My mom, Omayra, has always been the kind of mom who takes photos of us on every occasion—birthdays, Christmas, the first day of school, a random Tuesday, everything. When it was disposable cameras, it was easy for her; all she had to do was go to Walgreens, pay for prints, and wait to receive them. She was able to do all that by herself, but then came the age of the digital camera.

Marketed as “point and shoot, easily upload to your computer, no need to wait,” she inevitably hopped on the trend. It wasn’t until 2009 that she came home with a new camera, the Samsung S860. This little camera was going to accompany her everywhere, and now we would be able to have videos of us—something we never had. The camera had face detection, image stabilization, zoom, flash—everything that was flashy at the time. I remember being excited just because it was new technology in general. After showing it to us, she opened the box, pulled out the paperwork, cables, lanyard, and battery. The unboxing experience has always been a strange phenomenon—I’m here for it. The final reveal is the camera itself, and she pulls it out of the box… it’s pink.

I’m in middle school, and I remember thinking to myself that there’s no way I’m using this camera now. I always took my mom’s stuff from her and used it more myself. I guess it wasn’t going to be my turn yet. Either way, my interests back then were making horrible beats on our home computer (a story for another time), so I got back to that.

Weeks go by, and my mom has taken so many pictures of us—going to the pool, getting ready for school in the morning, my sister getting her hair done. I should have a permanent flash circle in my vision. Sure enough, she fills her SanDisk SD card and has to empty it, so I’m tasked with removing the images and videos because I’m the techie one at home.

One of the many photos my mom took of me, 2009.

I remember it feeling like a chore. Like I said, I liked making beats. All my computer time I wanted to spend doing that, but yes, Mami, I’ll save the photos. She bought a thumb drive where we would store the images. To this day, that was the best decision she ever made, because every computer we’ve ever had was ruined. But anyway, I do as she wants, save the images, and go on my way.

All she had learned to do so far was point and shoot. We knew the camera had more features, and she wasn’t using any of them, and that’s where I come in again.

“Emmanuel, how do you switch it to video?”

“You have a wheel on top that’ll change your mode. Put it on video.”

“Our eyes end up so red. How do you fix that?”

“Set the flash to red-eye.”

“The pictures end up looking blurry.”

“You have to stay as still as possible.”

What’s interesting is that I wasn’t going on Google to learn these things. I was messing with the camera myself. Little by little, day by day, I was getting more familiar with the camera, and my curiosity was slowly building. But there’s no way I’m using this pink camera. As fun as it is, I don’t want it.

I remember years going by, my mom got the hang of her camera, and we continued to be photographed—every Three Kings’ Day, every graduation, every random Friday. The year is now 2012, and my brother buys me an iPod Touch. I was so excited because it finally felt like I had technology that was mine. I could customize it to my liking, listen to my own music, and take my own pictures. This is also the year I downloaded Instagram. Years later, I don’t know how I feel about the rise of social media, but in that moment, this was life-changing. I remember creating my username, which was just my first and last name (16 characters total). One of the first people I followed was 13th Witness (IYKYK) and TrashHand. These guys really did it for me. I remember it wasn’t flashy cameras and expensive equipment. A lot of the time, it was just their creativity shining through with a simple iPhone. This made me want to do the same, so I did just that with my white iPod Touch. These photos were bad, but to me, they were good. My view from a lunch table, the tree outside our house, Winter versus Spring, and our first snow.

Photos from my iPod, 2012.

It was 2012, and we had moved to Fitchburg, MA (also another story). I was extremely introverted at this point in my life because of the number of times we had moved. I remember feeling sad every time we moved because I’d leave my friends behind. I had enough of it at this point, so I isolated myself, and all I had was my iPod’s camera. This was how I expressed myself.

I started downloading editing apps, like VSCO, PicLab (shoutout Roberto Nickson), and Snapseed. I spent so much time editing my low-quality images, but I was happy with them. But I think everything changed that first time we saw snow.

We were in Leominster, MA, and we knew it was supposed to snow. We were living in a shelter where we shared rooms with other families on the second floor of a busy road. We put on our winter clothes, which weren’t even winter clothes. We knew at any moment it would start to snow, so we stared out the window, waiting to see a sign of snow.

After a few minutes, we see snowflakes. They slowly start to fall faster, and I remember being amazed by this. After about an hour, we decided to go outside, now that the ground was mostly covered. My sister and I immediately put our hands out and looked up. It was so surreal. We had lived in the tropics or Florida for so much of our lives, it was magical. I throw myself on the ground and make a snow angel. It looked nothing like one, but from that point on, I was able to say I made one. As I stand up, I realize I dropped my iPod in the snow. On top of that, my iPod was white, so I was terrified.

This isn’t the part where everything changed. Luckily, I found it, and it was fine. During this entire time, my mom was taking photos with her pink camera. At this point, this camera had traveled all over the Western Hemisphere. Four years later, I’m still offloading these photos from her SD card to the same thumb drive. This set of photos was different. I wish I could recall what computer I saw these on, but I remember analyzing these photos. The quality looked so much better than my iPod’s camera quality. I remember feeling kind of jealous and upset that I never noticed this before.

I remember feeling confused. This pink camera that’s been in our lives for four years takes better pictures than my iPod? I felt conflicted. I wanted to use this camera, but it was pink. At this time, I kept using my iPod. Time went by again, and I wasn’t even thinking about that pink camera. I was too busy taking pictures of trees and posting them. River, posting. Funky building, posting. But then we were able to share camera roll images on Instagram, and everything changed here, like forever.

My desire to have higher-quality images and share them became greater than my apprehension to use a pink camera, so I worked myself up to use it. I already knew how all the settings worked and what settings to use in certain situations. It was second nature. One day, my mom, sister, and I decided to go to the mall. We didn’t have a car, so we had to walk about 20 minutes to a bus stop, then take the bus to the mall. This was my opportunity to test-run this camera without being seen with a pink camera. I was still slightly afraid of being seen with it.

It was another snowy day. We’re head to toe covered now. I learned my lesson. As we walk to the bus stop, I let my family break away and walk ahead of me. I take this opportunity to take a photo of them, surrounded by the snow-covered neighborhood. After snapping the photo, I put some pep in my step and rejoin them. The rest of the way, I snap photos of trees, cars, buildings, bushes, and even some antique cars inside a building. The day goes by, and I remember being so excited to see these photos off the camera.

I start to be more artsy when taking images.

Every time I offloaded the images, I was doing this at a nearby library because we didn’t have a computer anymore. So the next day after school, I walk to the library and figure out how to get these images on my iPod, and I was amazed. There was such a huge difference in quality. Editing was nicer, colors felt more vibrant. A whole new world was opening up in front of my eyes. I thought for sure Instagram would love this. So the cycle began. Go outside, keep the camera hidden, take it out fast, and snap a picture. I would keep this up for another year.

It’s 2013 now. We’ve moved again, twice. We found ourselves in Puerto Rico again after leaving Massachusetts, but now we’re in Florida. Here I had the chance to see my old friends, and we started hanging out again. This mostly happened in church, somewhere I enjoyed being only because all my friends were there. Well, there was a church event for teenagers that would be four days long at a college campus. This event would see about 2,000 people from all over Florida, and it would feature one of my favorite artists at the time, Andy Mineo.

I remember I was back and forth with myself. “Should I take the camera, should I leave it?” It’s been with me everywhere I go. It lives in my pocket. After I put a lot of thought into it, I decided to take it with me. My old habits were still there. Keep the camera hidden, take it out fast, and snap a picture. What was I scared of?

Would I be made fun of for simply having a pink camera? Would people think just because it’s pink it’s a bad camera? Where did I learn these things from? My mind was all over the place now that I was surrounded by so many people again after about two years of isolating. I had isolated so much, this felt strange. Well, the day arrives for the concert. I put on my best outfit, and I put my pink camera in my pocket (I’m calling it mine at this point).

I was ready for the show, so ready that I don’t stay at my seat. My friends and I go to the front of the stage. I remember feeling like this is a great opportunity to use the camera. It’s dark, no one’s paying attention to me. They’re watching the show, so I do exactly that. He comes out, and I immediately bring out my camera. I don’t know why, but I’m still nervous, but I power through it. Andy throws water into the crowd, he calls dancers up to the stage. One of my friends was a dancer, so he starts jumping up and down, raising his hand. I actually lift him up higher as he’s jumping so we can get his attention. Sure enough, Andy calls for him, and he’s up on stage dancing. This was a moment I couldn’t miss, so my camera is out, recording memories.

Andy Mineo concert, recorded with my pink camera, 2013.

This changed something for me. I didn’t learn the larger life lessons I’ve learned today as an adult, but I remember unlearning the constructs that were built around me. As a pre-teen, it was a simple lesson: Pink was seen as a color made for girls. Guys weren’t supposed to have anything pink. But this was something silly that society decided was factual.

As an adult, I learned that even deeper than this, anything related to women was seen as weaker and lesser. Men are supposed to appear rugged, smell like Axe spray, and wear dark colors. Pink cameras, not allowed! This was reinforced a lot in my early life, and it was always by men. There was a lot I started to unlearn, and it started with pink. Later in my teenage years, I remember buying a pink polo that I would often wear to church. Friends would try to joke on me about it, and I would joke back saying, “Real men wear pink!”

I carried my pink camera proudly until about 2015, when I got a free iPhone 6 Plus from a graphic design contest (again, another story). I no longer know where it is, but it changed my life forever. I learned to stop letting society’s constructs and norms dictate my life. This would slowly pour into the rest of my life with other things, and I believe it has led me to be the person I am today—someone who I feel is the best version of myself.

The only video I could find of me wearing my pink polo, 2016.

Hide, Point and Shoot.

Meeting a revolutionary