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My passion for photography began at the age of 8 when my grandparents bought me a Kodamatic Instant Camera for my birthday.  The 1st photo I took was an amateur’s accident – my dog going to the bathroom. Ooops! It made my parents, who were going through a hard time, laugh.

I have always treasured being able to look through photo albums, learning stories about family and friends, and being reminded of those particular moments we shared.  I later studied Visual & Performing Arts, developing my technical and visual story telling abilities and I continue to hone them.

The moments I choose to capture aim to evoke curiosity, reflection, and connect the viewer with something learnable.  I find that photography is one of the most effective tools I can use to momentarily interrupt a viewer’s pattern of thought and interject a shift in focus or awareness onto something else.  I’m compelled to take photos that guide viewers toward temporarily stepping into a story or an emotion. And for that reason I consider myself more of a documentarian.

My Themes

My photos, for this exhibition, fall under the themes of Exploration & Discovery, Cultural Contrast, and Identity & Belonging.  That is because these are exactly the themes I am currently navigating, in my real life, as I immigrate to Portugal from the USA. 

The city of Lisbon seems to draw nearly everyone in to explore the beauty, the architecture, the pairing of natural spaces and scenic viewpoints where the story of life in Lisbon is unfolding.  As I set out exploring life in Lisbon, I began to encounter the various perspectives around the true lived experience here. 

Initially for this project, I was on a mission to discover and really get to the bottom of the Portuguese People’s shared belief in “THE STORY OF MONEY” – the “money story” that influences financial activity and serves as the foundation of this nation’s economy.  While I was able to learn some of the vast differences between my home country’s “money story”  and that of Portugal, it was too a big challenge to capture and share that in my photographs, in a way that would evoke the reflection and curiosity that I was after. I haven’t given up on this mission, but for this exhibition, my photos, I hope, take you down the “side streets” and along the periphery of what, in real life, is the results of the concept of money as it drives culture, structure, and identity and belonging of the people moving through Lisbon.

Photos in Reframing Home Exhibition