 My name is Pamela Chen and I am an editor, producer, photographer and I work at National Geographic. I'm very close with my family. We were very close growing up. My parents are immigrants. This was taken, I think I was around nine months old and I had destroyed everything in the house and I had picked up my parents' camera and I'm pointing it the wrong way. I really had no idea then that I would end up holding a camera the right way three decades later. It's pretty amazing. My father is a professor of mathematics and so when I went to college I thought I would be a math major with a photography minor because I always kind of liked it. And then one day I was taking pictures on the quad and I didn't know anything. I knew nothing about photography. This girl and her boyfriend were dragging each other down the quad on a skateboard and I picked up the camera and I took a picture but my settings were so wrong that the picture came out really blurry. And that was kind of the first time I realized that photography was a way that you could see the world differently than what you were seeing with your own eyes. And after that I switched my major to photography, my minor to math and my whole life changed after that. For me it was very surreal because I had not ever dreamed of being a journalist but as soon as I started studying it and doing it, it became such a natural fit. I love talking to people, I love hearing their stories, I love documenting things and I love collecting these little details about life and photography was really a way to do that. I love being an editor. For me, even when I was out in the field, I was thinking like, I can't wait to get home and look at these all together on the screen. I can't wait to see everything collected and go through it all. And as an editor for National Geographic, I get to do that. Every story has 10,000 to 60,000 pictures that come in and it's the senior picture editor's role to play in following through the whole journey of the photographer by going through every frame. One of my first assignments at National Geographic was to do the story on a new discovery of Mayan remains in Mexico. What they realized was that these remains had been untouched for 2,000 years. When you do a lot of research on a story, seeing it in real life is kind of a shock and I think that was definitely true when I went down to these sacred cenotes in Mexico. You never start out thinking that your life is going to be a project that you document, but once you start looking at it all together after the years go by and you look and you realize that you have so many pictures of one person or so many pictures of one thing that you were passionate about, then you realize that everything adds up to something. It's all the little details that add up to something and that's something beautiful about a photograph. It gives you a chance to collect your memories. Having a digital record of that is really important to me. Pictures to me are memories and it's just these fragments that add up to a greater whole. And I think more than anything, collecting those pictures is something that I'll do for the rest of my life.
 My name is Pamela Chen and I am an editor, producer, photographer and I work at National Geographic.
 I'm very close with my family. We were very close growing up. My parents are immigrants.
 This was taken, I think I was around nine months old and I had destroyed everything in the house
 and I had picked up my parents' camera and I'm pointing it the wrong way.
 I really had no idea then that I would end up holding a camera the right way three decades later.
 It's pretty amazing.
 My father is a professor of mathematics and so when I went to college I thought I would be a math major
 with a photography minor because I always kind of liked it.
 And then one day I was taking pictures on the quad and I didn't know anything.
 I knew nothing about photography.
 This girl and her boyfriend were dragging each other down the quad on a skateboard
 and I picked up the camera and I took a picture but my settings were so wrong that the picture came out really blurry.
 And that was kind of the first time I realized that photography was a way that you could see the world differently
 than what you were seeing with your own eyes.
 And after that I switched my major to photography, my minor to math and my whole life changed after that.
 For me it was very surreal because I had not ever dreamed of being a journalist
 but as soon as I started studying it and doing it, it became such a natural fit.
 I love talking to people, I love hearing their stories, I love documenting things
 and I love collecting these little details about life and photography was really a way to do that.
 I love being an editor.
 For me, even when I was out in the field, I was thinking like, I can't wait to get home and look at these all together on the screen.
 I can't wait to see everything collected and go through it all.
 And as an editor for National Geographic, I get to do that.
 Every story has 10,000 to 60,000 pictures that come in and it's the senior picture editor's role to play
 in following through the whole journey of the photographer by going through every frame.
 One of my first assignments at National Geographic was to do the story on a new discovery of Mayan remains in Mexico.
 What they realized was that these remains had been untouched for 2,000 years.
 When you do a lot of research on a story, seeing it in real life is kind of a shock
 and I think that was definitely true when I went down to these sacred cenotes in Mexico.
 You never start out thinking that your life is going to be a project that you document,
 but once you start looking at it all together after the years go by and you look and you realize that you have
 so many pictures of one person or so many pictures of one thing that you were passionate about,
 then you realize that everything adds up to something.
 It's all the little details that add up to something and that's something beautiful about a photograph.
 It gives you a chance to collect your memories.
 Having a digital record of that is really important to me.
 Pictures to me are memories and it's just these fragments that add up to a greater whole.
 And I think more than anything, collecting those pictures is something that I'll do for the rest of my life.