Background

My mother wanted a better life for me than the one she was living. A widow with a daughter to raise properly and in a healthy environment with many opportunities. She decided that the only way to do so was to quit her job as a secretary in Silute, Lithuania and travel to the UK. The main aim was to work until she had saved up enough income to bring me over to her and start a new life together. I was then left in the care of my grandmother from my mother’s side along with my cousin who was also under my grandmother’s care.  I was eight years old when my mother left to go to the UK and it was a wave of emotions that over took us both up until we were reunited on my arrival three years later. I then started a new chapter of my life and went to school in Peterborough, UK. Ever since as far as I could remember individuals and society fascinated me, I always enjoyed capturing moments and sceneries with any camera I could get my hands on. After starting college and getting one step closer to my dreams of becoming a photographer, I had to work in order to help gather savings for myself and prepare me for university. I started a full-time job at a factory in Leicester, UK when I was 19 years of age and worked up to 15 hours a day. This was nothing similar to what my mother had to endure because the factories have significantly changed since she was working. There were new statutes and legislations that were put in place to give employees of factories safer and happier environment. This however did not make them perfect; I still had to go through nights of barely sleeping and work with little to no breaks.