Girl Extraordinaire in Canada - Los Angeles Travel Photographer

When we arrived at the lodge in the remote Kaska Coast of Canada, a young girl came out in vibrant red to welcome us. Who knew, we would be seeing her everywhere in the next 10 days.

She’d be on the back of skidoo before sunrise, leading the caravan of komatiq (in cree language, sled designed to travel on snow and ice) in negative 50 degrees.

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She’d be there helping teach us how to start a fire (wilderness survival 101) with no match.

At the end of the day, when we barely made our way to our room (those in the subtropical/tropical weather won’t understand how much time it takes to take off your clothes :-) ), she’d already changed and was ready to pour wine and serve dinner when we arrived in the dining room.

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I’ve never based my life choices on my gender. But this girl impressed me by the amount of talent and energy such a slender figure can hold. The best that I could do was to focus on what I was familiar with, that is to photograph, while trying to survive the harsh environment.

She said she’s our lodge manager. I think she’s a girl extraordinaire. Her name is Bella.

Let’s celebrate the talented girls/women in this world every day. Only when all talents in this world are tapped will we as human race reach our full potential.

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"I Learned My Lesson" - Los Angeles Travel Photographer

“I learned my lesson”, she said, at a café overlooking the Mirror Lake (Kagami-Ike, in Japanese) in Nagano, Japan.

It was an early morning. The misty air was as still as the surface of the lake. The Mt. Togakushi (戸隠山) in the background was playing hide-and-seek with us.

While we were having fun with the visual interests, a breeze swept through. The mirror was broken. All of sudden, we remembered dozing off on the bus for an hour and the subsequent half-an-hour hike to get to this location in cold November weather. It was decided that we'd put in enough hard work and the café sitting quietly on the gentle slop became a tempting idea.

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She and her husband had been living in Southern California for 30 years and moved back to Japan 6 years ago. Curious about the cultural differences, I inquired about the transition in workplace.

”I learned my lesson”, she said, “and I’ve kept my mouth shut since”.

The recent resignation of the Tokyo Olympics chief over sexist comments reminded me of our conversation with this lady from Southern California.

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P.S. Remember I see landscape in human bodies? Well, vice versa is also true - I see human body in landscape. Do you see it in the first image?

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This Valentine's Day, I Wish You Compatible Weirdness - Los Angeles Travel Photographer

I thought it was funny that my eyes gravitate towards interesting (ahem, weird) couples in the animal kingdom.

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But then, it seems the feeling is mutual. These two king penguins came to check out me and my Assistante. It must be proof that our funky spirit somehow vibrates on the same frequency that they do.

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Dr. Seuss says ”We're all a little weird, and life's a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

I’m glad that we got the seal of approval from the unbiased judges that we stayed on our paths of being weird after years of marriage.

This Valentine’s Day, I hope you are celebrating your authentic weirdness with your compatible other.

Unless you prefer the picture depicted by Ray Barone (as in Everybody Loves Raymond):

“You wake up, she's there. You come back from work, she's there. You fall asleep, she's there. You eat dinner, she's there. You know? I mean, I know that sounds like a bad thing, but it's not."

The choice is yours. Cheers!

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