Mia 119

"Celtic Mia and the Power of the Light - a fairy tale from Paris". This fine portrait of Mia with her radiant smile concludes an epic photo shoot. Mia is the 68th Lady behind Crystal Veil.

A word of thanks goes to the staff of bar / restaurant INARO (www.inaro.fr), Rue Eené Boulanger, for their kind permission to do the final part of the photo shoot in their premises. Much appreciated!

Mia, it was my privilege and honour to work with you! One of the factors that made your photo shoot something very special is that you worked in the U.S. for various brands like Luxottica. This means that you were already well familiar with doing photo shoots in glasses. Being blessed with perfect eyesight, posing for the brands in glasses with plano lenses or even in empty frames must have been a natural experience for you. However, doing a photo shoot in real prescription glasses is a different ball game altogether. It calls for an open minded approach but our email exchange preceding the actual photo shoot already reassured me in many ways. What struck me straightaway is that we had a real connection in our correspondence. The same thing happened when we met in the hotel lobby and walked to the park (Jardin Villemin). Lively talks, lots of laughter. I immediately felt at ease with you and this was clearly mutual. As a result, the actual photo shoot went all by itself and it never gave me the impression that we were working hard. My foresight to bring a very warm ladies cardigan was instrumental and it's safe to say that this added to the quality of many photos. The variety in your posing style was simply amazing. You took directions quite well but you added many dimensions of your own and it made an excellent blend. An excellent example is the half dozen pictures taken on Boulevard Magenta. This was the moment I realized that a concept for a script (already in my mind) might become reality. The final part of the photo shoot was impromptu but it's safe to say that it yielded some of the best portraits. You are not only a great model but also a young lady who does not mind improvising on the spot. After our goodbye I walked back to the hotel with a big smile on my face. This had been good, really good and somehow I was not worried at all about the quality of the photos. This turned out to be right when the photos emerged on my computer screen after returning to the Netherlands. Even better, much of the connection we both felt and spoke about came through in the portraits. This enabled me to write a fairy tale story ("Celtic Mia and the Power of Light") to accompany the photos in the documentary. I was delighted that you liked the preliminary outline and more recently also the full story line. Thank you for correcting a slip of the pen in one phrase. Your knowledge of the Italian language is far better than mine. Not to be outdone, it was my pleasure to bring in bits and pieces in the Irish language :). Quite appropriately, the management summary of the three hours in your sparkling company is the title of a well known Irish double jig from the repertoire of the legendary master piper Seámus Ennis (1919-1982). It's called "Happy to meet, sorry to part". When we parted, there was only one conclusion. Our paths simply will have to cross again so that we can produce some more magic - fairy tale of not!