This photo blog theme hits very close to home for me. My parents moved from a small town in Brazil to the Bay Area in the 1990s. Ever since I was young I struggled with determining my identity- if I was American or Brazilian. I am writing my college essay about my dual identity and my biculturalism. For this photoblog, I wanted to use two pictures to portray both sides of my identity.
During the summer I visited Washington D.C. and was enthralled with the amount of history that surrounded me. How people like me gained the right to vote. My parents started to tear up seeing the monuments and documents and important pieces of history, though they were born in Brazil, they value their American identity just as much. I wanted to capture this feeling of pride through a powerful monument of veterans. I edited the picture to center the subject and bring out the saturation in the subject to put emphasis on the flag.
My next picture that represents my culture was taken on the streets of Campinas, Brazil. This small city an hour away from Sao Paulo, is where my entire extended family lives (on both sides). The colors on the street are always vibrant, whether it be the tiled roads, the paintings, or the bright foods. I wanted to capture a photo that reminded me of that town and I caught one of the famous symbols in Campinas: barratinha (little cockroach). This is a symbol that you can find all across Campinas and I think it is very representative of my culture.
Both of these photos have the same specs: (Aperture=1.6, ISO=250, Shutter Speed= 1/60)
