This website, blog, and images are a little thin at the moment because we are in the process of transferring and integrating all of the information from our previous websites (gozotravels and studiozola) to the current one. Check back soon for new images and blog posts! And enjoy a little ice cream too… someday Dallas will cool down!
Bon Appetit,
Karen
“Today, I am not sure that what I wrote is true.
I am certain it is truthful”
Charlotte Delbo from Auschwitz and After
“The world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.” Henry Miller
I write. I design. I shoot.
It all just seems to go together doesn’t it? Words and images. Advertising and photography. Stories and pictures. Someone put a camera in my right hand and a plane ticket in my left and there was just no stopping me. For a long time, all I wanted to be was a nomad and capture the images of faraway people and places.
But now I know I don’t have to go too far to capture a moment or a memory. An image snapped in a brief moment during a weekend trip to the lake says a thousand things. 
To me it speaks of summer and loyalty and laughter and freedom and of fun. It says open up your eyes because stories are all around us. We just have to remember to look for them.
And we have to remember to listen.
Sometimes stories make us open our eyes wider, challenge us to think bigger, and engage us in a world beyond our own backyards and national borders. Sometimes they make us smile and laugh till our cheeks shake and our throat hurts. And sometimes they infuriate us and confuse us and make us doubt everything we believe in.
Good stories come in all kinds of packages.
Images and words.
TV ads and classic novels.
Poetry and rock songs.
Fact and fiction.
The famous ones, the ones still to be famous, and those that may never be written.
Your story and my story.
Émile Zola knew how to tell a great story, but he also knew when to stand up for the truth. At the height of his career he took a huge personal risk and launched a public campaign to clear the name of Alfred Dreyfus – a French army officer whom Zola felt had been wrongly accused of treason – primarily because he was a Jew.
Zola’s decision to adamantly defend Dreyfus and openly accuse the French government of anti-semitism put this favorite literary son of France on shaky territory. But despite facing public outrage, financial losses, and exile from his beloved homeland, Zola never backed down from what he believed in. He stood up for what was right. And because of Zola and others like him, Dreyfus was cleared of all wrong doing.
Read everything. Use every word. Every color. Every smile. Every road sign. Pay attention. Look for truth. Truth matters. Stories Matter.
