Here are two portraits I took of my friend Wanchuk, who is co-owner with Sam Huang (photo posted previously) of Mad Momos Restaurant & Beer Deck. I’ve known Wanchuk for nearly a decade. He’s from Sikkim, which is now a province of India in the Himalayas between Nepal and Bhutan, but used to be an independent kingdom with close ties to Bhutan.

We met through a common love of photography – at the time he was still in post-college bum-around-the-world mode, and wanted advice on how to take better pictures in the places he was going. Now he’s running a restaurant and giving me a show of my photos. The exhibit will open on August 2nd and run through the end of October. Details about the opening reception will be posted separately.

I took those photos of him after we finished a meeting about the exhibit, then went for a 15 minute walkabout in the neighborhood around the restaurant to see what I could find. There’s an old bar/club across the street called “The Pinch” – I so want to photograph the front door because it has cool architectural detailing and some nifty graffiti, but from the looks of the folks hanging out by the front door, I may have to come back and shoot that early in the morning when they’re closed -their patrons may not take too kindly to being photographed.

Here’s their logo on the wall facing the side street – it has a very 70’s look to it, but the paint seems very recent.

Pivoting to the left of the Pinch logo, I saw this lovely vanishing-point perspective of the building walls, dappled in evening sunlight. As I was composing the shot, this man hauling a gigantic cardboard box over his shoulder walked into the frame. Taking advantage of the serendipitous perspective-giving presence of the man, I waited until he was about 2/3 of the way in the frame before shooting.