RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

On any giv­en day, award-win­ning pho­to­jour­nal­ist An­drea De Sil­va can be found be­hind a cam­era, doc­u­ment­ing his­to­ry and telling sto­ries the world will nev­er for­get. Her lens has cap­tured every­thing from the vi­brant en­er­gy of Car­ni­val to the lives of the rich and fa­mous, as well as the strug­gles of the poor on the street.

But be­yond the ac­co­lades, glob­al ex­hi­bi­tions, and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised im­ages lies an­oth­er sto­ry—one that is far more per­son­al and deeply root­ed.

It is the sto­ry of a moth­er, a grand­moth­er and a de­ter­mined woman whose strength has qui­et­ly held an en­tire fam­i­ly to­geth­er.

As her daugh­ter-in-law, I have had the priv­i­lege of wit­ness­ing that strength up close. An­drea’s lega­cy is not on­ly mea­sured in the pho­tographs that have trav­elled the world, but al­so in the lives she has nur­tured and trans­formed. She has opened her home and heart to fa­ther­less chil­dren, com­fort­ed abused young women, and sup­port­ed col­leagues in times of need—of­ten putting oth­ers be­fore her­self.

A moth­er of four and grand­moth­er of four, An­drea has spent decades bal­anc­ing ca­reer and fam­i­ly life, al­ways with self-sac­ri­fice. Her chil­dren—Kris­t­ian De Sil­va, now a pho­tog­ra­ph­er in his own right; Le­An­dra Head and Ty­lah Ariel, both singers; and Mick­ell De Sil­va—re­flect her re­silience and guid­ance.

Yet her jour­ney through moth­er­hood has been any­thing but easy.

As a sin­gle moth­er, An­drea raised her four chil­dren large­ly on her own while nav­i­gat­ing the re­lent­less de­mands of the news­room at both the Trinidad Ex­press and lat­er the Trinidad Guardian.

Af­ter leav­ing her first mar­riage, she made the coura­geous de­ci­sion to re­build her life, rais­ing Kris­t­ian and Mick­ell while pur­su­ing a ca­reer that would even­tu­al­ly earn her in­ter­na­tion­al ac­claim.

Even as she climbed the ranks from free­lance pho­tog­ra­ph­er to Chief Pho­tog­ra­ph­er, As­so­ciate Pho­to Ed­i­tor, and Act­ing Pho­to Ed­i­tor, An­drea re­mained deeply an­chored to her chil­dren’s needs. She en­sured they ex­pe­ri­enced a full and joy­ful child­hood, tak­ing them on trips abroad to Eng­land, the Unit­ed States, and parts of the Caribbean—of­ten stretch­ing lim­it­ed re­sources to cre­ate mean­ing­ful mem­o­ries.

“I’ve al­ways be­lieved that ex­pos­ing chil­dren to di­verse and var­ied cul­tures is in­valu­able. It helps them grow in­to well-round­ed, cul­tur­al­ly aware, and re­spect­ful of oth­ers,” she said.

To­day, An­drea’s love ex­tends to her grand­chil­dren—Thais De Sil­va, 19, cur­rent­ly study­ing at the In­ter­Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty in Puer­to Ri­co; Alexan­dria, 12; Liam, 10; and Anas­ta­sia De Sil­va, eight. To them, she is sim­ply “Granny”—youth­ful, vi­brant, and al­ways re­turn­ing from trips with gifts and sto­ries.

An­drea al­so pro­vides stead­fast sup­port for her moth­er, Pauline Skin­ner, who suf­fers from de­men­tia.

“My moth­er has out­lived my fa­ther, An­drew Skin­ner, who passed away last year,” she said.

At the same time, she helps her sis­ters, To­nia and So­nia Skin­ner, run er­rands when­ev­er she can.

Those who know An­drea of­ten mar­vel at her bound­less en­er­gy. Now age 60, she ra­di­ates youth­ful­ness that seems un­touched by time, de­spite fac­ing pri­vate health chal­lenges.

To me, her hu­mil­i­ty stands out most. Her spir­i­tu­al­i­ty is deeply in­spir­ing.

Ground­ed in her faith as one of Je­ho­vah’s Wit­ness­es, An­drea draws strength from her re­la­tion­ship with Je­ho­vah. De­spite her de­mand­ing sched­ule, she pri­ori­tis­es her spir­i­tu­al ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing aux­il­iary pi­o­neer­ing and field ser­vice.

“Mak­ing time for my spir­i­tu­al­i­ty is a pri­or­i­ty. I know Je­ho­vah is al­ways by my side, and I give full cred­it to Him for my achieve­ments. At mo­ments when I am faced with chal­lenges, I re­mind my­self of all the things He has seen me through in the past, and that strength­ens my faith,” she said.

Her pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney

An­drea’s en­try in­to pho­tog­ra­phy be­gan at just 17 years old, al­most by chance, when she au­di­tioned for a beau­ty pageant at Chagville Beach, which led to an in­tern­ship at the Trinidad Guardian. Then Chief Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Rudy Tay­lor en­cour­aged her to “go out and take pho­tos.”

“He liked the pic­tures I took, so he pub­lished my work. I wasn’t paid, but it was a good ex­pe­ri­ence,” she re­called.

She added: “As a child grow­ing up, I al­ways had a cam­era—a 110mm or 126mm. I nev­er in­tend­ed to do it pro­fes­sion­al­ly, but I was al­ways pas­sion­ate about pho­tog­ra­phy, and that pas­sion car­ried in­to my ca­reer.”

From those ear­ly days in the dark­room, An­drea steadi­ly built her name across ma­jor me­dia hous­es, in­clud­ing the Guardian, Ex­press, and The Wire. She cov­ered a wide range of as­sign­ments—sports, en­ter­tain­ment, break­ing news, busi­ness, and cul­ture—de­vel­op­ing a rep­u­ta­tion for cap­tur­ing pow­er­ful, au­then­tic mo­ments.

By 2007, her work reached the in­ter­na­tion­al stage when she was rec­om­mend­ed to work with EFE. A year lat­er, she was con­tract­ed by Thom­son Reuters, mark­ing a defin­ing mo­ment in her ca­reer. Through Reuters, her im­ages have been pub­lished by lead­ing glob­al out­lets, in­clud­ing CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, NBC, Ya­hoo News, and The Wall Street Jour­nal.

“My in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure start­ed with EFE in 2007 when my work was pub­lished in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, and in 2008 I signed a con­tract with Reuters,” she said.

At the height of her ca­reer, An­drea made a bold move in 2006, leav­ing the se­cu­ri­ty of the Trinidad Guardian to es­tab­lish her own brand, Sil­va Im­age. The com­pa­ny quick­ly gained recog­ni­tion across T&T and the wider Caribbean.

Her work has con­sis­tent­ly earned in­ter­na­tion­al ac­claim. An­drea’s pho­tographs have been se­lect­ed mul­ti­ple times for Reuters’ pres­ti­gious Ed­i­tor’s Choice and fea­tured as Im­ages of the Day and Month.

Lo­cal­ly, she won Best News Pho­to­graph from the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1997. In 2000, she se­cured first and third place in the Caribbean Beat Pho­to Com­pe­ti­tion. Be­tween 2003 and 2006, she dom­i­nat­ed awards from the As­so­ci­a­tion of Me­dia Pho­tog­ra­phers of Trinidad and To­ba­go, win­ning mul­ti­ple cat­e­gories and be­ing named Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year in 2003.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, her work has ranked among the best—plac­ing first in Reuters’ “Car­ni­val Around the World” in 2010 and top­ping Trav­el Chan­nel Pho­tos of the Week in 2014. Her work has al­so been fea­tured in Fi­nan­cial Times col­lab­o­ra­tions with the Pulitzer Cen­tre and recog­nised by Time Mag­a­zine.

“I was com­mis­sioned by the Fi­nan­cial Times to work on that project in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Pulitzer Cen­tre. I met the team in Ja­maica to be­gin shoot­ing. That was al­so a mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence,” she said.

Her pho­tographs have al­so ap­peared in glob­al plat­forms such as The Guardian UK, The Wash­ing­ton Post, Chica­go Tri­bune, CNN’s Week in Pho­tos, The New York Times, and oth­ers.

Be­yond pub­li­ca­tion, An­drea has ex­hib­it­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. In 2008, she show­cased her work in Lon­don through the T&T High Com­mis­sion and lat­er in Bar­ba­dos. In 2017, she be­came the first Caribbean pho­to­jour­nal­ist fea­tured in the “100 Won­ders of the World” ex­hi­bi­tion in St Pe­ters­burg, Rus­sia.

In 2018, she was com­mis­sioned by Macmil­lan Pub­lish­ing to pro­duce im­ages for the cov­er of My Self, My Word. She lat­er launched her per­son­al project, A Day in the Life Of, doc­u­ment­ing every­day sto­ries with depth and au­then­tic­i­ty. Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, she led the im­pact­ful “Mask Up” cam­paign, us­ing pho­tog­ra­phy to pro­mote pub­lic health aware­ness.

Yet, de­spite her glob­al suc­cess, An­drea re­mains ground­ed.

Nev­er ma­te­ri­al­is­tic, she has built her life qui­et­ly—through sac­ri­fice, re­silience, faith, and un­con­di­tion­al love.

She em­bod­ies what it means to be strong—not just ris­ing through ad­ver­si­ty, but lift­ing oth­ers along the way.