I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FASCINATED WITH CHANGE - its hope, despair, beauty, and irony. Photography has allowed me to be both an observer and agent of change. As a photographer and teacher, I strive to use my images to encourage others to open their eyes and minds to their own world and the worlds around them. My hope is that this raised self-awareness will help unheard issues and voices be shared, and needed change to follow.

This hope has led to me down an eclectic photographic path. Although I have made images my entire life, my fascination with photography as a tool for raising awareness began as a Master’s student at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. For my Master’s project I taught a group of 9-12 year old children to use photography to share their inner-city lives. My original interest in this project was to explore if the youth found taking and sharing their photographs an empowering experience. However, by the end of the project my interest shifted, as I became fascinated by how the youth could use their images to share their viewpoints and experiences. This experience confirmed for me the power of putting the camera in the hands of the people that know their neighborhoods best - the community. I now call this community-driven approach community photography.

Following graduation, I was commissioned by the Urban Resources Initiative to photograph the faces and stories behind urban forestry efforts in New Haven, CT. These photographs were exhibited throughout New Haven to celebrate these urban patches of green and educate the public about the power of urban forestry. After completing this project, I headed west to the deserts of Tucson, where I have continued to explore photography. In Tucson, I have freelanced for a variety of institutions from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum to the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation. In addition to my freelance work, I have secured a grant to undertake a long-term project documenting food systems and food security issues in southeastern Arizona and northwestern Sonora, Mexico. My hope is that this project will open people’s eyes to the fact that even though we are all close to food, few of us understand where it comes from and how the decisions we make as consumers affect many other people’s lives. Ideally this project will encourage some to become more conscious consumers.

As a result of my photography in Tucson and other parts of the country and world, my images have been published internationally in books, magazines, newspapers and web sites, in venues ranging from the New York Times to the Navajo Times.

In addition to promoting change through my own photography, I teach documentary photography to young photographers and writers - perhaps our greatest agents for change. Since 1999, I have worked with the Tucson-based nonprofit organization, Voices, Inc., teaching documentary photography to low-income youth. We hire youth to write articles and shoot photographs about issues facing Tucson for Voices’ youth publication, 110 Degrees ( www.voicesinc.org). My five years working with teenagers at Voices has provided an incredible opportunity to further explore the nuances and power of community photography.