At the age of 10, Crystal Street received her first SLR camera and at age 15 her father gave her a copy of The Family of Man. A lifelong love of photographing the human spirit was born.

She found her way to photojournalism in the early 1990’s while shooting for her high school newspaper and later became a staff photographer at the New River Newspapers while attending Radford University.

After studying outdoor recreation at Radford, Crystal moved to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and worked as a sea kayak tour guide in the summers. She spent her winters in the Colorado Mountains, embracing the life of a skier and photographing the country as she traveled between these two amazing locations. She freelanced for a variety of regional and local publications during this time period and dabbled in portrait and wedding photography as well.

After eight years of experiencing the nuances of life, Crystal decided to pursue her passions for storytelling by returning to school and is currently working toward a visual communications degree from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In 2006, Crystal received two fellowships and a grant to pursue two independent projects in India and Nepal.

Combining her studies in Peace, War and Defense with her photojournalism education, she documented the cultural preservation efforts of Tibetan exiles living in India as well as various aspects of the security demographics in Nepal. She also worked as a writing and photo intern for Nepal Human Rights News in Kathmandu.

During her senior year, Crystal was a co-producer for an international multimedia project with her classmates for the Special Olympics World Games in 2007. The project landed her an assignment in Egypt and she returned to the Middle East several months later to document the daily life of Palestinians living in the West Bank.

For more of Crystal's work visit:

www.crystalstreetphotography.com

www.nomadicphotography.blogspot.com