Get to know the photographer

For as long as I can remember, Arts have been at the centre of my life. From playing several musical instruments (guitar, electric guitar, bass, drums, piano and flute) and drama, from drawing Asian cartoons and writing poems, to be able to express myself creatively was always my passion. My interest in photography started in 2008 when I joined an international NGO and became their travel coordinator, bringing volunteers to support their activities in almost 20 different countries. Having the amazing opportunity to travel from Colombia to North Korea, I became passionated for engaging with new cultures, languages, and religions and for being the voice of marginalized communities, especially those from restricted countries or after-war zones. Apart from leading teams I had to produce images and videos for their social media and monthly magazine, which I did for almost seven years.

During my years of academic studies, I finished in 2008 a Bachelor in Arts and Translation Studies with qualification and Licentiate degree in Arts (including teaching license in Brazil for Portuguese, English and French) from Presbyterian University Mackenzie as well as another Bachelor degree in Theology, Missiology and Ministry from Seminário Teológico do Betel Brasileiro. In 2010 I concluded a Master of Arts degree with distinction at Presbyterian University Mackenzie. Between 2004 and 2010 I carried out two scientific initiations by CNPQ-PBIC (federal Brazilian educational institution), a project by Mack Research (from Presbyterian University Mackenzie), as well as I published several scientific articles in different Brazilian academic magazines as I also did presentations at Brazilian congresses and conferences that would focus on Translation studies, including one at UNICAMP (one of the largest public universities in Brazil). Between 2008 and 2010 I developed translation studies research for CAPES (federal Brazilian educational institution). All my academic works are related to the theme of Bible translation and because of that I also studied ancient Biblical Hebrew and Greek as well as Latin. Because of several trips to Colombia, Panama and Cuba I privately studied and became fluent in Spanish.

In 2013, I left Brazil with family and moved to the Middle East to start my own community development projects among Syrian and Iraqi refugees. I opened my organization and partnered with several others, which led to the investment of more than 2 million dollars in the region in almost 10 years of hard work. Today we have 12 ongoing projects, mainly in Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. For years I lead a team of almost 50 people from different nationalities, languages, and backgrounds.

Photography became a very important part of my daily work, not only for documenting my own activities and projects, but also for displaying the lives and hearts of so many needy people fleeing from persecution and conflict. It became a strong way of connecting them and their needs with the world. To live among these people has helped me also to develop my own unique style of photography, which started to be more focused on B&W. I have been particularly inspired by photographers like Sebastião Salgado, Fan Ho and W Eugene Smith.

In 2021, I opened a little photography academy and dark room in Jordan with another Brazilian photographer. It is an educational project that focuses on training refugees and poor native Jordanians in the photography world. We already graduated two groups of students and provided them with cameras and general equipment so they could start their own small businesses. I am very proud to share that some of our students are already working with photography professionally.

I spend a good amount of time studying photography online by myself, but I now I am building up on my skills taking an MA Photography degree on Falmouth Univesity. You can find my critical research journal on this website. I am currently taking a sabbatical year from the Middle East and residing in Richhill, a small town from Northern Ireland, and taking a part-time volunteer work with a local charity organization called Drop Inn Ministries. They are my local sponsors and I am assisting them also using my photography skills on a variety of activities.

I have the dream to publish photobooks some time soon and to share the story of people I serve in the Middle East through pictures. On the personal level, I am also a religious person, a Baptist minister. Through the years I also specialized in supporting persecuted Christian communities from these places I have been working with through the years. Because of that I would like to publish photobooks related to Christian history, focusing especially on places where other foreigners would not be able to enter so easily as I can, like countryside Syria and Iraq. I speak today fluent Arabic and I did learn to navigate through Arab World’s culture, even serving as a facilitator and a fixer for many years for NGOs and journalists to enter in such hard places so they could develop their own activities.

Nowadays I have travelled to more than 40 countries and everywhere I go my cameras go with me. I developed patience, independence, excellent communication skills and the ability to lead teams. I am a natural fundraiser and humanist, and I can say I am a highly self-motivated individual who has a clear vision of where to go in life and what it is needed to be done to get there. My dedication to my MA Photography course is the next necessary next step to achieving my ambitions, and one I look forward to with excitement to finish well. Welcome to my page!

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