In this fifth interview, Rebecca Weston talks with Sandra Hernández about the ways in which photography helps us get to know layers: layers of a city through street photography and layers of ourselves, through self-portraiture. Together they explore the enormous freedom Sandra found in her quarantine solitary confinement - a freedom that is joyful, anxious, overwhelming, and profound. Sandra and Rebecca talk about the freedom she found in trying to both surrender control and allow change. In that context, Sandra mirrors questions many around the globe are asking in micro and macro ways. Finally, this interview explores Sandra's own mixed feelings about reopening into a period of uncertainty while reflecting on the ways this moment has changed her own photographic focus and sense of self.

Sandra Hernández is a Mexican-Canadian architect and photographer. A camera has traveled with her since she was six years old: photography is her first love. She is a stroller, a flâneuse with an acute curiosity, hunting the beauty that one usually overlooks. Her work ranges from street photography to documentary, and it’s inspired by her passion and curiosity for urban life and its daily events.

Since 2015 she leads the multidisciplinary firm Vita Flumen. She is the founder of Urban Observers, a visual narrative platform whose mission is to promote and spread Spanish-speaking street photography. In parallel, she is a contributor to the Diario de Querétaro, where she writes a column of photography, travel and architecture, and a lecturer professor at the School of Architecture, Art and Design of Tec de Monterrey. She divides her time between Mexico and Quebec when she is not traveling for a project. She is also a member of the Facebook group, Photographers Under Confinement: Reopening in an Uncertain World. Sandra’a work can be found on Instagram @vita_flumen.

Rebecca B. Weston is a photographer and clinical social worker, living in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York - a suburb of New York City. She has had work published in curated, collaborative Street Photography Books and has exhibited both in solo and curated group shows. She is also the founder of the Facebook group, Photographers Under Confinement: Reopening in an Uncertain World which can also be found on Instagram @Photographersunderconfinement .

The aim of this project is to explore the ways in which specific photographers have used photography and image making to express their feelings about and individual experiences of the pandemic, to connect and be seen in their isolation by others around the world, to honor their shared humanity and to preserve their own mental health.