Monday 5 September 2011

Straight out of the fisheye

I believe that I was possessed by some demon which lead me to the Lomography store on carnaby street on Saturday. I even hid my full frame dSlr and proceeded to purchase the crappiest plastic camera ever produced on this planet (which also conveniently cost a ridiculous amount of cash).

Here is the first roll of slide film I took and cross processed - sh*t focus, blurry image, light leaks, colour fringing.. I expected nothing less :D

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Thursday 18 August 2011

Recent posts to Lookbook.nu :)

Desperate attempt to conceal recent lack of updates by posting random Lookbook.nu photos :)






Sunday 7 August 2011

Weekend Photodiary

Just a leisurely weekend at home:





 (I'd previously thought that above would be the last musical I want to see but it turned out to be so cheerful, fun and witty.:)

Tuesday 2 August 2011

Pandora's box

It's been an exhausting day today, deal flow very much swung between feast and famine. There was relief as the resolution of the debt ceiling wranglings finally came. I found it incredible that even at the eleventh hour, 26 members of the Senate still managed to vote against the legistlation, with the alternative being a US default(!).

Still, the fix is in and we can finally go down to the pub. There I meet one of my friends who was quietly celebrating some serious profit - he had been short Pandora stock (Danish jewellery maker) since May! I never saw the appeal of Pandora and their silly looking charm bracelets which also happen to be enormously overpriced for a mid-market brand. At the time I was telling him while shorting pandora he could go long the luxury high end and the low end in the same industry. I feel that in the follow up to a recession consumers tend to drift away from the middle ground. This guy was so stubborn and so sure of his view that he didn't even bother hedging with a spread position. Pandora share fell more than 65% in one day and much to my disdain he is seriously considering taking the rest of the summer off.

Monday 1 August 2011

Mirror's Edge Wannabe (and failing miserably)

After meeting two awesome photographers randomly, I went to hang out at their studio. The two of them had planned some shoot and the model failed to turn up. They both looked at me rather suddenly. Next thing I know: the make-up artist walked straight over and started shaving my eyebrows!

I'm so used to directing everyone else that it's almost counter intuitive to model for others. It turned out to be a good laugh nonetheless. And tons of flour was thrown all over the studio.

Below is what Bob referred to as the "wild baker look" :)

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Mirror's edge wannabe?




Sunday 31 July 2011

weekend photo diary - Bucharest

Amid the mad dash to the airport on Friday afternoon I forgot to take my trusted Mark ii. All pics below shot with the rubbish but highly portable iphone camera.







Friday 29 July 2011

impatiently waiting

Gasp! Click. Ordered.
(Ah well you all know about my obsession with shiny toys that make a clicking sound.)


Thursday 28 July 2011

Waiting for Godot?

Market is getting bored of waiting for the US congress to come up with something viable. It's starting to feel a little like Samuel Becket's play (on a separate note I've forced myself to see various production of it over the years and only managed to not leave after the intermission on one occasion).

I'm packing at the moment for a weekend away in a warmer climate! I hope we will have something on the table by Monday.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

More from the British Museum shoot

These are more like at the pub next to British Museum:) See here for part I.

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when will the money run out?

A week later, we are still here - no progress has been made in the U.S. debt ceiling discussions as best we can tell and the house should be voting on their plan tomorrow with the senate later in the week. However a new twist has been brought to the story. Based on the latest numbers, the U.S. treasury managed to find a lot more cash in their back pockets, sufficient to allow them to get by for at least another week. Then the money REALLY runs out.

I doubt this is really something the Treasury wants to shout from the rooftops, as it would take the implied pressure off of the two sides that will ultimately need to do the unpleasant task of compromising. I was secretly hoping that the market would have been uglier yesterday to put a bit more pressure on Congress, but that failed to happen since everyone has been looking for a last minute agreement all along and remained unfazed (or sleeping on a hot summer afternoon?!). I imagine at this stage, both parties, surely aware of the new found leeway, are even more likely to hold out for a deal on their respective terms.

So what happens as the 2nd of August deadline passes? The risk of a downgrade would be raised even further. I've always thought of rating agencies as being completely rubbish but I would still hate for the US to be stripped of their triple As. I fear a big selloff in treasuries as well as equities in this scenario so I have decided to put on some protection, mostly in the shape of put spreads on the US contract with a September expiry. I'm short the higher strike and long twice the lower strike generating a small overall cost. It carries negatively as all outlier trades do but it's a small cost I am happy to bear, for now.

Good luck and have a good week ahead.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

"dolls, ballerinas and the tutu shortage" photoshoot part ii







See PART i here .

Credits:
Photography: me
Hair and make-up: Meera
Model: Bhav, Konstantina
Styling: Meera, Tink
Lighting and other mundane tasks: Andrei
Second Shooter: Kat
Location: my parents' house

Monday 18 July 2011

the debt ceiling situation

Complete lack of economic data today lead to some super quiet trading hours. I struggled to find liquidity even in the most straightforward treasury market so I had to look for other ways to entertain myself.

All eyes remain on the debt ceiling fiasco. I for one don't believe for a second that there is any real risk of default. However with Moody's and S&P's repeated warnings about a potential downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, the entire issue seems to be taking a decidedly more volatile turn. Now a default would be an event but a downgrade is something based on probability not events. With each passing day, where the two sides are bickering and competing on who can throw more toys out of the pram, the probability of a downgrade increases steadily. So many deadlines have passed that I can hardly remember when the next one is. Nevertheless one would be right in thinking that we need a breakthrough by the end of this week to allow just a little bit of time for legislative procedures.

I've decided to sit relatively light for this week with a small short gamma position. You see I have faith:). In the event of a downgrade I would imagine an initial massive sell off of US treasuries, accompanied by an even more humongous sell off in equities, at which point things become extraordinarily messy. Investor would invariably recalibrate their risk appetite in such an event and very possibly move away from the stock market to return to the treasury market as the latter is perceived as the "lesser of the two evils". It's late and I'm not completely sure if this logic is somewhat flawed. What are your thoughts?

Sunday 17 July 2011

Is summer here yet?

Tink and I went to the raindance film school one Saturday for a crash course in film making. There we spotted a girl in this adorable outfit that looked like a tribute to a Marc Jacobs dress from SS2011. It had the same vibrancy and contrast but wasn't made of silk, giving a more casual feel. Following a round of frantic googling, we located the dress. Here is me in it: