I am meeting a group of friends tomorrow to do some lighting work here in Austin… experimenting with some new styles for fun!

Anyone remember that show? I watched all of them… the red room… black forest… bob… what a great show. I wish Lynch would make another like that. Now we have Lost… which is kinda like it, but not nearly as trippy. What does all of that have to do with this picture? Oh yeah there was a gal named Josie on the show that reminded me of this girl.

Last year I was nominated for the bloggies and I lost to my worst enemy, the FlickrBlog. So, to the extent that people out there like to see pictures of models, and to the extent they like the occasional model that is of the Asian persuasion, then here you go!

I would appreciate your vote for the 2008 Bloggies! I hope you vote for www.stuckincustoms.com in the "best photography of a weblog" category! 🙂

This is Secret.

I found her walking with her hooded ilk around the back streets of Mumbai. Usually when I see a cadre of the enshrouded, they are accompanied by Muslim man that is glaring at almost everyone. This time there seemed to be no alpha around, so I asked her for her name. She looked at me and smiled (I think) and then looked furtively around to see if anyone was watching. I got the distinct impression that since I was a white oddity that actually spoke to her that she wanted to talk, but then thought better of it and made a slight bow before gliding away.

Azed Baba would not tell me much about himself except for what his name means. Azed means "freedom" and Baba means "spiritual man". We sat around and watched the sunset at the Taj together and I asked if I could take his picture.

After I while I rubbed my House-like stubble since it has been a few days since I shaved. I asked him if he liked my beard. He gave a grunt in response which was either a laugh or a grunt of general disgust at the state of my beard.

This is Ahira.

Ahira’s dream is to go to a university and be a computer scientist or doctor or whatever her parents want.

Ahira is currently at the Batu Caves in Malaysia, just outside of Kuala Lumpur, walking up the hundreds of steps. She and her family are making the traditional Hindu pilgrimage to the peak, where she will light incense to Lord Murugan and other Hindu deities whose shrines lay at the top inside the cave network. While she talks to me telling me about doing whatever her parents want, her parents look on and nod approvingly.

This comes from my Portraits Portfolio here that you can see here.

I thought I would post a few pics of the kiddos today I took in my studio at home. You can’t go wrong with cute kid portraits, right?

I’m over in Malaysia for about two weeks working with our game studio here and I get really bored on the weekends. Air Asia is sort of like Southwest Airlines and I can fly about anywhere for $200. I’ve always wanted to visit Angkor Wat in Cambodia, see the Killing Fields, and hopscotch around land mines, so I thought it would be a good opportunity. Besides, hotels and food and everything is so much cheaper there, why not?

People are always surprised that I travel so much, but it’s really not that big a deal or that hard… All you gotta do is get a couple cheapo tickets, do about an hour of focused planning, and then go off and have an adventure. I always think of that final Curb Your Enthusiasm show – the one with Larry David on HBO (the guy that created Seinfeld). Anyway, he is in the middle of this big death scene and he is on the bed in the hospital. He’s surrounded by his family, his wife, his best friend and agent, and a few other people. He gets very serious and he knows he is slipping away, so he decides to say something meaningful.

In his final life-moment, Larry says something like, “I guess I should have traveled more.” He struggles for breath and his voice is dry. “I would have liked to see more of Europe.” He looks off and, finally, his raspy voice says, “but I hate to pack.” And that is it.

This is Amin.

Amin’s dream is to drive a Ferrari. He jokes, and then becomes suddenly serious with a haunting, dark Persian stare before uttering his real dream: that one day our race is “human being”, our religion is “humanity” and our nationality is “citizen of the world.” Amin thinks deeply, and then laughs and says, “Well maybe if I was driving a Ferrari now I would be thinking of this crap!”

Amin is currently working at John Galt Games after being recommended by his fellow Iranian programmer, Ali, who shares the flowing locks of Sayid from Lost and the comic stylings of Cicak Man himself. Amin has recently passed the killer gauntlet programmer test of Hafiz (our lead tech brain) with a score of 85. Nobody has ever scored this high, except for Hafiz himself, who resides with the demigods of C++ in his own heavenly sphere of programming and peace.

This comes from my Portrait Series here.

Here is another shot I took from nearby, of a few Islamic schoolchildren:

Aru’s dream is to provide a good life for his children.

Aru is currently selling hand-carved Teak wood sculptures in the floating market about two hours outside of Bangkok. He is alert and alive, gladly tracing the markings on his body, explaining to me what they mean.

This shot of Aru comes from my “Portraits Portfolio“, where I try to take the opportunity to get to know some of these interesting-looking people.

This was taken in the floating market, where things got just a touch crowded towards the middle of the day. It could have been hotter in that boat, but I don’t know how.

Neela’s dream is to be famous in the movies. Neela is currently with her family at the Batu Caves celebrating Deepavali. She is with her family and her mother nods appreciatively at me. “Are you going to put her on the Internet? She will be famous yes?” Neela demurs, then I ask her if she wants to be famous in Hollywood or Bollywood movies. She bobbles her head around, which clearly means, “YesNo”.