When your Best Friend is the Muse

A day spent capturing my professional dancer best friend in San Francisco: a morning filled with movement, color, and the kind of moments that remind me why I love this city.

Last week, my very first best friend in life, Ishita (I call her Mili, her nickname), came to San Francisco for a 3-day work trip and stayed with me and my husband. When I asked what’s on her itinerary, she texted me her classic heavily packed weekend: back to backs with rehearsals, workshops, performances, coffee chats, intensives (yes that’s an actual screenshot below sent from the busy bee herself)…but I saw that she left a time slot on a Monday morning to make some photo magic with me :’) Mili is a director, choreographer, dancer and a business woman, so getting Mili on my calendar is always a rare gift.

When I asked Mili what her schedule is for the weekend, I received this screenshot.

Photographing Mili has always been a treat. She was one of the very first people I photographed when I picked up a camera over 15 years ago, so every shoot together carries a bit of nostalgia. I remember photographing Mili at her high school prom with my very first DSLR and telephoto lens I purchased with my first paycheck from working at Kumon. When Mili started to explore dance forms veering from our classic Bharatnatyam roots, we did a genre-blurring photo shoot at our suburban town’s abandoned airport that heavily parallels and inspires some of the shots of our San Francisco shoot 10 years later.

Our first dance photoshoot from 10 years ago at the abandoned Marlboro Airport. Back then, I didn’t even have Lightroom - so these RAWs were processed in yes..iPhoto (cries in photographer). But honestly, I’m still pretty impressed.

Like many teenagers raised by immigrant parents attending magnet high schools, we grew up in a society that expected us to become doctors or engineers. But Mili’s passion and talent pulled her to dance, while mine quietly unfolded through photography. After college, we found ourselves in New York City with our creative pursuits and side hustles of dance and photography respectively making us feel more alive than our day jobs typing away at a desk ever could. Any time Mili had a dance gig or event in the city, she would hit me up to photograph it - our passions going hand in hand. I remember the rainy day in Seattle where Mili pulled the trigger and decided to go full-time with her dance career - and how proud I felt at her boldness and entrepreneurism in following her heart. It took me a bit longer to arrive there —a mass tech layoff that turned out to be a blessing in disguise. But there we were, two 30-year-old women doing what we love full time, spending a crisp Monday making art, catching up on life, sharing laughter and a few tears, and soaking in the San Francisco sun while the East Coast battled a blizzard.

In my typical photo sessions when I photograph couples and families, it’s often their first time ever in front of the camera. I’m usually doing a lot of the talking - posing, and prompting, trying to make my clients feel natural as possible to be under the lens, something inherently unnatural to most. I forget how different it is when there are artists on both sides of the lens. When I photograph Mili, we reach our flow states in unison, and there aren’t too many words exchanged (although you probably here me whispering “wow” and “omg” and “woahhhh” a thousand times - check out my BTS reel of this dropping on Instagram this Sunday). Mili assesses her body in the space I’ve given and becomes a part of it in ways I could never have posed her. She looks zen and focused, but also effortless all at once (although we all know the amount of intense core work necessary), as she cycles through different poses, mudras, and movements.

I had some spots in mind when Mili said the vibe she’s feeling for the photoshoot is nature-oriented. When we woke up the morning of the shoot, we saw a low thick layer of fog coating the lower elevation neighborhoods from my house on a hill in Excelsior. I started forming a vision of Mili being suspended above the clouds and thought Mt. Davidson Park would be the coolest place to capture this. Of course, given how fast the fog burns off (also Mili was having the severe allergic reaction that morning and was icing her eyeballs to ease the swelling), by the time we made it there, the fog was mostly gone. But, the diffused light filtering through the lush trees of Mt. Davidson park is a photographer’s dream so I was excited regardless. We found a stone staircase surrounded by ivy trunks and eucalyptus trees by the trailhead where the Mili was backlit by then sun. Here, we got some incredible shots.

Mili poses before me, backlit by the soft sun, surrounded by lush ferns and ivy - a photographer's dream. I switched to my 85mm for this.

Then we made our way up those stairs, where Mili found a nook of trees, brambles, and vibrant leaves, that she immediately settled into. This was extremely reminiscent of our shoot from 10 years ago.

When we got to our viewpoint, we saw a man peacefully meditating at the exact spot we wanted photos from and didn’t want to disturb him - so we explored the lower peak a little bit further and found this magnificent looking tree that had fallen long ago, branches splayed like a petrified spider. Sometimes, your plan B ends up being the highlight of the shoot. In the dead center there was a nook, where Mili clambered in and balanced with both strength and grace between two branches. Watching Mili balance and move between this behemoth of a tree was giving “purple widow”.

Nestled into the center of a fallen tree with petrified wood branches splayed out, Mili resembled a purple widow.

We returned back to the original spot, and took in the gorgeous views of downtown San Francisco, Twin Peaks, and Sutro Tower. You can still see the cloud layer coating the Bay and East Bay in the distance.

Views taken from the peak of Mt. Davidson, a short 8 minute walk from the trailhead.

I though this was the perfect spot for me to get at an angle lower than Mili, to give her a ‘suspended in the clouds’ look. I made my camera’s shutter speed high, and switched to high speed continuous mode to capture her at her peak of her jumps.

A bird flew over Mili right at the peak of her jump.

She was a fairy.

We didn’t need to spend too much time at Mt. Davidson to get the shots we needed. All of this, 3 incredibly different backdrops, was probably shot within 30 minutes.

We took a little break in the car to brainstorm what our second vibe was going to be as Mili changed into her second outfit (she really just threw this incredible yellow jacket on top). We settled on a vibrant quiet alley in The Mission District that is painted with colorful murals, many of them quite fresh from Lover’s Lane. On our way there, we caught up on life as it had been several months since we properly hung out in person. It never feels like enough time, especially now that we live on opposite coasts, but we never fail to pick up where we last left off. After our conversations about love, loss, family, and more, we arrived at our final destination - Balmy Alley, located right off 24th street in The Mission.

We could smell the tacos from a nearby taqueria as Mili settled into position in front of a mural that perfectly complimented her jacket.

One of my favorite things about doing creative shoots in San Francisco is how much the city gives you - if you’re paying attention. Color lives everywhere here. It honestly feels like you could match an outfit to almost any house. As we wandered the streets during this shoot, we passed a vintage tub sitting on the sidewalk and a bright yellow Volkswagen Microbus that perfectly echoed Mili’s jacket. In this city, inspiration and beauty seem to appear at every turn.

The most San Francisco shoot I could ask for.

While it might be a few months before I can snag a spot on Mili’s busy calendar again, I can’t wait to see what hidden gems and bursts of color San Francisco has in store for our next adventure.