“Certificate of presence,” Barthes used to say.
My mother brought me a new, old camera. She found it while cleaning my grandmother’s house, her mother’s. A Minolta. Dirty, but functional. I remembered that she helped me buy my first professional camera during university. While inspecting the machine, I raised the viewfinder toward her. My mother inside a frame. How many photographs do I have of her, of my father, of my brother, of my sister? I think the sound of the shutter delivers a sentence. Every photograph kills twice:
1. when it is taken,
1. when it is taken someone looks at it.
Taking photographs for later. Later means: for when they are no longer here.
Photography by Monica Ochoa.
Born in Sonora, a Sinaloan by choice. I film, photograph, write, and above all, observe. I seek to shape ideas in order to create, with them, and with ourselves.