San Francisco, California
I met Nyomie when I was waiting for my flight to Taiwan in mid-September. It happened quite quickly, I had my camera out to take photos of everything on my trip, including the people I met along the way. I had already taken a photo of her before she came up to me, but when she did, she asked me for my boarding pass and she asked about my camera. She has a Canon herself for her photography job at the College of San Mateo. When she continued with her tasks, I quickly pulled out my iPad and attempted to use the mobile version of Lightroom, I’d never used it before but I needed to figure it out if I wanted to post photos during my trip. They started calling boarding zones soon after, I was rushing the edit, but I managed to have something I think looked presentable and showed it to her. I got her Instagram handle and sent her the photo as I usually do with many others.
A couple days into my Taiwan trip, I was looking over people’s stories and remembered Nyomie, checked out her Instagram, and noticed she had the Burmese flag on her bio! I was surprised because I’ve never met another Burmese in my entire life! (I’m not Burmese myself but I have cultural ties because my mother was born there) I struck up conversation to ask about it and from there, we got to know each other better. If there’s anything that can get two people to start talking, it’s food. Burmese food is a blessing to me as my grandma would make it for us all the time when I was little. After she passed away, we resorted to buying it from restaurants. However, after years of searching, we couldn’t find any places that sells well made Burmese food for reasonable prices.
So upon learning from Nyomie that there are Burmese pop-up food markets every so often in the Bay Area, I immediately asked her to take me when I return to the US. In return, I offered her a photoshoot for fun to round out the day. The market we went to that day was in Newark, a bit of a drive for me, but worth it for the food. I had enough stomach for mohinga (catfish chowder), falooda (I’m not sure how to describe it, so I’ll just link the Wikipedia article) and tamarind juice, they were cheap considering the portion sizes we received for each bowl and cup for only five dollars each. There were also a variety of other foods as well, such as tea leaf salad and rice plates. I wasn’t too sure of the other stuff but I bought a plate of everything for my mother to try later that night. The food market was apparently accompanying a Free Burma event. If I’m understanding it correctly, they’re garnering support to fight the tyranny of the current militaristic regime. They were even selling soccer balls with photos of the corrupt and undesirable politicians that ruined the country and the lives of so many for people to kick around. Honestly I was just there for the food, I swear!
After lunch, we made our way to San Francisco to take photos. Nyomie surprisingly doesn’t go to SF that much considering she lives close by. I chose the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park because then I can park in the Sunset District residential areas and get San Tung for dinner after the shoot. For a staggering $18 entry fee per adult, I can’t believe they had some portions of the garden closed off, that’s ridiculous, and some of the other visitors agreed too. Regardless, the shoot went as how my shoots usually go, we walked around the venue, and anywhere that appeared like a setting fit for a photo thus became a photo (or a couple hundred because I usually spam the shutter). Nyomie was wearing a traditional Burmese garb, I’m not sure what it’s called but my mom wouldn’t stop talking about it afterwards when I showed her the photos. Perhaps if Nyomie sees this blog, she can remind me and I can set up a redirect to its Wikipedia page.
We did closeup shots so she can have some semi-professional profile photos, wide angle shots to get the background in with her, and I used my telephoto lens to get photos of her attempting to throw water at me from 20 meters away. Lens filters played a big part in the shoot too. I really enjoyed using my shimmer diffusion filter because it draws out light sources and lets them bleed into darker areas in the composition, giving my photos a “dreamy” look. I also used my sparkle filter for the water splashing photos because the droplets would create little stars of light and I thought it could be cool. I tried quite a few things, but I did forget to direct where her hands should go, I suppose I was a little too distracted by the magnificent garden. I’ll try to remind myself more of the things I forget for future shoots.
After photos, we ended the day off with two giant plates of glazed chicken and string beans at San Tung (I highly recommend their chicken wings, it’s so good people would just buy a whole plate for each person at the table in addition to the other dishes).
We continued our conversations and friendship even after that wonderful day. If planned correctly, by the time this post is published, we’re probably making our way towards Alan Walker’s Halloween concert in SF. I’m looking forward to it!
