Denise's Colorful Moments

My name is Denise Vasquez, and I am a Puerto Rican, Disabled Photographer, Writer and Artist born and raised in New York City. I left home at the age of seventeen and have been traveling the world since. Having lived in Scotland, London, The USVI and California, my experiences led me to share my journey through my writing, music, art & photography.

When I got injured at work doing photography almost three years ago, and became permanently disabled, my experiences made me aware of how society views and treats disabled people.

There are many challenges I face on a daily basis because the world is not equally accessible to everyone. Since becoming permanently disabled, I’ve experienced disrespect, abuse, exclusion, neglect, discrimination, and have often felt overlooked with paid opportunities, and not represented in the media. Being disabled does not mean I am not able to exist, to work, to function in society. It means I am not able to do things like I used to do, and It means that I’ve gotten even more focused, patient, and creative in how I approach accomplishing my goals.

But while trying to accomplish my goals, like traveling and doing photography outdoors, I noticed too many places are not ADA compliant (which is the law), even when they say they are. I founded “The Disabled Photographer Project”, blog, and “How Accessible Is Accessible” YouTube series, to demonstrate what is really accessible and what isn’t, what changes need to be made by sharing how things are, in hopes of bringing awareness to what can be improved! Having access to the outdoors is not only healing, it makes me happy and has an important educational aspect.

Experiencing the outdoors taught me an appreciation for the environment, nature, the land and wildlife, while building confidence, which is an important part of learning about conservation, self discovery, and building a better world for everyone. We are all human beings, and we all have the right to have equal accessibility to nature and the outdoors, whether it’s to connect, to heal, to create or to be happy. My mission with my work is to bring awareness to our beautiful world that needs to be equally accessible to everyone.

Click here to learn more about Denise and The Disabled Photographer Project.