I was barely six. Just arrived from California to live with grandmother. I discovered in grandmother’s room a closet full of magical things. National Geographic magazines, rings, bracelets and pictures, beautiful pictures of people who looked like me. Who stared at the camera with dignity. Images i wanted to reproduce. My grandmother then showed me what was a very old and well worn camera. It was a black box with lens in the front, and a button on one side. Another knob protruded but I had no idea what they were meant to do. I knew however that it was something like this that was capable of capturing people like those I saw looking at me now.

I could not let it go. It was to follow me everywhere I went. I would tell people to stand still, look at me, and I would then turn the knob and push the lever as if I knew what I was doing. I could see them looking at me through the screen of this magical cube. They seemed trapped inside of it, looking at me intently with great expectation.

A week or so later my grandmother starting getting questions from people In the neighborhood. “When will the pictures be ready?” “When do we see the results?”

I was captivated by this magical box forever, but I had no idea, what to with all those moments I had captured I the box. My grandmother asked my what I had been doing with it. What have I been telling people. I told her simply that I had captured moments in the box like those in her room. Moments of people I saw every day. She kept quiet and looked at me. Gave me a hug and moved on.

There was no film in this camera, and even if there was i had no idea what I was doing. It was a great disappointment to my neighbors and friends.

I was eleven, when I received my first camera. I read book after book about how to use it, about which lenses to pick, about exposure, light sources, ISO. I could not get enough. Upon putting the camera to my eye for the first time, i was entranced that very instant.

When my first images were developed I learned how unforgiving all those things like ISO, exposure and light sources truly were. Slowly, i learned. I took more and more images, more end more I could see that magic was not really magic, it was a careful exercise in observation, math, art…and guessing…I suppose then, that is what magic is.