KATY GROSS

Growing up in Santa Fe, NM I was exposed to many different art forms from a very early age. I started violin lessons when I was 4, performed in La Bohème as a street urchin at the Santa Fe Opera when I was 8, and painted murals on the walls of my elementary school. But it wasn't until I picked up a camera and learned how to develop my own pictures as an anxious 15-year old that I finally found a way to truly express myself. I fell in love not only with the act of taking and developing photographs, but also with the idea of where the camera could take me. It gave me a purpose to approach and talk to strangers. It inspired me to want to travel and explore foreign places. It helped me become myself.