What she does…
I’m currently living the leisurely life of a retiree. I don’t work during the day, so my days involve indulgent lunch dates, scouring Ebay for halloween wardrobe gems, learning French, reading books, watching films in bed. I work at a kitschy Williamsburg bar by night, and I also shoot photos for some publications like Refinery29, Paper Mag and my blog, Totally Not Depressed.

Right now…
I just returned from my roadtrip in the American South where I met and photographed all sorts of eccentric characters. I think this project really reinforced my penchant for photojournalism and documentary. I love meeting weirdos. My heart breaks listening to their sweet, sad stories.

Pros and cons of her job…
I hate calling myself a “photographer”, it makes me cringe. I feel like a phony. It’s like calling yourself an “aspiring model” (which I was at one point in my life, back when I fooled people into believing I was skinny).

What I like about being a photographer is that the camera can act as a physical and symbolic mask; it’s easy to infiltrate situations, and simultaneously just as easy to leave some boring interaction to go shoot something else. The camera to your eye speaks “Let me work, I’m invisible”.

Did her early environment affect her life choices…
Growing up in California was such a source of pride for me when I was a kid. It’s really solipsistic, living in what you are told is the best country in the best state in the best country in the world, what with our sunshine and cars and ethnic homogeneity. When you grow up in Orange County, your biggest concern as a kid is who will drive you to the Brea Mall and have I enough allowance to buy a Cinnabon AND a new Roxy backpack? Throughout my adolescence, I stumbled upon some really interesting (rare in OC) and influential people who showed me the light, who suggested the existence of a world not concerned with fake tans and acrylic nails, but with art and real style and intellectual thought. Then I moved cross-country to New York at 18 to attend NYU.

The best advice she’s received…
“People who stick our their necks too far get the first chop” was certainly the most influential advice I got from my typically asian mom, who was horrified when I came home one day with a mohawk. It was the most awful thing I’d heard. I knew I didn’t want to be invisible the way my mom wanted me to be, I didn’t want to inspire indifference in people who passed me on the street. That certainly has informed my personal aesthetic. And when I do eventually get the chop, “I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.”

Her number one recommendation…
I personally think everyone should keep a diary. My whole existence is a protest against forgetting. Despite the fact that the things written in my diary eventually got me banned from the UK, I don’t regret any of it!Because it made a great diary entry! It all needs to be written down thoughtfully - moments of genuine bliss, pain, the meaningless minutiae, our deepest anxieties. It’s therapeutic, writing. And enlightening and entertaining to revisit years later.

Who she wants us to interview next…
Shaghayegh Zavoshi is an amazingly talented fashion designer/artist. She is a real spitfire with a personality that is perfectly epitomized by her neon orange hair. Her designs, they’re both intellectual and beautiful. When and if I get married, she will be making my wedding dress.

Links to her work…
Totally not depressed
Refinery29
Papermag