Kristina Corrales

My story

“I come to this work the way most people come to the things that matter most: through love, and through loss.”

My name is Kristina. My friends call me Kristy. I grew up inside a story. My father, Rick Corrales, was a celebrated Mexican American photojournalist whose work helped the Los Angeles Times win a Pulitzer Prize for the landmark Latino Series in 1984. He was also an inventor — the Spinshot 360 was his. My mother was a journalist too. Between them, they gave me the understanding that storytelling is not a career. It is a calling.

I lost them both. My father passed in 2005, my mother in 2006, both from cancer. Photography was how I found my way through. My series Objects Left Behind grew from that time — quiet photographs of the small things they left behind. His glasses. Her watch. His Spinshot. Her pen.

When I photograph you, I am not trying to make you look a certain way. I am trying to hold what you carry.

— Kristina