The Portfolios

Good friend Jeff Crosby has written a great post about his recent travels back to Yunnan province, the place where Xianyi and I met him when he was living with Eli in Kunming. Jeff currently lives and works in Beijing, but makes a few trips back to our old home each year.

This writing is about a trip into the mountains to visit an ancient tea tree. Here is a sample:

This plant slowly evolved in this back corner of the world and was discovered and nurtured by an obscure and forgotten people. Somehow this little plant sired millions of offspring who went on to become one of the most economically, socially and politically important plants in the world, shaping cultures and markets, playing decisive roles in massive historic events from the Opium Wars to imperialism, the American Revolution and Indian Independence.

Check it out.

Here is the picture I was talking about. I got it.

This was taken as Tiger finished his round at the 2006 HSBC Championship in Shanghai. It was on the bridge from the 18th green to the clubhouse. I had been standing there with Yoyo for about half an hour – when we first arrived there was no one there, but by the time Tiger was finished it was well crowded – and I had been practicing the shot on several lesser players who walked by, as well as general staff. See, I was using my grandfather’s old Canon SLR, which is manually focused and which requires the aperture to be set by the photographer. Knowing I would only have one chance to bag the Tiger, I had to be sure I would get it right.

Indeed I did. The focus is perfect, as is the exposure (OK, maybe not perfect, but at least correct). The look on Tiger’s face conveys disappointment – he finished second and may have been thinking about his round here, but probably he was just trying to avoid being photographed. Fair enough. I was, after all, breaking the rules.

Which leads me to this disclaimer: Tiger Woods, if you are out there and happen to read this post, I would like to apologize for knowingly violating the rules of the golf tournament and taking pictures. You know I wasn’t the only one – and I know that doesn’t necessarily make it right. But know this: I did not and would not ever take pictures of you during your setup, stance, or swing. That would be interference. But I must argue that taking a picture of you while walking down the course, or after you have finished playing, cannot really be interfering with your game. You are a public figure after all, and while you have every right to privacy, I think there are times when you have to allow yourself to be photographed. And sometimes the rules conflict with that.

Anyway, Tiger, thanks for coming to Shanghai. You really made my day. If you would like to respond to my ideas about picture-taking, please, by all means, leave a comment on this blog.

Take a look at this slice of chocolate cake!

Man! This is my buddy Tristan, whom the computers at Georgetown randomly paired me to live with freshman year – and man did they hit the jackpot. Tristan and I became great friends and continued to live together throughout our time at school.

I jacked this image from his Flickr page, which I would link to here, but he’s tagged all his photos for friend and family viewing only – not into the whole open source thing. That’s cool, but I just had to display this shot to the world.

The title indicates that this was taken at Ruby Foo’s in NYC. And by the look of sublime love on Tristan’s face, I’m sure he relished every bite. Cheers to that!