessing exposed light onto a film inside of a wooden box was miraculous and supernatural. People got over it eventually. I'm having an 1800's reaction to film photography today. It still feels magical. I just developed prints from my first roll of Kodak black and white film. Some of my shots are out of focus. Others lack compelling subjects, greater meaning, or a striking composition. However, eight portraits I took of a fashion designer and proprietor in the setting of her trendy San Francisco studio loft are, in fact, magical. These eight I can be proud of. Taking it slow is worth it. 

In a marathon, pacing yourself is the key to longevity and finishing ahead. In film photography pacing yourself means focus, light and clarity. If everything comes fast there's no mystery building over time. Without mystery there's no intrigue. Learning is slow. Learning film photography is even slower.  

Another something slow we overlook in fast times are our slimy garden friends, Snails. Today I crossed paths with a snail on the side walk outside my apartment, and It got me thinking. Snails move at (for lack of a better phrase) snail pace. With homes on their backs they can never ditch the weight no matter how far they roam. 

We humans have the same problem, but instead of homes on our backs we carry around expectations, old habits, worries and woes. I wonder, when we're out and about and moving fast can we get to the point when we're moving at a rate fast enough to escape what's behind us, our pasts, and on our backs? Or, in an even slower sense, in the most gratifying moments of slowing down can we ever really get slow enough to where we can shake the weight of the world from our shoulders for good?

Human faces house the human soul; eyes are the windows, they say. I say some people's houses (faces) are heavier than others. As a new student of photography I have begun to study faces. Faces of the people on the bus. Faces in the crowd downtown. Faces in magazines and television. Reading faces has become a regular occurrence.

Portrait of a little girl I looked after in Oakland, CA. Shot digitally by myself 

 When I see a face that intrigues me I can usually know why. The faces that interest me aren't usually clean, young, or fragile. Faces that catch me are expressive, sensual, innocent, wise, worried, wrinkled, emotional, asymmetrical, angular, powerful and bold. I decided that as far as film photography is concerned it's better to capture someone with any amount of concern than someone vacant at home. 

If we can't escape where we come from. If our faces are our past. If fast or slow makes no difference at the end of the marathon. Then perhaps having the world on one's shoulders in the right sort of light is beautiful, honorable and precisely what brings us together. 

One of my favorite fashion photographers, Richard Avedon, spent his entire carrier taking photographs of raw human emotionality. He couldn't get enough of it. 

Avedon; self-portrait

Susan Sontag in her book On Photography reminds me that "one can't possess reality, one can possess images. One can't possess the present but one can possess the past." She also stated that “to take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.” 

Susan Sontag; photographer unknown

Susan Sontag shot by Annie Leibovitz

Susan Sontag; photographer unknown

Sontag was profound to study photography in a reflexive and critical account. I feel more than ever the importance of time. Pixels arrange themselves on the spot. Film takes a few moments to set up and weeks to develop. We don't have to choose one over the others; fast, slow, digital, film. The weight we bring around with us - "time" - acts differently depending on the  lens you choose to look through. I'm crazy about slow. I like using film photography because it's made up of at least one part magic I can be sure of. After all, how does such a grand subject fit so nicely into such a small box? I guess we'll never know, no matter fast and slow.     

The Year of the Gentlewoman

When it comes to down it, gentlewomen are calling the shots. Being a gentlewoman means opening your mouth to speak about truth- or in Penny Martin's case - opening your pages. The fashion world, which is doused with gentlewomen has a sort of tight lipped, close mouthed reputation. Models close their mouthes to calories. Designers close their mouths in front of critics and editors. Saks Fifth Avenue closes to those who's pocket books don't exceed certain interests.

All of this closed business is only half true. Penny Martin's truth speaks volumes, ten to be exact. Penny Martin, Editor-in-chief of The Gentlewoman Magazine blends together fashion ("what's in") and women's empowerment ("who's talking"). With Martin, both fashion and women are not simple, but complex, and one deserves to make the other feel better not worse.

If you associate fashion with putting women down, think again. And, if you assume that empowered women don't replenish some of their power with Céline or Tom Ford for good measure then you've certainly never read what Martin is getting at. She has a PHD in 1980's fashion magazines and a history with the Fawcett Society Women's Library, the world's biggest collection of women's magazines. Penny Martin comes equipped. 

I am enthralled with The Gentlewoman, which celebrates woman at any age, sex, race, shape, sexual orientation. The magazine is a place to see fashion styled with aliveness rather than lifelessness. It's a conversation with women who are arrested with style, grace and direction. Martin as an editor never leaves you torn between two subjects seemingly at odds with one another: couture fashion and women who open their mouths about truth and are likely too busy living their purpose to do anything but be fabulous humanbeings. I love that Martin gives us a fashion magazine with real life narrative and body. The gentlewoman can have it all in 2015, as long as editors like Penny Martin keep paving the way to calling shots that matter.

http://thegentlewoman.co.uk/#/home