“Where are you from?” – I have been asked this question many, many times throughout my life. Every new school, new city, new country, everyone always wanted to know where I was from. To many people, it’s as simple as placing a pin on the map, but for me this is something that was never straightforward. Moving from place to place from a young age gave me the opportunity to grow up in many different cultures and experience a variety of lifestyles.
Like many people on their travels, I captured iPhone snapshot images to try to preserve the memory of that moment but to me this has never been enough. My love for photography started in high school when I went on a volunteer service trip to Peru. The raw nature of the rural landscape was something I had never previously experienced and I found myself so intrigued by both the architecture and the way of life. The ability to capture a single moment in a culture’s history through my lens gave me a small understanding of someone else’s life and world view.
Photography isn’t just about taking a photo of something, it’s how you tell a story with an image. Each photo is more than just a snapshot of time, it’s a memory portal into the past and a rediscovery. Creating unique perspectives through photography can expand your own mind and creativity from a single moment in time.
My camera has allowed me to tell a story of my past and develop an answer to the question, “where are you from?”. The ground I stand on is where I am from. There is not one location that I am tied to but I’m still exploring to one day find the place I call home.
The place that tells me this is where I belong. •
If you’re interested in photography, email her at [email protected].