Federica Valabrega was born in 1983 in Rome, Italy, where she lived until she was 19 before packing her suitcase, kissing her mom goodbye and taking off to follow her family's lineage of doctors starting a pre-med program at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

In 2006 she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Integrative Physiology, but although she was offered a researcher assistant position at The Children's Hospital Of Philadelphia to study the cause and effect of the HIV virus in children, after a summer editorial internship at Climbing magazine, she realized she was not cut out to be a doctor.

She wanted to be like Oriana Fallaci, the Italian reporter expatriated in New York City at 17 who shared her birthday (June 29) and who simultaneously wrote for the New York Times, Il Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica.

So, Federica packed again, and moved to Washington, D.C., to start graduate school at American University's School of Communication. After a heavy load of writing and reporting classes - as well as courses in digital skills, photography and documentary making - in August 2008 she received a Master of Arts in International Print Journalism and Public Affairs and started living the dream, landing an editorial internship at the National Geographic Magazine online.

Her next stop was a start-up online magazine, Culture 11 that folded during the economic crisis. After losing her job, she found herself shying away from the writing desk and joining the platoons of photographers wandering the U.S. capital during presidential inauguration week. From there came "She Had a Dream," a publicly recognized shot chosen to be featured as one of the 100 finalists in the FOTOBAMA Week Photo Contest in the Newseum on Pennsylvania Ave. in downtown D.C.

From there, she was offered a job as the staff photographer for the Professional Beach Volleyball Tour (AVP) and she has been traveling the East Coast following professional athletes in their endeavors on the sand ever since.

Although Federica had little experience with sports photography before joining the AVP - she mainly used to shoot rock climbers during her internship and freelancing job at Climbing magazine - there is just something about having been an athlete herself in her college years that makes it easier for her to capture the athletes in their most telling moments on the sand fighting for a victory or off the court interacting with their fans.

After finishing her assignment with AVP in Sept., Federica moved on to the photo freelancing world in the D.C. area. She has worked on several Yoga projects featuring Yoga teachers in need of Portfolio shots and helping Yoga studios get some Web sites photos of Yoga poses. Since October Federica has started a new job as a photography assistant to Richard Frasier a well-known D.C. photographer with the hope to learn everything there is to know about in-studio lighting so to carry this new body of knowledge to her dream career of photojournalist.

Starting in Jan. 2010, Federica will be assisting photojournalist Chris Bickford on assignment in New Orleans, covering Mardi Gras celebrations and crowning her dream career. From New Orleans, Federica will also contribute with some of her photos to Moked.it the newspaper of the Italian Jewish Communities and to Cubo Images, a travel photo agency based in Milan, Italy.

While Federica finds herself to be most creative behind a camera lens, her initial passion for writing has not expired - in fact, she still writes for Panorama, the foremost weekly Italian magazine, based in Milan, and Shalom, a monthly Italian Jewish community magazine, based in Rome, and often contributes freelance pieces to Climbing magazine.

When she is not on a shooting assignment, or at her desk editing pictures or writing a story, she can be found teaching private Power Vinyasa Yoga classes.

Federica's favorite motto, from writer Matthew Arnold, is: "Journalism is literature in a hurry." She in fact believes the craft of journalism is an art of telling stories, visually or in print that can transmit to the reader the true struggle or endeavors of the voiceless, even if it has to endure deadline and time constrains.

So, for all she is concerned, as long as there is passion and good intention in what one reports about, there will be no shortage of news good enough to dispel the belief that "the best profession on Earth" is dying.

For more about my background and experience, take a look at my Résumé.