Meet Mónika Aldarondo Lugo | Our Latina Lens Founder & Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mónika Aldarondo Lugo and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mónika, how did you come up with the idea for your business?
Like many stories in the last few years, Our Latina Lens was born of a pandemic pivot. I had closed my portrait photography business for the foreseeable future in March 2020. As the incredibly grateful recipient of life saving organ donation, I knew that being immunocompromised made me more vulnerable than most and I had to pivot in a way that kept me safe. I spent the first months creating and building photography skills, but soon realized that I wasn’t learning from anyone that I felt culturally connected to. I began looking for a Latina photography community that welcomed photographers at my level and my niche and couldn’t find one, so I began to build it.

I have been lucky to have exposure to many genres of photography throughout my life journey, so it was important to create a community that welcomed photographers of all genres and experience levels. As a former high school Humanities and visual arts teacher, I also know how important it is to understand whose shoulders we stand on. Latina photographers are rarely, if ever given credit for their contribution to our country’s visual narrative. In addition to connecting and supporting Latina photographers, Our Latina Lens aim to elevate the work of our photographic ancestors and contemporary photographers working today. We do that by featuring photographers on our Instagram account, on our podcast and in our newsletters.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I am most excited about our upcoming OLL National Directory of Latina photographers.

Ever since I began this work, I get DMs asking about being connected to photographers in various genres in cities from across the country. One purpose for Our Latina Lens existing is to elevate the visibility of talented Latina photographers and get them hired and their work collected more. The National OLL Directory of Latina Photographers is an exciting step toward that goal. The amount of talent in this community is so motivating.

Building something new is never easy. Being clear about the mission of connecting, supporting and elevating Latina photographers past, present and future has allowed me to always realign and keep moving toward that goal. It allows me to not get distracted by circumstances around me or by any ideas that may take me off the path toward the mission.

I am a person who has dozens of ideas and wants to pursue them all. Surrounding myself with other entrepreneurs who can ask insightful questions and who I can trust have my best interests in mind is so helpful. I have also sought help from communities and from coaches. Doing something new, means living outside of your comfort zone on a daily basis. So it’s incredibly important to surround yourself with supportive peers and mentors.

Our Latina Lens is about building a creative community where photographers reject any of the judgmental and overly competitive energy that is in many photography communities. This is a community that believes that when one succeeds, we all succeed. Our lived experiences, our training, our cultural heritage, everything we bring can help us build a communal table where we uplift, educate and celebrate each other.

At the same time we want to educate the wider community on why in this age of AI, ubiquitous phone cameras and images, the craft of photography still matters. The experience of a photo session is so much more than just the resulting images. We want to connect you to photographers that can create that creative synergy and help you reach your goals, whether that is capturing heirloom quality family photographs, reporting the little told stories of your community, creating thought provoking art for your home, or executing a commercial session that delivers high impact photos for your next product launch.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I would book a bestie photo session at Bravo Studios with Brittany Bravo, an incredible and creative photographer.

Then we would go to Yuca’s to eat delicious Yucatan-style tacos. Socorro Herrera founded Yuca’s in 1976 to share the flavors of the Yucatan with the community. The award-winning restaurant now has two locations and is run by Socorro’s daughter Dora. A must stop for any visitor.

I would definitely check out what was showing at Altura LA Art Gallery in Lincoln Heights. The team there, Diego Guerrero, Nalani Hernandez-Melo, Adrian Huerta, Eduardo Gomez, and John Acevedo are all artists and are so thoughtful in how they are developing their arts space and showcasing incredible artists. Bonus if we could attend one of their events.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to shout our every Latina photographer out there sharing her work. I get so excited EVERY time I come across a new photographer and their work. When I took a History of Photography in art school, I wasn’t taught about a single Latina photographer that was living or working in the United States. In the past 2 years, I have connected to over 500 photographers. I am glad I did not believe the narrative that my textbooks and professor were teaching me.

In my journey looking for other Latina photographers, I found the work of Elizabeth Ferrer, the author of Latinx Photography in the United States: A Visual History. A huge shout out to her for creating this important resource. In addition to dozens or others photographers, her book introduced me to Epifania de Guadalupe Vallejo. She was a young woman that was creating images of her family in Sonoma with a daguerreotype camera in the late 1840s-early 1850s.

Epifania is now recognized as creating some of the first photographs in the state of California. Learning about Epifania and so many others has been incredibly exciting and shows a long history of photographic contributions by Latinas. There are so many who continue to build on that legacy.

Website: https://ourlatinalens.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/ourlatinalens

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monika-aldarondo/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClVtXXCMCvXkz-0desC15Tg

Other: https://pod.link/1654788979

Image Credits
Zaydee Sanchez Yesenia Cachu Rios Nalani Hernandez-Melo Carolina Adame Mónika Aldarondo Lugo