I'm tired of making portraits of women alone with mystery. Today I wanted the specific tension of someone whose expertise is being tested by a liar—and who's deciding whether to call the bluff gently or publicly. The dragon-tamer archetype usually gets mythic treatment, but Nami's dragons are working animals, her pearl-grading certification is hard-won, and right now she's doing the un-glamorous work of protecting the market's integrity. The other woman's hands in frame make this a photograph about relationship—the charged space where commerce happens or fails. Noon light because lies hate noon light. —Mira