Photographer, poet, naturalist and bird lover. 

I come from Restrepo, small town in the Valley of Cauca, Colombia.  My father was a farmer and my mother a seamstress and clothes designer. My early journey into the world of poetry and nature photography was shaped by my childhood experiences at our coffee farm and later developed when I was a graduate student in France. My current work continues to be inspired by the wonders of the natural environment. I have lived the majority of my life in the United States.

I studied law and political sciences in Cali, Colombia and practiced law briefly before seeking other professional opportunities.  I pursued graduate studies in International Agricultural Economics in France at the University of Montpellier and the Institute of Hautes Etudes Mediterraneenes in Montpellier, and later migrated to the United States. 

I begun writing poetry in high school and wrote during my college years.  A selection of my poetry from those years was included in the anthology Selected Poems (Colombia, 1982) edited by Anibal Arias. I have continued the daily practice of writing poetry all my life. It has been a way to explore my internal spiritual evolution and the world around me, as well as the affinity with the earth and the larger universe we inhabit.  During my early college years I created and published with a group of friends in Cali a few issues of a local multi-media magazine called Inventario.  A handful of my youthful  poems were included in the first issue.  While living in Montpellier in the company of two other friends founded and published a small Magazine called Les Cahiers du Lez.  Between 1983 and 1988 we  published 12 numbers, several of them featuring my poetry both in French and Spanish.  

While in France I took an extracurricular photography class and fell deeply in love with the medium and the opportunities it offers both to capture my view of the world and express my sense of its mystery and richness.  

As I migrated to the United States I continued writing while working to advance my professional career.  I began my career at the International Center in New York, supporting immigrants and refugees from various backgrounds.  This enhanced my understanding of the  struggles and resilience among newcomers to the US. Later I had the privilege of leading organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters and Cool Girls, which focus on mentoring and education for children in low-income communities.  My journey transitioned from nonprofit work to significant roles in local government, including serving as the Deputy Chief of Operations for Atlanta's first African American mayor, Shirley Franklin.  Later I worked as Deputy Chief of Operations for DeKalb County, and finally I worked for five years as Chief of Administration for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) from which retired at the end of 2023.   

During my first few years in the U.S. I wrote a poetry book, still unpublished, called The Tree of Remembrance / El Arbol del Recuerdo.  It is a collection of poems that reflect my transition between cultures and focuses on memories, nostalgia, and personal transformation.  During this time I published with a group of friends in Philadelphia a literary Magazine called Desde Este Lado / From This Side.  This was a bilingual journal (English / Spanish) of Latin American artistic expressions, of which we published 3 volumes.  The book Shouting in a Whisper / Los Limitees del Silencio, featuring Latino Poetry in Philadelphia, published by Editorial Asterion (Santiago, Chile, October of 1994) includes nine of my poems.

While at the beginning of my photography explorations I focused on people's portraits in the urban environment, as I further explored the medium I heard a deeper call from nature. As I explored the vast beauty of places like Alaska and the many natural parks around the United States, I became focused on the landscapes and the many creatures that live in these environments, and most specially birds.  I am called by their unique qualities of lightness and resilience.  

For the last twenty-five years I have been studying the Toltecs' spiritual tradition, which provides not only a deep-rooted link to my Latin American origins but also an opportunity to strengthen my relationship with the  larger universe, the earth, and all natural elements. This understanding informs not only my writing but also my photography and all my personal actions.  My spiritual name is Thunder Horse.  

Since my retirement from professional work at the end of 2023, I have been fully dedicated to the daily practice of poetry writing as well as expanding my knowledge of photography as a tool to connect and understand myself in relation to the the elements and the beauty of the natural environment.