Mexico City, Mexico

I am a freelance photojournalist based in Mexico City, Mexico. I was born in São Paulo, Brazil, where I spent a happy childhood enjoying long summer holidays by the ocean and learning how to build campsites out of bamboo with my girl scouts group.

I bought my first camera when I was 15 or 16, I guess, but not thinking of becoming a photographer. I loved photography but I wanted to be a journalist, a writer, so I went to Journalism school. Somewhere along the way, I realized that it was through photography that I could really communicate and express myself.

I make photographs because that is the way I know how to express myself. Its my way of saying: ”Look here, this is happening.

Don’t turn around, don’t go away.” I photograph because I wouldn’t know what else to do.

I’ve been following the story of the missing 43 students from a teacher’s rural school in the Mexican state of Guerrero since it happened last Sept 2014, almost a year in now. This is a historically troubled state, mostly rural and poor, dominated by narco groups and corrupted government officials. The story got incredible attention in the international media, but time is passing and little has come to light. Most of the families are still in dark, fighting on their own, striving to get by among the grief and still looking for answers to what happened to their sons, fathers, brothers and husbands.

I use an iPhone and although it may vary a bit and after a lot of experimentation, I set with the Hipstamatic app, with one set for color and another for black and white photos. I consider myself a die hard old-school: I believe photos have to made at the moment you’re capturing it, not afterwards. Hipstamatic is that for me: think ahead what you want and use the right lens and film. Make your choices before, and not after. Maybe a paradox in this day and age, but nevertheless. Some things may never change.

This year I was invited to take over the Lens Culture feed for a week, and I showed a project on Mexico City, where I live, shot specially for the feed and entirely on iPhone. I was also picked to launch buzzfeednews new @world account, shooting and posting live while covering the 6 month anniversary of the disappearance of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Teachers Rural School in Guerrero. I’m also a contributor to @everydaylatinamerica and @ everydayclimatechange and I was one of the three recipients of the first Getty Images Instagram Grant.