I've always been passionate about photography. I don't remember the exact moment when I fell in love with it, but I do remember my first camera – and that says a lot. I was living in Palo Alto, California, with my family and often sold lemonade on the sidewalk in front of our house. With the money I earned, I bought my first camera.
It was 2004, I was 9 years old, and cameras were already digital. Easily, it became my favorite toy. When I was about 12, my mother was perceptive enough to notice that I might have a good eye for taking pictures – I say perceptive because it took a certain amount of effort to see this in the photos I was taking at the time. So she enrolled me in a photography course and, to this day, is my number-one encourager.
Over the years, I continued photographing on my travels and in 2017 I graduated with studies in journalism and theater. I currently work in audiovisual and content production in the marketing department of a major Brazilian investment bank.
Photography is my time-out, a place to breathe and find inspiration. Despite this, I've never been one to share my photos. They say so much about me, about my soul – something I’ve always thought concerned only myself. I think artists who share their work are extremely courageous. It's like exposing the thoughts and feelings we have but don't talk about.
However, while studying journalism in college, I finally brought my photos "out in the open" for the first time. I chose to write a book in which I showed, through photographs, the contrast between the poverty of Manaus and the richness of the Amazon rainforest that surrounds the city. The book is called "Manaus: a cidade e a selva" [Manaus: the city and the jungle]. I'm very proud of it, even though today, revisiting it a few years later, I would change many things. And I think that's wonderful. For me, the point of life is to evolve in order to improve, and I pursue this through photography.