Love Letter to my Grandparents

Before I begin, I would like to set the tone for this piece. If you know me personally or knew my grandparents, I would encourage you to listen to Loved Me That Way by Lauren Duski. This song has been playing in the background for the majority of the creation of this site. I am not responsible for any and all tears that will happen.

Today, February 15, 2023, would have been Aida Fernandez de Mendez’s, my Grandma, 90th birthday.

Strongwilled, stubborn, beautiful mother to me and her children. A doting loving Grandma to us grandchildren. This stunning fashionista could silence a room when she spoke of her love for my Granpa.

My fascination with travel, photography, and observing the world started with my grandparents. Grandma and Granpa were these beautiful people who were foodies and winos and, by circumstance, became world travelers. My grandfather was a doctor on the island of Puerto Rico, who was kind and dedicated to his patients. He worked in the era of house calls and would do just about anything for the health of his patients. To this day, I introduce myself as the granddaughter of Doctor Leonardo Mendez, and am recognized by the children and grandchildren of his past patients. In the 23 years since his passing, I have never heard a negative word about his treatment and kindness towards his patients.

However, with the dedication my grandfather showed his patients came to the inability to step away from his patients and be a father to his family. Granpa would get calls at all hours of the night and would be found throughout the island. I remember my Grandma telling me a story of a patient calling the police to get Grandpa to come and attend to a patient when he was somewhere out to a meal with the family.  Because of these circumstances, my grandparents made a decision. Every two years, my grandparents and their children would go on an 8-week vacation somewhere in the world. The goals of the trips were not only to allow my grandfather time to deeply connect with his family, but also introduce his children to the world they lived in.

Dr Leonardo Mendez

World traveler, member of countless wine groups, passionate consumer of food, loving father and husband, and best Granpa a person could ask for.

In 2000, a significant shift in my life altered the fabric of my family; my Granpa passed away. It was sudden, painful, and unexpected. In the months to come, a family decision was made. My mother and I would move from Maryland, where I was born and raised, to Puerto Rico to live with my Grandma in the family home. In a matter of months, three stubborn, opinionated, and grieving women were trying to rebuild a fractured family into a new structure. Though none of this process was comfortable or easy, it was soothed by the dinner ritual in the “comedorin.” Every night for nine years, my grandma, mom, and I sat down at 6 pm for dinner. This ritual with my parents, mom and grandma, became the steady beat of our home, in a time that was fraught with newness. There were always the usual pleasantries of checking in and breaking down the day. However, the moments I guard in my heart as the most precious gifts were the beautiful stories of my family seeing the world. These stories are so remarkable that I can’t imagine telling my stories without including the stories I grew up with. So throughout my writings about travel, photography, and body modification, there will be moments to share their stories. I am honored to have a space to share their beautiful, real, and human experiences.

With this deep love for storytelling and travel, I have guarded these tales in my journals and memories like a dragon’s hoard. The stories felt incomplete without the “windows” into the world that photos seem to provide. Photography was a hobbie Granpa cherished among many. When growing up, I remember albums being shoved into the corners of many of the closets of the house. Even more were piled in a 2x4 foot drawer in the side table in the living room. Grandma took great pride over the years to fill the side table with photos of our family, and rotate them out as my cousins and I grew up. For most of my childhood, photos required film and making the active effort to go and get them printed.

Grandma & Granpa with friends at Mory’s in New Haven, CT

I can literally hear Grandma complaining about me sharing this photo. Grandma was a refined woman, but every once in a while she allowed her “wild” side to show. At Mory’s in New Haven, there is a tradition of Cups. It is a glorified drinking game with fun rules. As a member of a Yale-y family, this is one of the stories I grew up on. Finding this photo last night when I was finalizing this article made me so excited, I jumped around and squealed. This window into their life is special.

Honestly, photography fell into my lap. In the era of smartphones, taking photos of every moment is possible and expected. However, when I began playing around with cameras, they were all film-based. My options were disposable cameras or the film camera Grandpa was using or had used. As a result, I have piles of old photos taken with a child's enthusiasm. Many of them ended up in that drawer. Film photography taught me patience with my shots and that there were limited images. So I learned early on to cherish my pictures. However, in senior year of high school, with the advent of smart phones with cameras, the ease with which to take pictures changed. Suddenly, I had an object in my hand that allowed me to easily catalogue every moment of my life without the worry of printing. The childhood enthusiasm was back with only limit being the memory on the phone, which would be laughable nowadays, but was amazing back then. While many of my photos from back then are of classmates and friends; a shift becomes evident in my catalogue over the next few years.

I have been obsessed with National Geographic and Discovery Channel for most of my life. These outlets allowed me to connect with places in the world I had heard about in my childhood. Seeing and sharing small corners of the world has always spoken to me. People and how they move and exist in the world are astounding, but the art we live in the world is breathtaking. From buildings, to sculptures, to houseware, to paintings, to jewelry, humans finding remarkable ways to leave their unique signature in the world. That is what I strive to capture. If I can encapsulate the simplicity of that moment in my photos I have succeeded. I think this appreciation came from growing up in a multigenerational home. As I said, Grandma would be 90 years old today. That near century worth of knowledge lived by my side and raised me for almost 20 years. While not all of our views aligned, I hold a deep appreciation for how I was raised. That is why my focus moved to landscape, architecture, nature, and macro photography. I deeply enjoy the stillness that comes with pausing to take my photos. So while people rarely show up in my work, the evidence they leave behind is my favorite subject.

This dusty old lock is on a chest in the basement of an old plantation house outside of New Orleans. Rust is one of the most interesting things to photograph. (This lock was not used on people according to the tour operator, but yes this was on a plantation with enslaved people. While objects are beautiful, I will never shy from their true history. Grandpa taught me that.)

Though I have changed little of how I take my photos, and I take hundreds and thousands more shots than I used to, I still value the shots that successfully capture the moment because they become a window into the world I can share with others. As time has passed, the camera I have worked with has changed. When traveling as an adolescent and young adult, I used my grandfather’s camera. Through most of college I used my camera phone. Then, when I went on my study abroad, my mother gifted me an interchangeable lens camera. It is the camera I use to this day. For more detailed info on my camera, check out my FAQ page. I use a combination of my iPhone, for scouting a location, and my Sony camera, for high-res captures to create the art I share.

It has taken a lot of time and work to reach this moment. All of that work has been internal and mental. I have always had the manual skills to accomplish this career. However, there are many cognitive skills required to handle this work. The most critical and daunting skill I have accomplished is the ability to be alone. This sounds ridiculous since I am a hyper-independent, only child, but there is a drastic difference between filling alone and accepting alone time. I have spent the better part of COVID working to stabilize my mental health by working with a therapist and digging through my past to heal the wounds and recover from trauma. I strived to move out of survival mode into living. For a long time, this dream was skewed by the want to escape my life. The pull of this career choice was to run away from my problems and “leave them behind.” However, anyone with life experience and a slightly stable mindset can tell you that running only brings your issues with you. So in this time of lockdown and quarantine, I made my life about demolishing myself and building a healthy, sturdy foundation to finally have a home within myself.

The strength with which I launch Ginette Mendez Fernandez today is all my own, but I would not have the beautiful lens through which I see the world without my grandparents. I can think of no greater way to honor my business than launching on the Grandma’s birthday. I am excited to share my and their stories with you all. Welcome.