It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words — and with good reason. With a click of a button, events are frozen in time, conveying a story that the written language often fails to properly describe. 

I am a firm believer that different media has the power to enhance our work and should be used on our behalf to be better reporters, writers and communicators.

I use photography as a means to explore the world around me and capture its complex nature. Miscellaneously wandering around neighborhoods, I have encountered serendipity in the most unassuming corners. Even the most ordinary of places have an extraordinary story brewing beneath them.

Geometric simplicity

Centuries ago, Pythagoras perceived geometry in the humming of the strings. Galileo believed that nature could only be understood through the universe — a book "written in mathematical language," comprised by triangles, circles and other geometrical figures. 

Geometry is ever-present in all landscapes. Straight and curved lines shape our understanding of the universe. Our lives play around them. 

In this project, I explore how we exist through geometric simplicity, both natural and artificial. These are the shapes of South Bend.

September 26, 2020

The spirit of protests

Having been raised in Venezuela, my earliest childhood memories involve protests. I marched across the streets of Caracas countless times, experiencing the repression and violence with which peaceful demonstrations were met. 

As a journalist, my role within protests changed. Rather than participating, I was tasked with sharing their stories. At the Miami Herald, I have covered a myriad of demonstrations that were organized to achieve distinctive objectives. Despite the different reasons behind them, they all shared the same characteristic: a desire for change.

• Photos 1 - 6 (July 10, 2020): Restaurant owners and workers congregated in front of the American Airlines Arena to protest against restrictions to their services during the pandemic. Miami-Dade County's mayor, Carlos A. Gimenez, had allowed restaurants to operate if they complied with CDC norms. However, he backtracked this policy when COVID-19 cases spiked, only allowing food venues to open if they provided outdoor seating. The frustrated restaurant owners said the government was wrongfully shifting the blame on their business and exclaimed that they were being used as "scapegoats," despite the fact that they had invested in protective equipment, cut jobs and limited their capacity.
• Photos 7 - 15 (June 16, 2020): Janitors gathered in the Downtown area to protest their employer's "animal-like" treatment. During the pandemic, businesses were allowed to open their doors only if they were properly cleaned throughout the day. Despite of their important role in enabling this, janitors said they were not being provided with the necessary protective equipment, and that, in one occasion, they had been sprayed with harmful chemicals while they worked.
• Photos 16 -18 (July 11, 2020): A score of Venezuelans rallied at the Miami International Airport to demand their repatriation flights. Due to the pandemic, Venezuela restricted all international travel, leaving a thousand citizens stranded in the United States as a result. The group said they were desperate to return to their country as many could not continue to afford their stay and lacked funds to pay for a visa extension. They had reached out to officials in Nicolas Maduro's regime, Juan Guido's interim government and the U.S. government to no avail.

Joyful bliss

While a shooting claimed the lives of 23 people in El Paso, I was covering a back-to-school event in Overtown, a neighborhood northwest of Downtown Miami, for el Nuevo Herald.

The gleeful pictures of youngsters enjoying cotton candy, ice cream, and cartoon-depicted backpacks, contrast the grim events of the mass shooting occurring a thousand miles away. 

Another juxtaposition was present between the event's location and its atmosphere. Just a few block away, a dead body laid in the middle of the road, and the police was starting to close off the street to investigate the crime scene. 

Overtown is a  community mired with violence, homelessness and lack of resources. With this event, however, the neighborhood came together to provide much-needed school supplies. 

In what was a very dark day, this event gave me hope, as it demonstrated the importance of community in overcoming obstacles.

August 3, 2019