About Marie

I am an artist who uses my camera as a medium to express and share the experiences I have shared with people all over the world.

My photographic purpose for this project is to honor the dignity, beauty and strength of women I have met around the globe. My hope is that the images will uplift them by inspiring you to action.

sharing photographs from a previous trip
sharing photographs from a previous trip

Many live with tremendous challenges in their lives. These include health problems, lack of sanitation, lack of education, mental and physical abuse. In contrast to extreme hardships, I have seen the beauty and strength these women embody. While they often endure extreme hardship their entire lives, many bring strength and resilience to their families and villages, and rise above those conditions. Others simply endure. I see the beauty in their smiles, in their hand work, in their dress, in their laughter, and in their warmth with a stranger with a camera. I feel I am their sister in every way, and I want to depict their lifestyles showing their dignity and beauty. I know that beauty can live side by side with violence and environmental challenge because I have seen it around the globe. The human soul has an irrepressible need to express itself, to shine.

Being in villages and in close contact with women around the world arouses feelings in me that I have lived the lives of many, many women. I have finally realized that my passion to photograph women in indigenous cultures is an exploration of myself at the deepest levels.  I feel their isolation, their struggles, and, their resilience.  Pushing past our limitations as women living on this planet and in challenging circumstances, turns out to be my own journey.

Thank you for your visit to my site. I hope you will share it with others.

Friends in Chiapas enjoying their photographs.
Friends in Chiapas enjoying their photographs.