Born in Montreal in 1987 from a Mexican mother and French Canadian father, she was already surrounded by talented people. Her father since he was a young man was dedicated to his passion, music. He had a gift, being able to play any instrument without having to take classes. His ears and heart were his school. While growing up, Valerie tried many artistic activies in high school, such as playing an instrument, drama classes and singing. When she left high school to go to Cegep, she decided to go into the cinema program. From that moment she discovered that she had the ability to see beauty in things that are not normally classified as beautiful. She begun understanding the light, how it affects the image, the psycologie of each caracter etc. Going into her second year of Cegep, she knew she had a big passion for the visual entertainment world, but she got to realize things about herself. Valerie had trouble taking on long projects and finishing them. She figured she needed a career where each project would be short and sweet, so she could move on to another different project and not lose motivation. Because we all know that making movies takes alot of time , from the pre production (writing the script), producing it (searching for the money, the actors, the location, etc etc) and then post production (editing, and then doing the advertising), it takes soo much time, and Valerie is the type of person who needs to do alot of projects but in shorter time. She had always loved photography, but never really considered it before as she thought there was alot of competition in that field. She then went to University and did the credits needed to go into a communication program. One of the classes she took, was a photography class. She thought it would be a fun class to take. From that moment, Valerie felt in love with the world through her lens. She realize that was the career she needed to pursuit. As she already had a cinema experience, photography was an easy transition. She decided to apply at Dawson College where they had a Commercial Photography program. She sended her portfolio, had an interview, and got accepted. Valerie was soo happy and more than ever motivated to learn. From the beggining she always knew that she wanted to go into Fashion Photography as she loved the clothing and makeup world. Check out her Portfolio on www.flickr.com/photos/valerie_photography .