I secretly took my mother’s camera to kindergarten when I was five. At the kindergarten, everyone was happy and asked me to take pictures of them.
For my first photo, I told everyone to sit down and look at me. Then, I started making portraits of my friends. Naturally, all the photos were out of focus. When I got home, I told my mother what I had done. She was sitting in the backyard with my newborn brother, whom I had wanted very badly, so I could share my collection of Barbie dolls with him. Instead of returning the camera right away, I took a few more photos of her with the baby. Those were not out of focus like the others, and they are my favourite of all the photos I have taken all my life.
I learned to photograph by being a meticulous observer.
Doing a story about Holocaust survivors in Latin America taught me about love and resilience, and I developed a greater empathy for someone else’s trauma.
I became a photographer to tell visual stories that support, document and celebrate the fight for human rights.
As visual storytellers, we have the capacity to connect and develop empathy, which is an indispensable quality in our society.
I respect and admire the work of Adriana Lestido and Pablo Piovano, both Argentine photographers. Lestido’s work is mostly about love, Piovano’s work centres around human rights. Their works are entire narrations with smells, poses, looks, touches, shadows, gestures, references, memories and movements.
