There was always a camera around my house," Choma tells CNN Travel. "My mom wasn't a photographer, but she always had a camera and I always liked to play with it. She would enroll me in little photography classes at rec centers. Choma takes after her mother in more ways than one. My mom was also a flight attendant," says Choma. "She used to work for Pacific Southwest Airlines -- and it was that cool, hot pink, retro era of flight attendants -- but there are no pictures of it!. San Francisco-native Choma says she "fell into" flight attending.
"I was applying to jobs in Hong Kong and New York, all kinds of things that would take me far away," she says. "I just wanted to experience something different. Choma initially saw Virgin as a stepping stone, hoping to return to an arts career post-Recession. It was a really bad time to graduate with an art degree," she recalls. "When I started at Virgin I thought it would be two years, and I didn't even tell anyone what I was doing, because I felt like I needed to be a 'true artist' or something like that. So now it's just kind of ironic that it's come a little bit full circle in that regard. When she began air stewarding, Choma remembered her mother's career -- and the lack of photographs documenting her travels. Choma wanted her colleagues' families to have snapshots of this period of their lives -- so she decided to start taking her camera to work. I like taking pictures of my friends and the thought that their kids will have pictures of them," Choma says. Choma and her colleagues are close and she loves photographing the moments they share. We've grown up together. Choma says. We've gone through breakups and marriages, deaths in the family, babies and with this job you have to show up to work no matter what. Capturing this friendship on camera remains important to Choma -- but her project took on a new angle -- and a sense of urgency -- after Alaska Airlines announced in March 2017 that it had purchased Virgin America.
Come 2019, the iconic airline will be no more. When our airline got purchased it just kind of drove it home for me to preserve the culture that we grew up with," says Choma. We are like a family, so when they made the announcement that it was going to dissolve into nothing, it became kind of a priority to bring my camera to work and preserve images before it's gone
"I was applying to jobs in Hong Kong and New York, all kinds of things that would take me far away," she says. "I just wanted to experience something different. Choma initially saw Virgin as a stepping stone, hoping to return to an arts career post-Recession. It was a really bad time to graduate with an art degree," she recalls. "When I started at Virgin I thought it would be two years, and I didn't even tell anyone what I was doing, because I felt like I needed to be a 'true artist' or something like that. So now it's just kind of ironic that it's come a little bit full circle in that regard. When she began air stewarding, Choma remembered her mother's career -- and the lack of photographs documenting her travels. Choma wanted her colleagues' families to have snapshots of this period of their lives -- so she decided to start taking her camera to work. I like taking pictures of my friends and the thought that their kids will have pictures of them," Choma says. Choma and her colleagues are close and she loves photographing the moments they share. We've grown up together. Choma says. We've gone through breakups and marriages, deaths in the family, babies and with this job you have to show up to work no matter what. Capturing this friendship on camera remains important to Choma -- but her project took on a new angle -- and a sense of urgency -- after Alaska Airlines announced in March 2017 that it had purchased Virgin America.
Come 2019, the iconic airline will be no more. When our airline got purchased it just kind of drove it home for me to preserve the culture that we grew up with," says Choma. We are like a family, so when they made the announcement that it was going to dissolve into nothing, it became kind of a priority to bring my camera to work and preserve images before it's gone
