I WILL NEVER FORGET THE MOMENT A PHOTOGRAPH WRECKED ME.

I was standing in a Denver exhibition of Pulitzer Prize-wining photographs, enjoying my afternoon until I turned the corner and saw it. My breathing slowed and a dry swallow painfully forced its way down my throat. My eyes fixated on the frail African baby curled up in the desert foliage. Starving to death. As my focus widened to take in the full frame of the photo, I noticed a dark figure eerily lurking in the background – a vulture. It was waiting. Expectantly.

IN THAT MOMENT, I felt a compelling URGE TO WANT TO RESPOND, to TAKE ACTION – to DO SOMETHING.

Everything in me wanted to reach out and hold that baby close to my heart, to do anything that would somehow remedy this horrifying scene. I didn’t know what action I should take, but that deep-rooted feeling that I should and can do something has stuck with me to this day.

Curiosity led my eyes to the photo description. Hoping to find an answer to what happened to the child, a sheering pain shot down my spine and my muscles clenched: after taking the picture that had just moved me to tears, the photographer walked away from the whole thing.

And did nothing.

As a humanitarian and travel photographer, I decided then and there to prioritize people over pictures. My purpose was clear: to deeply love the people I captured, to invest time and compassion in getting to know them and share their unique stories, and to do whatever I could to leave them better off than how I found them.

Some days, that meant I played with the disabled children before I even thought about pulling out my camera. Other times it meant drinking chai on the workroom floor with ladies in the slums of India. Whatever it took, my focus was not only capturing what a person did, but also who that individual was.

This perspective changed my photography, changed my experiences, and ultimately changed my life. I am forever grateful for the role photography has played in shaping me into the person I am today.