Monica Almeida has built a career on quiet observation, focusing a trained eye to capture subtle cues of expression, shifting mood, light and pattern. She developed her skills as a photojournalist for major metropolitan newspapers, able to move quickly and shoot decisively, whether covering breaking news or creating a formal portrait. She is currently an independent photographer based in Los Angeles, her hometown. As a staff photographer for The New York Times for 24 years she travelled thousands of miles photographing assignments nationwide. As the sole Los Angeles bureau photographer, she covered major news events, politics, features and entertainment throughout the western U.S., always with a national point of view. She has photographed 20 Academy Awards ceremonies and has covered every presidential campaign since 1992. Monica’s images give a strong sense of place. They humanize issues often debated in dry and abstract terms, described in soundbites and policy plans - from poverty and the economy, immigration or the environment. Her images transform data-driven news reports into compelling narratives --- literally putting a face to them. Her experience encompasses a full spectrum of subjects and situations and she is comfortable hunting for photos at crowded media events or in remote landscapes, the only photographer for miles around. And she is equally adept working independently or in close collaboration with writers, photo editors and art directors; working on long term projects or shooting, editing and filing remotely on tight deadlines. Born in East Los Angeles, Monica began her career as a photo intern and freelance photographer at the Los Angeles Times, where she was on a team of journalists that produced a Pulitzer Prize winning series on Southern California's Latino community. She moved to New York City in 1986 to work as a staff photographer at the New York Daily News and travelled to Southeast Asia to document the lives of Amerasian teenagers. She joined the staff of The New York Times in 1992 and was promoted to National Photographer based in Los Angeles in 1997. She majored in photojournalism at California State University Long Beach and studied fine art and documentary photography at the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles. Her photographs have been published in "Campaigns, A Century of Presidential Races", "Requiem for the Heartland, the Oklahoma City Bombing", "A Passage to Vietnam", "A Day in the Life of Ireland", "A Day in the Life of Italy", "One Earth", "The Power to Heal" and "A Day in the Life of California".