The beginning...

E-M-P-H-Y-S-E-M-A, the winning word during an American Lung Association spelling bee contest. The prize, a little Kodak camera. I was 13 years old and had no idea the impact that camera would have on me and the rest of my life.

Having a camera and taking pictures gave me purpose. It was like having a permission slip to avenues that I would never have gone down without it.

Starting 9th grade was tough. I was as skinny as you could get, I had big poofy hair, braces/ headgear, and as awkward as one could be. The one thing that I really looked forward to was my photography class. My teacher Brad Curcio was amazing. He taught me so many photography and darkroom skills. Some that are no longer used today, such as rolling your own paper in drums, but skills I am so pleased to have. As annoying as rolling your own paper was, he gave me a foundation to photography that enabled me to truly understand the process. 3 years later I was still taking his classes and it was so much of his encouragement and support that made me consider going to art school in NYC.

Off to Pratt Institute, an art school in NYC for 5 incredible years. What I learned there was invaluable and most of it had nothing to do with photography! (Although the program was great, I think that most of us know that a huge part of college is learning about yourself.)

It was during this time at Pratt that I also had the fortunate experience to go to Kenya for a semester abroad. Living in Kenya was something that will shape me as a person and a photographer for the rest of my life. The people of Kenya have a life that is much simpler than ours. They do not have all the material items we have here in the US, but they have things that cannot be bought. Their pocessions are their culture, kindness, generosity and love for one another, to name just a few. I often wonder if we got it all wrong over here. Our quest for "things" does not always lead us to the happiness we desire. The people of Kenya had an incredible aura of true peace and happiness.

If I ever had to give one piece if advice it would be to go live, not just travel to, but to live amongst people of another culture. It is during that time where you can really judge yourself, learn and appreciate whats really important in life. This world is filled with so many different ways of life, we have so much to learn from one another.

Having come back from Kenya I was curious about America. I had never been further west than Ohio and felt that is was time to see this country. For 3 months I traveled amongst the different landscapes of America. It is incredible how much this country changes as you journey across it. I had a running photo project of taking peoples picture as they pass you or you pass them on the highway. There is that fraction of a moment where many people will look right at you as you pass. Route 66 was an incredible road to carry out this project.

It was during this trip that my life took a drastic turn, leading me to now know, that you never can predict what will happen in your life. Every person you meet or experience you have can be an open door and could lead you to all sorts of places. This is what happened to me...

A professor of mine from Pratt gave me a book to read on the trip out west. It was called "In This Sign" and was about a hearing girl that had Deaf parents. At this time I was not familiar with deafness nor sign language. About a month into my trip I was sitting in Berkley Park California on a bench reading my book. That is when I looked up and saw two guys my age sitting at a table having a game of chess. They were Deaf! I remember so well seeing them use their hands to communicate. Their sign language was so beautiful and fluid. Like the non-shy person that I am, I approached them with my book. I was so excited I had try to show them this book I was reading. They started signing to me and quickly learned that I did not know sign language. They whipped out a pen and we used the last few pages of the book to write to each other. We had some things in common, they had also just graduated from college and they were also driving across America. Yet we could not communicate, and that made me question a lot of things. We said our good byes and from that moment on I was obsessed with the idea of learning sign language. Oh the soapboxes I stood on during these times as I preached about how we all need to be able to communicate with each other! As soon as I got back to NYC I signed up for sign language classes.

During this time of learning sign language, I was a NYC nanny! I intended to only take the job for 1 year as I figured out my life, but instead I was paired up with an incredible family that made leaving quite difficult. I worked for them for 4 years. It was during these years that I had my longest running photography project, thanks to the openness of the parents. I was able to document the common days, the ins and outs of the lives of two sisters. Danielle and Eve, were and still are, so loving to each other- yet as different in personality as two sister could have been. I met them when Danielle was 6 and Eve was 4. Danielle was a true tom boy- wanting nothing to do with the color pink, and well Eve, if she was decked from head to toe in pink it was a great day! When I left they were 10 and 8 and after all the time we spent together it was very difficult to move on. We all grew together and the photographs of them are pictures that I will always cherish. I tend to think that unless I have my own children, I will never know my subject matter better than those two girls. They forgot about my camera, even though it was always there, and that is how I was able to capture moments from them that would be impossible from a one hour session.

When I left it was to pursue a Masters in Deaf Education from Columbia University's Teachers College. If someone would have asked me the day I set out to drive across the country if I would become a teacher of the Deaf I would have laughed in their face. I was a photographer...you see, you never know where life will lead you if you let it.

In the fall of 2002 I started working at St. Francis, a school for the Deaf in Crown Heights Brooklyn. For 5 years I taught 5th and 6th grade. (If those 2 guys only knew the impact they had on me.) My years at St. Francis were wonderful but not easy, teaching is one of the hardest jobs there is-I'm sure of it. I was teaching reading, writing, math, social studies, health and science, not photography! Working with children that are Deaf are very different than working with hearing children. Most children that are Deaf come from families that are hearing. That means that they are the only ones at home that cannot hear. Sadly many of these families do not learn sign language for various reasons. Leaving the Deaf child to often feel isolated at home. On a positive side, the Deaf child usually loves coming to school and is always motivated to learn. Imagine being at home where no one fully understands you, nor do you fully understand them and then you come to school and you can communicate with everyone! The children at St. Francis love coming to school. Their daily enthusiasm was very contagious.

If you're wondering, if you're even still reading, I did not give up photography during this time. Photography became a wonderful tool to use with the older kids to fuel their motivation to read and write. Using digital cameras, we would go on trips, each kid with a camera in hand. They would shoot away and then we would use the edited images to create books about their experience. The kids loved making photo books and using photographic images greatly increased their motivation to write and then read.

During my 4th year at St. Francis I moved an hour and 15 minutes away to Harlem. Commuting everyday on the NYC subways at rush hour was slowly wearing me down. That year I also took a 3rd job tutoring a child. The 3 jobs and the commute was too much for me and I made the extremely difficult decision to leave St. Francis. I am still getting my teaching fill in by working with Simon, an incredible boy who is Deaf and faces the battles of Autism. He too loves working with photographic images!
Leaving me to date, the end of the summer of 2007. My new web site just got aired live Friday night and I am so excited about it. It was a long time coming but I hope that is was worth it. I have done all sorts of photography this summer, from architecture, new borns, travel, and weddings. It is very exciting being ones own boss. I hope to meet all kinds of new people and have new experiences as I set aside more time now to focus on the original dream...being a photographer.