about me

Fifteen years ago, for my 50th birthday, I treated myself to a 10-day workshop in Oaxaca, Mexico, with Mary Ellen Mark. The experience changed my life.

 

Studying with Mary Ellen, who died in 2015, reconnected me to my passion for photography.

My first class with her, however, was intimidating. She had an unnerving ability to look deep within people to discover their authentic selves, and all I wanted to do was hide. But hiding wasn’t an option. Instead, Mary Ellen sent me off on a daily task of finding my essence and nurturing my creativity through my relationship to my images.

 

Mary Ellen paired my love of experimenting with light in photography with my dedication to social justice. Knowing I care deeply about the welfare and empowerment of women and children, she sent me to orphanages, to schools for deaf children and those with Down Syndrome, and to a home for children whose mothers work the streets. 

 

My life has been nourished by my relationships with the people I met there, and I have returned to Oaxaca to visit them every year. Many of the children have become family to me.

 

Mary Ellen was as much a spiritual teacher as a photography mentor, and today, whenever I pick up my camera — and even as I move through my daily life — I hear her words:

 

Be present.

Be proximate.

Go back. Go back. 

And then go back again.

 

She was my teacher, my mentor, my hero. And a dear friend.

 

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Gratitude to Lesly Deschler Canossi for helping me cull through

15 years of images with great wisdom and generosity.

And to Lauren Cuthbert for her editing brilliance and friendship.