About Me

This is me! Photo by Lucía Tabares Cabrera.

Hey there!

I am Mona Westphal. I come from a German family and grew up on a tiny island in the Atlantic Ocean called La Palma, part of the Canary Islands in Spain.

I am currently pursuing my bachelor’s degree in social sciences at Minerva University, a highly selective undergraduate program based in the US that enables its students to live and study in 7 different countries worldwide.

Photography has been a deep passion of mine since I was a teenager, my skills being mostly self-taught. I love traveling and discovering new cities, natural places, and animals. Surprise! That’s also what I most often photograph. There is nothing more fascinating than zooming into a picture of an insect and seeing details that are too small to be noticeable to the human eye.

Me photographing vs. the resulting picture (DREEKG). Left photo by Estrella Méndez Álvarez-Touchard.

Me taking pictures. Photo by Adrián García Vidal.

In the beginning, I started playfully taking pictures to capture the beauty around me. Now, however, it has become a way of telling stories: In the long term, I want to share more than just the bright side of the world. I aspire to combine photography with actual journalism to improve international communication, cultivate empathy across cultural and socio-economical differences and motivate social change.

Contact

If you are interested in acquiring a license for any picture on this webpage, contact me via .

For more informal updates on my life, we can keep in touch via Instagram (username: moniliwis)