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Like every other 17 year-old teenager, I have no idea where I stand. Normally, one goes through these “I don’t know what I am doing” kind of dilemmas in different stages of life, like when you have to decide your future career, when you are about to get married, and so on. This weekend I realized that those kind of problems don't really set just within that context.

I started doing photography when I was 13 years old. Thanks to my aunt, who shares the same passion as I do, I signed up in several photography courses offered by Roberto Mata’s school of photography (RMTF) in Caracas. The excuse was simply that I was in the city, and I had to do something fun and different at least for just one weekend.

I ended up completing a couple of courses more. After RMTF, I continued studying and photographing by my own. By now I think I have covered most of the photographic fields: I have done nature shots, people, family documentaries, objects, food, trips and so on. About a year or so, I have been having the opportunity to work with “photoshoots”, service that I offered from the comfort of an improvised studio at home. Pregnancy images, covers for a musical single, and lots of “Facebook pictures”, came out of there.

The excitement about street photography didn’t start until a year ago. I arrived to the states on holiday and I thought I’d do another photography course, under the same excuse as the last one: “Now that i’m here… let’s see how it goes”

Maybe it wasn't a class that I really enjoyed, but I’m happy with the results. I guess taking street images in a place you don’t really know, and also with people that behave and react differently, is definitely a challenge.

I finished the course and then I just forgot about it. I started focusing on other things, such as portraits — that I thought I knew how to do — and some other stupid things.

Today I’m coming back from having a different weekend. Yesterday, from 10 in the morning I was sitting around a table in front of a bright white wall, where everyone had to present, lets just call it, a “project”.

After a brief introduction, everybody pulled out of their portfolios images that seemed perfectly planned and designed, ready to be presented. They were nothing but alive photographs.

From the first moment I felt dizzy. I had no idea where I was at that moment. I remember I said to myself “Oh Maleza, what have you done now”

I felt like I was in a gallery, and I was part of it.

There were a huge variety of subjects, distinctive of everyone’s personal style. The presentation went from abandoned buildings and flowers, to front shots of sharks.

When I less expected, it was my turn. “Now, what do I have to show?”

After almost 5 years of working with a camera I had no answer for that question. Every single one of my images came out to my mind in that minute, but I still felt like none of them were good enough. And sadly I was right.

I arrived home, unsettled, and I started nosing into my hard drive too see if I could find something that followed the same line of today’s class. I casually found some street photographs — that I actually considered mediocre — and I quickly build a body of work. That day, I found the very first pictures I ever took. I saw my beginnings, my first “eye exercises”, and I saw the Caracas I used to visit on vacation. Finally, I decided to add one of those pictures to the body of work that I was going to present the next day.

The classroom environment changed completely. My classmates and instructor, who happened to be Sally Gall, were smiling at my shots, nodding, analyzing.

I now realize that I’ve always loved the streets. No one knew, not even me. And, what’s funny is that I’ve been doing street images unconsciously. Now that I think of it, just the fact that I took the initiative to blog occasionally should’ve given me a clue. But it wasn’t until today that I came upon the fact that all of my instinctive shots — that I thought had no value — could be categorized, and they are called Street Photographs.

This weekend really helped me to open my eyes about my own work as a photographer, and I really I hope to have something nice to show you in a couple more years.

So that is, the main reason behind lezastreet.tumblr.com. This is a place where I intent to “rescue” most of those shots that I didn’t pay attention at first; and also, to share with you the passion that has always been HIDDEN.

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