For me, photography is essentially black and white. More essential, more refined, more meaningful. Except. Except when color is indispensable, crucial to the meaning. And first and foremost, red. Red like suffering and alienation, red like the call to freedom, especially for women.

Each woman is me, my daughter, my granddaughter, my mother, my sister, my ancestor. All generations live within me. Time is but a fleeting passage.

I don't look at women from the outside when I photograph them; I try to express and share our fears, our joys, our sorrows, our desires, our vital impulse to give, protect, and celebrate life, and above all, our fierce quest for freedom. Life is red.

The red of menstrual blood, the red of endured violence, the red of birth and death, the red of indomitable joy, the red of flags snapping in the wind. Life is red, and women are the standard-bearers of Freedom.