Bougainvillea at the Getty

After yesterday's 8.25 hrs in the ER with Reuben, not an emergency, but a good deal of miscommunication and indeed without result, I felt like I needed a break this morning. And so, whilst the boys were in school, I met up with a British teacher sole traveller whom I'd met briefly outside church on Sunday and I thought I'd show her around. So we spent the morning at the Getty Center, my place of solace in Los Angeles.

She wondered the gallery of Rubens, whilst I spent a good hour in the roving photographic exhibition on early Japanese photojournalism. The gallery was punctuated with landscape stills, geysers and volcanos to make me remember another great influence in my life, my first degree in geography. How can there be two greater loves than the marriage between geographer and photographer. I was trying to explain how marketing came into my picture, but time has erased that memory. I simply remember starting my Chartered Marketer postgrad in 1997 and that's it. On the Getty Center, I can return every few months to a new visual feast in that gallery, the last being the fantastic Herb Ritts who was quite possibly my earliest influence in the 80s on portraiture. As far back as I can remember, one of my favourite activities in any new city has been to wonder through from museum to gallery and breathing in the city's culture therein and it was pretty universally something I would do by myself.

This is a bit of a composite image created from Brit Jennifer's two images. I wanted to show her that despite never having picked up an SLR before, she could create something good. It's the basis on my in the field class, Exposure Yourself, which I'm teaching this year and it really focuses less on the buttons to press and more on how to think as a photographer. In all truth, I've had careers as global head of advertising for an investment bank Dresdner, head of marketing communications for Transport for London and stuff, but as ever, I believe photography is the most mentally challenging role. I simply never stop thinking through what I'm doing. Every step of capture is deliberate.

What a beautiful day, bright sunshine, azure blue skies with a brisk wind blowing through and the scent and sounds that only Spring can bring.

I don't think Jennifer is looking forward to her flight tomorrow.