As a photographer, I wanted to discover what was outside the country where I was born, and I wanted to escape far from what, in some way, made me feel bad. Taking up a camera to remember what I would experience was a fairly instinctive gesture; I think it was vacations with my mother that led me to discover photography. She never took any photos, and it seemed like such a waste to me not to have anything to show once we got home. Later, I think I stayed close to photography because I neverreally trusted my own memories. After working in economics, I left for London and enrolled in a photography master's program. It seemed like the most rational and logical choice in such a drastic change of direction, which had very little logic to it, especially in my mother's eyes. But at least I would earn a certificate, and at home, certificates have always been taken very seriously. Since then, I've tried to make this photography thing into a real job, but in the end, it's always beenphotography that has chosen where to take me.

I started by doing stories for newspapers and magazines; it seemed like the closest thing to a real job, my mother's pragmatism was haunting me again; deep down, though, I've always feared that work could ruin what of magical was in photography. In those years, I was lucky to meet other photographers who showed me how this medium could be used to say something different - to question and to understand. I feel that this struggle between work andphotography is still ongoing.