Let me introduce the real star of my portfolio: one hundred and ten centimetres of hand-tatted lace on a bamboo frame, made before my mother was born, smelling faintly of sandalwood and older summers. My grandmother's parasol has been in my hands for nearly every frame that mattered in my career, and I want to give it the credit it never asks for.
A parasol solves problems photographers don't notice until it's gone. It is a portable softbox - tilt it and the lace throws patterned light across your face like leaf shadow. It is a compositional anchor - a pale circle that pulls the eye wherever you carry it. And it is choreography: open, close, rest it on a shoulder, spin it slowly against the sky. Hands that might fidget always have somewhere beautiful to be.
But the real gift is what it does to posture. You cannot slouch while holding a parasol. Something about the geometry - the raised arm, the balanced weight - pulls the spine long and the chin level. My first photographer used to say I stood differently the moment it opened. He was right. I was borrowing a century of women who carried it before me, all of whom, judging by the photographs, stood magnificently.
It has been offered set insurance, its own flight case, and once, memorably, a fee. My grandmother found that hilarious. "It's a parasol," she said, "it works for tea." So that's the rate: I bring it home safe, and we drink tea, and I tell her where it's been.