Michael

Ritualistically, before returning to NJ, the trip to the hairdressers - for no one in NJ cuts hair as well as Edward Whitesides, here in Santa Fe. And visiting his tiny salon is like going and visiting someone in an extension to their home - ditto the excellence of the intelligent conversation, and the mint tea. I was very hopeful before we went that his partner Michael would be there, too - for yes! someone whose name begins with an M was just what I needed. If this blog, as a whole, has failed to represent the kind of photographs that I habitually take, it's been short on portraits. Michael's choice of yellow lived up to my hopes and expectations - the yellow shine to the spectacles being an added bonus. He wasn't, admittedly, wearing a kilt (possibly the only non-Scottish man ever to wear a kilt in Santa Fe?) - but this sweater, positioned next to a very New Mexican dried flower display, was as startlingly eye-catching as the state flag.

I did feel a little as though I'd stolen his image - I asked him to pose, but didn't explain that the deciding factor was that it was an M day. No client, he said, had ever asked to take his photo before...