Self- Portrait The question who am I? Well I am a teenage girl that is undetermined about a lot of things in life, I like to let thing take their coarse. I come from a history of photography you can say. My grandfather is constantly taking pictures. No matter where we go he has his camera right beside him. Growing up I didn’t always like having to stand still and take so many pictures but now looking back I am thankful because he has captured a lot of my childhood. He has given me the opportunity to be able to look back on things I did when I was younger and realize good memories. My grandfather is my role model when it comes to photography even though I am not the photographer of the family; my younger sister is more of photographer. My sister follows more of my grandfather’s footsteps she is like my grandfather she always has her camera and takes pictures of whatever she can. I myself when I take photos I tend to take pictures of things that appeal to me such as nature, and something fun and interesting I also like to try and make something ordinary look different. My philosophy when taking photos is that if you see something that catches your eye then try and capture that. I think that it doesn’t really matter what you take a picture of it can be anything but it should something that interests you and something that you think that by putting your touch on it will appeal to someone. I also think that taking pictures of something ordinary or something that other people have also captured it is really important to put a new twist on it and make people see it differently. I chose to take my self- portrait and my alter ego pictures because it’s amazing how someone ones perception of someone can be so wrong. For my self- portrait I captured myself smiling and laughing because most of the time everyday you can find me with my friends laughing and having a good time. Once you hear my laugh you will never forget it. I have been told I have a one of a kind laugh that always keeps people laughing. I chose to capture me smiling and laughing because I am proud of my weird laugh. For my self- portrait I chose to take a picture of myself looking very depressed and sad. I took the picture of myself sitting in the corner against my dresser with a pair of scissors against my wrist to represent that I cut myself. This is my alter ego because I do not hurt myself by cutting I could never self inflict pain like that. These photos tie into my philosophy because by taking a picture of my alter ego I am taking a whole different look at myself. I challenge the viewer to see me in another light. I normally wouldn’t take a picture of myself but by taking my self- portrait pictures I expanded my normal boundaries in photography which gives me a whole new perspective to explore in photography.

Miku Nakanishi is gone from the geinokai (Japanese entertainment community) now. I saw other fans express how they miss her. I saw Miku-pon's pleased reaction on stage when told the photo on the cover of her CD was sexy. But I hope people will also remember her cuteness and degree of pureness she retained while going through her career. Her genki (lively, energetic) personality included doing things to make people laugh or smile. In my case, one of those incidents was her taking Hopper off my belt loop, attaching him on my badge cord instead, giggling and then runnng off for awhile. Another time she said my name and "Talk to me more!" I said "OK!" She said, "Yay!" and gave me high five hands then scampered off again, glancing back to see my reaction. I say these details not to make anyone think "oh that shiroi was lucky" (other fans were lucky, too) but to give more of a picture of Miku-pon as a person. She had great fans, too; when Tokyo TV was fiming part of her akushukai (meeting with some fans after a concert) at Loft Plus One in Shinjuku, Tokyo, they made sure the cameraman could easily get me talking with Miku-pon in my somewhat broken simple Japanese. Miku-pon was helpful to me when she saw I had never learned to play jankenpon (the scissors paper stone game). At the first event where I saw her, she gave me a board on which she traced her hand and then gave me it as a prize. It also included her three accomplishments she was most proud of that year. One was learning to travel places on the huge subway by herself. She was modest and appreciative of senpei; older singers from her management company Artemis Promotions (such as Junna Morishita who led her on stage hand in hand at an early concert of Miku-pon's) who were inspirational to her. Miku-pon's standard autograph included a bunny face and ears in the curve at the start of the cursive "m". I hope people will continue to remember multi-faceted Miku-pon.