“While in graduate school, I spent a lot of time working in Glouster, Ohio, a coal-mining town in the Appalachian region where poverty is the norm, opiate addiction is common, and there aren’t many opportunities for young people growing up there. As a photojournalism student, I was tasked with documenting a community of my choice. I’ve always been interested in how youth interpret the world, so when I met a group of teenage girls in Glouster and they invited me into their lives, I welcomed the opportunity. For three years I photographed them. I wanted to build relationships and tell true stories, not just approach them as a tourist might, seeing them as some sort of curiosity. The resulting work became my Master’s project. Even now, six years later, I still keep up with those girls; it gives me a lump in my throat just to think about them.
“That passion for storytelling has translated itself into what I do as a photojournalist. I make my living freelancing for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other national publications, but I try to balance the ‘news’ work with my love of storytelling. I’ve only lived in Memphis for a year, so I’m just at the beginning of understanding the complexity of the city. So much has happened here. There are layers and layers of history and culture that have gone into making this community what it is today. Memphis definitely has its own stories, and I want to help tell them through my photography. When we connect with other people and their circumstances, when we listen to the stories of each other's lives, we build community. I know I need that. I think we all do."
“That passion for storytelling has translated itself into what I do as a photojournalist. I make my living freelancing for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other national publications, but I try to balance the ‘news’ work with my love of storytelling. I’ve only lived in Memphis for a year, so I’m just at the beginning of understanding the complexity of the city. So much has happened here. There are layers and layers of history and culture that have gone into making this community what it is today. Memphis definitely has its own stories, and I want to help tell them through my photography. When we connect with other people and their circumstances, when we listen to the stories of each other's lives, we build community. I know I need that. I think we all do."
From Andrea's WEBSITE: Andrea Morales is a documentary and editorial photographer based in Memphis, TN. She was born in Lima, Peru in 1984, in times of political dysfunction and hyperinflation, and raised in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. She has a M.A. in visual communication from Ohio University and a B.S. in journalism and Latin American studies from the University of Florida. Stints in newsrooms across the country rooted her work in the details of daily life. After three years as a staff photographer at the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, she recently relocated to the South.
A few of Andrea's photos from the documentary project in Glouster, OH:
(see more on her website at http://www.andreamoralesphoto.com)
(see more on her website at http://www.andreamoralesphoto.com)
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