Growing up, photography was always a thing for me. That’s what you get when your mother lives obsessed with it. Besides managing the Lisbon photography archive for work, she was always reading and thinking about it, and never left the house without a camera.

Before digital became a thing, she had a Nikon camera that I thought was the coolest thing. For years I asked her to let me borrow it, but no matter how hard I tried, she didn’t allow me to go near it.

And I can be persistent.

In fact, only once did she allow me to use her camera. I remember it well, it was a sunny summer day and we were sitting outside somewhere in Spain on some church’s stairs. As she finally handed it to me, I stood in disbelief. I finally had it!

So before she could change her mind, I pointed the camera at her stretched legs resting right next to a pigeon, and I confidendentily pressed the button. And that was it.

The only photo I ever took with her camera. Her leg and a pigeon.

And she printed it.