This image is from a photo yesterday afternoon with a multi-talented actress/model/poet. It is simply lit, with a simple backdrop, and no funky post processing. And it just may be my favourite portrait from 2011. After years of shooting anything but formal portraiture, then forcing myself to try it this year, it is ironic that it has now become far and away my favourite genre, because of images like this. It is simple on one hand, but on the other there is a lot happening with the model’s expression and her energetic and bright personality. Faces and expressions like this are as much a monument to the human spirit  as any cathedral or crumbling ruin.