Maria was born in San Paulo, Brazil, and moved to Nottingham after getting married in 1990. She worked at Queens Medical centre for 30 years and retired in 2019. She loves photos and explores light and shade in the images. There are many links to photography in Brazil. It was where the word photographie was first recorded in 1834, and a famous Bossa Nova song, Desafinfido has the line 'I photographed you with my Rolliflex', a camera make now associated with Brazilian music.