I’ve always been drawn to visuals. Growing up in Coral Springs, Florida, with Colombian heritage, stories were part of everyday life. Whether it was family gossip, generational tales, or jokes passed around the dinner table, storytelling was how we connected. That culture of storytelling shaped me, first in sales and later through photography.
I picked up my first camera in middle school — a cheap Walmart bundle with a printer — and started photographing cars and trips to Miami under the pseudo company name, "Limitless Photography". It wasn’t until high school, though, that things clicked. After repeat knee injuries, I gave up competitive sports but found another way to stay close to the game: journalism class. That class was more than an elective. It taught me composition, rule of thirds, leading lines, and how to pair an image with words so it told the whole story. Shooting sports for the yearbook, seeing my friends use my photos, and even getting honorable mentions in county contests gave me my first sense of belonging behind the camera.
I let the camera rest through college, but COVID brought it back, and moving to New York in 2021 gave me the spark again. The streets became my training ground — unpredictable and full of fleeting moments. A photo I took in DUMBO of a man looking across the East River into Manhattan ended up in a boutique called New York or Nowhere and sold out. That was the push I needed to share my work more widely. Soon, people were asking for prints to hang in their apartments. That’s when I realized photography wasn’t just for me, it was a way to connect with others.
What keeps me going is the chase: seeing a composition in my head, capturing it in frame, and knowing it will live on as more than just a memory. My Greek Island photos remind me of that most — the faded colors, the calm of the water, and the peace I felt being there with my parents. Every time I look at them, I’m transported back.
I don’t have rituals when I shoot, but I do have perspective: photography, like travel, is a metaphor for life. Change the lens, shift the angle, adjust the balance — and suddenly, the world looks completely different.
At the end of the day, I’m just Teo. A guy who loves to travel, who grew up in a culture of storytelling, and who hopes that when you hang one of my photos, you’ll find something new every time you look at it.
