I've made my life and living through photography, shooting for the local newspaper, the Associated Press, several magazines, and on my own. Funny, I didn't know I could make a living shooting when I decided to study photography, but I did. And what a life it has been.

It seems like every shoot is a learning experience, not just about the technique of shooting under the circumstances of that time and moment. It's much better than that.

I lived in West Africa — Burkina Faso and then Togo — for two years. But I wasn't ready in my head to shoot the lives of the people I came to know during those years. However, after shooting thousands of portraits for the local newspaper where I was employed, and after earning a Master of Fine Arts in Photography at Indiana University, I realized that what I really wanted to explore with my camera was people, their lives and their assumptions. Africa taught me that I, too, live by assumptions that I really hadn't realized until I was there.

I was lucky to have another opportunity to look at a different culture. Mexicali, Mexico, a city of over a million people, was just ten miles south of my home in the lower desert of California. Crossing the border into Mexico was fairly easy at the time. And this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up, unlike my African experience.

It was in Mexicali that I began to confront and try to understand cultural differences, and this continues to be an amazing source of inspiration,

education, and yes, satisfaction with my work. For one thing, how do people survive the climate there — summers are about seven months long with temperatures well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit every day — when air conditioners are a rarity? They also have to survive strong earthquakes, and you'll see the cracks in the stucco and miscellaneous lumber used to shore up walls and roofs. Homes are humble; sometimes a few boulders are the steps to the front door, and curtains often suffice as their entry, with multiple beds in one room. Mothers seem exhausted.

Yet, I see a kind of comfort in the photos of most people in or in front of their homes, but not so much in the photos of people downtown Mexicali — the hip shots there. Hip shots are photos taken without holding the camera to the eyes. Instead, the camera is hanging on a strap at about waist level, with the exposures set at automatic and the focus on maximum depth of field, and my finger on the shutter release.

And then it's interesting to compare the hip shots in New York City versus Mexicali.

All of the photos on this website are shot on my own rather than as an assignment from the media. And they date back to the mid-1980s.

Thanks for stopping by this site. I hope you let your imaginations have a field day while looking at these photos.

— Meg