Hi, I'm Christina (you can call me Chris)
I was born and raised in noisy, lively and traffic-ridden Mexico City. I moved to California for university and there I completed a Master's degree in Journalism at Stanford University. After graduating I moved to Sweden, where I am currently based, to learn more about the country of my ancestors.
My heart is happiest when it is learning about new places, cultures, animals and people. I see myself as an adventurer who, no matter the challenges, would not say no to strapping on a backpack to go to far away places to learn and see something new. Since transitioning out of journalism and into documentary photography the camera has become my tool for learning and observing and I strive to produce images that help others learn and understand that which may be far away from them.
I became committed to photography as a career after attending a Photographers Without Borders workshop in Indonesia at the end of 2019. It was one of the most inspiring experiences of my life. We got to meet the incredible people at the forefront of orangutan conservation in Sumatra and their passion and commitment to their work convinced me that I wanted to continue learning and telling the stories of people like them, who protect and fight for what is good and beautiful in the world. I left the workshop with a renewed passion for photography and many lessons about the different aspects of visual storytelling for a cause and how important it is to generate visual content that drives engagement and leads to action.
I feel most at home out in nature or wandering the streets of a new place observing how life, in all its forms and as it happens naturally, is both familiar and different. I love to search for the familiar in the new as a way to connect to causes, concepts, stories, places and people. I believe that there is always a point of connection or an area of overlap and that if we can find it we can create bridges between people and places. My aim is to use the familiar in my photography as a tool of connection that enables others to see through new eyes and feel in new ways.
More on my photographic style:
I believe that optimism always has a place in photography. It is important to acknowledge the harsh, unjust and negative aspects of reality to drive necessary change, but if the focus stays at the macro level on issues like war and poverty there is a risk that the micro, the individual, is erased. Exposed through the macro, individual people with personalities, hopes and dreams are reduced to, at best, victims of circumstance or examples of consequence and, at worst, a statistic. One of my goals as a photographer is to expose the macro through a focus on the micro so optimism and individual lives can shine through even the darkest of circumstances. I believe it is reductionist to ignore love, hope, bravery, determination, play, family, laughter when those things exist despite the circumstances.
A focus on individual stories and personal autonomy lies at the heart of my photography because it is my belief that the areas of overlap that bind us together are always found when we look beyond the macro into the daily lives of people who struggle and feel in ways that we can recognise. It is the recognition factor that generates solidarity and drives real interest and change.