People who know me well will understand how large my eyes became when I saw all of this purple sandstone at South Coyote Buttes. I love purple. For years now wearing purple has been something of a uniform for me when I’m out shooting. It all started because I was spending a lot of time in the Alps and wanted my outerwear to make me visible in the landscape in the event of an emergency. Primary colors are traditional in mountaineering wear for this reason, but I wanted something a little more feminine, and purple was the obvious choice. So I got into the purple habit, and it stuck.

Now, for better or for worse, it has reached the point where people tend to associate me with the color, often coming up with nicknames for me ranging from “The Purple Ninja” to “Her Purplitude”. I even have people recognizing me when they see me shooting simply because of the color I’m wearing. A particularly welcome occasion of the sort took place when I was shooting in the California redwoods, immersed in the dim light of the forest, when I heard someone call out my name. It was David Cobb of Photo Cascadia, and he said that my purple jacket had caused him to recognize me. He then led me further down the trail where Sean Bagshaw (also a Photo Cascadia team member) was turning his magic towards a famous branch of rhododendron blooms. Thanks to the purple jacket, I had a lovely chat with those two and even made preliminary plans for meeting up with Sean in Slovenia later that summer. Less than a year later, I was invited to become the first new member of the Photo Cascadia team. I love purple.