Saturday morning, I got up at 5 am, showered, and headed down to Newport Bay. It never ceases to amaze me that despite barely being able to wake up in the morning during the week everyday to go to work at 9 am, I don’t have any trouble getting up for shooting jobs. There’s also something cool and calming about being up that early and driving around. You feel a sense of camaraderie with the few other early risers you share the roads with in the early hours. Also, waking up early to be on a boat in Newport Bay isn’t a bad way to start the day, either.

I decided that I was going to bring Cherise back some kind of black pearl jewellery as a gift from India. Hyderabad is something of a world center in pearl commerce: around 90% of the world’s pearls pass through Hyderabad at some point. You might find this odd for a city that’s nowhere near the ocean, and you’d be correct. It’s pretty damn weird. From what I understand, it has little to do with geography and more to do with historically cheap pearl processing labour. That’s right. Hundreds of years ago, pearl processing was outsourced to India.