Mariana has a Bachelor's degree in humanities, major in Latin American history, at the Universidad Catolica del Peru. In 1990 she started as a photographer working for mayors news papers in Peru. In 1993 Mariana won the Willie Vicoy Reuters Fellowship to study one year in the photojournalism sequence of School of Journalism at University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA.
Since 1994, Mariana has been a staff photographer and head of the Reuters Peru office photography department: Covering, editing and producing news and stories in the Country and Latin America. She has covered events of national and international interest such as: Presidential crises, electoral processes, summits, guerrilla attacks in Peru and Colombia, Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia 2000, natural disasters such earthquakes and floods and the MRTA guerrilla's siege at the Japanese embassy in Peru in 1997.
Mariana has documented with Reuters Latin America for the last 15 years and her pictures have been published in all the major papers around the world and in several books and exhibits like: Commission of Truth and Reconciliation, Lima, Peru 2003; National exhibit and book, World Press Photo Foundation, 2 Year Seminar Project Workshop 1998-1999, Lima, Peru; Book: "The Pleasure of Life" published 2001 and exhibit in Amsterdam Holland 2001, and World Press Photo Foundation book "News Stories", Amsterdam Holland 2008.
Mariana participated in the November 2010 MediaStorm Storytelling Workshop. She had the following to say about her experience:
It was great to spend a whole week shooting a more personal story, working with a team of professionals with different skills and experiences, but all sharing the same desire: to produce a perfect final product.
Despite the long nights editing, travelling by subway, crossing New York City every day to get to MediaStorm, walking through Harlem and talking with the characters in the bar, the whole week was a wonderful experience.
I preferred the night at the bar, where everyone was very generous letting us be part of their lives for a moment and allowing me to portray them. I specially enjoyed my conversations with Enrique.
Always a pleasure to make a stop in our daily routines and dedicate a week to learn. Here we learned, not only from the characters portrayed, but from all the people who work at MediaStorm. Everyone had time to share during a week dedicated to think, produce, make and view multimedia work.
Samuel Hargress Jr. is the owner of Paris Blues bar in Harlem, New York. While experiencing dramatic changes around him, Sam created a timeless place where regulars wear godfather hats, snakeskin leather shoes, and 1940's styled zoot suits.