It's amazing how the sense of smell can bring one back to any place in the sea of memories.

I realized this as I watched the film, Perfume. Glad that I didn't give it a miss, as I had originally intended to.

Part of the reason I was so miserable during the two-week bout of flu was the loss of smell. You could be eating expensive wagyu beef or just plain porridge, and they'd taste the same. Without the simple everyday scents, life just isn't the same.

The imagery in the film is dark and livid with color at the same time; it's twisted yet beautiful.

Why is it that people are so enchanted with female beauty?

You take a product - it could be anything, like a bottle of beer - and you plonk in a gorgeous girl, take a photo and you have an ad.

Like Grenouille, I seek to capture beauty.

There is something ethereal in a woman. She need not be a ravishing beauty in the conventional sense. As I silently exist, watching and observing - the delicate glint of life in her eyes as she glances, the way her hair falls freely over her shoulders - my mind acting as a camera, generating a maelstrom of imaginary photographic stills.

I wonder, what's the story of this stranger? Did I capture a fragment of her existence, her character - that would make the picture unique, just like the way she is?

I had been thinking, both the works of a master portraitist and a good photographer for a Japanese skin magazine can be equally technically sound.

Is the goal and purpose of the work the only difference?

Tomorrow I will pay more attention to scents.

Jan smells like jasmine.
Reen, citrus with a hint of musk. It's the shokobutso shower foam.
Luan smells like cherries. Or maybe some kind of berry. Probably shampoo.
Home smells like laundry drying in the bright warm sun.

Chin Ups: 5. 3 more to make it 8.

Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop CS3 look fun.

Looking forward to a new day.