Maui, Hawaii, is the third island where I feel at home
Fate. When could I imagine becoming a professional photographer and living on islands? This is the first text I write on the blog and I do it as a form of presentation. A first contact with anyone who might come to read these free words. Nice to meet you, my name is Thaís and if you are reading this and you are a native English speaker, you may not know how to pronounce my name. It's a question I hear a few times a day. I'll try to explain in text: imagine you're going to buy "tacos", so the first syllable is like this. "TA"... the second syllable is how you say "IS" in any sentence, like "life IS good". Now put the two together: "THA-IS". There you go!
I'm Brazilian, a journalist, nature lover and diver. Living on islands came from the turning point in life when I decided that I would like to improve my English and get to know new places, new cultures. I traveled through some countries and the goal of speaking English fluently was achieved. Returning to Brazil I had a bigger task: what to do now that destiny has changed and I've discovered so many places, people, cultures, ways of living? How to draw a route?
Then I landed on the first island I called home: Fernando de Noronha, Brazil. There I became a scuba diver and my background in journalism and passion for images led me to scuba diving photography and filming. This is how I introduce myself when asked how I got started in photography. It was literally underwater. Noronha was my home for fourteen months. Times of hard work, many friends, the sensations of living on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
The second island was Curaçao, and then my home was in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Time to learn even more about diving photography. Until then, professional images were only in the underwater environment. When many of us needed to reinvent ourselves during and after the pandemic, I came up with the idea of combining land and water, sand and sea in my creations. On the island in the Caribbean Sea, I started doing photo shoots on land and in the water.
In 2021 the move to the United States. First in the icy waters of the Pacific Ocean of California, and then, today, the third island that has become a home. Maui, Hawaii, around 6.000 kilometers from the mainland in warmer waters, still in the Pacific. When I talk about this destiny, I imagine that little girl who was born in a city in the interior of Brazil, where the mountains are the sea and the blue sea is about six hours away by car. I always imagined living surrounded by nature, but I never thought that islands would be my homes, these little pieces of land surrounded by the ocean where I walk / swim today and present my art.
I think I've just discovered why my work is on the solidity of land and also in the fluidity of water. It's where and how I live: on the islands and the ocean's surroundings I'll always call home...