(photo by Susana Raab) The development of areas East of the river in the years following World War II resulted in a larger proportion of apartment style buildings and public housing units. Perhaps none were more infamous than Benning Terrace, also known as “Simple City”, which was known in the 1990s as the center of violent gang activity. I wanted to photograph some of the larger public housing complexes to give a feel for the landscape so I visited Benning Terrace one afternoon. I became distracted from my original purpose by this elegantly turned out young lady playing with friends outside a building. I photographed her, confidently in charge of her environment, and perfectly appointed. With very little direction Zaniya owned her photograph.
(Photo by Aude Guerrucci) Cecile in the water, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on April 18, 2015.
(Photo by Allison Shelley) Mariam Rizik, 26, five months pregnant, poses for a portrait with two of her five children in her village of Lukweti, Masisi, in the conflict-ridden North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, July 29, 2014. When APCLS rebels clashed with the Congolese army in the village earlier this year, Mariam and her family fled with nothing more than the pots in the wash bucket in front of her, hiding in the bush from February through May. They are now trying to rebuild their lives in a home that they are renting.
(Photo by Allison Shelley) FARDC soldier Janine Bisimwa poses for a portrait in the Katindo barracks in Goma, DRC, July 25, 2014. She says she injured her eye a year ago in a fight against rebels led by the notorious warlord Cheka. Only three of her five sons live with her in the barracks. She wishes she could return home to the others in Bukavu but she is embarrassed of the toll the war has taken on her. “When I left home I was so healthy. Now I’m ashamed to go home,” she says. “I wish they would just say no more women in the army, pay us off and end the contract.”
(Photo by Becky Harlan) A student at Westbrook Elementary plays in the water near Old Angler's Inn in Potomac, Maryland. The April afternoon marked the school's 20th year anniversary of releasing shad fry into the Potomac river as part of an effort to restore the river.
(Photo by Caroline Lacey) 24 Jan. - Marina Hoya grew up in Morazan, El Salvador, near the small village of El Motzote where the entire population of over 1, ooo civilians was massacred by the governments military during the country's brutal civil war. Because of the war Marina’s family was forced to flee and now straddles El Salvador and the United States.
(Photo by Melissa Golden) An anti-Hobby Lobby case protester is seen outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on Monday, June 30, 2014. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations can hold religious objections that allow them to opt out of providing birth control, as mandated by the Affordable Care Act.
(Photo by Ellie Van Houtte) A graduate of Alta Vista High School is embraced by her family after her commencement ceremony in Mountain View, CA. The 125-student four-year alternative high school offers teen parents and other young people the opportunity to finish school whie working and facing life challenges.
(Photo by Erin Scott) Girls jump rope together during recess in Karanse, Tanzania. Though problems persist, Tanzania is making significant strides towards gender parity in primary education, as seen in this school, where boys and girls are equally represented.
(Photo by Gabriela Bulisova) A mother and a daughter from La Plata, Maryland, fall asleep on a four hour long bus ride to United States Penitentiary-Hazelton in West Virginia, where they will visit their incarcerated husband and father. Families often lose connection with their loved ones when they are sent to prisons located far from their homes.
(Photo by Gabriella Demczuk) A child looks out the window of a bus at a line of National Guard troops and police officers in Baltimore, where six officers were charged with crimes including murder and manslaughter over the arrest and fatal injury of Freddie Gray, May 1, 2015.
(Photo by Gabriella Demczuk) Karen Sharpe, mother of Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager, who was arrested and charged with murder after state investigators said he had given inconsistent accounts about the shooting of Walter Scott, a 50-year-old forklift operator. “I think he’s scared to death,” Ms. Sharpe said in an interview shortly after visiting her son at the Charleston County jail, in Charleston, S.C., April 10, 2015.
(Photo by Gabriella Demczuk) Tanika, 16, who has spent months on house arrest and weeks locked up at a juvenile detention center in Laurel, Md., for a minor fight at her high school, sits on the couch at her home in Washington, on Dec. 9, 2014. Juvenile court judges in the U.S. are given wide discretion to decide what is in a young offender’s best interest, many turning to incarceration, hoping it will deter disobedient teenagers from further transgressions.
(Photo by Jacquelyn Martin) Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is reflected in a framed U.S. flag while she is interviewed about military sexual assaults on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, April 30, 2015. Sen. Gillibrand has sponsored a plan to remove sexual assault crimes from the military justice chain of command.
(Photo by Kristin Adair) Elizabeth Lloyd poses for a portrait at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, D.C., on Veterans' Day, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2014. Lloyd, 90, joined the Women's Army Corps during World War II, where she served as a drill sergeant training the first regular Army companies of women, and ultimately retired from the Army in 1971.
(Photo by Kate Warren) Boylesque performer Jason Barnes rehearses for an upcoming show in his apartment in Washington, DC. Though he chooses to use a male name and pronouns, he wears women's clothing and performs as the genderless 'Pussy Noir', preferring to refer to his style as 'gender fuck fashion'.
(photo by Lindsey Leger) Lily Monir Matini, center, gets into wardrobe backstage during a fashion show hosted by Reaching All HIV+ Muslims in America (RAHMA) in Washington, DC on Aut. 16, 2014. The clothing and accessories are all made by Muslim women designers from around the US, specializing in creating modest fashion that complies with Islamic tradition.
(Photo by Lindsey Leger) Two young girls play in the Kadifekale neighborhood of Izmir, Turkey on April 12, 2015. This area is home to many refugees from Aleppo who fled the civil war in Syria; many are women and children who came because they had family connections in the city, and for others Izmir is a waystation before attempting to cross into Europe to seek asylum.
(Photo by Leigh Vogel) Sisters at Mants'ase Children's Home in Mohale's Hoek, Lesotho, are assisted by a house mother as they prepare to walk to school. In Lesotho, more than half of the 260,000 adults living with HIV in Lesotho are women, yielding a high rate of single and double orphans to be cared for in orphanages.
(Photo by Lexey Swall) Ruby Corado (top, sitting) holds court on the front porch of Casa Ruby in Washington, D.C., where greets the trans men and women who come looking for help with housing, health care, legal services and jobs. "Most of the people who come to Casa Ruby don't have a family that accepts them, or that loves them for the most part. So we have a family here, and it is the concept of a chosen family," she says.
(Photo by Lauren Schneiderman) Lewiston High School cheerleader Maraeka Merchant cries tears of joy after it was announced that her team, the Lewiston Devils, won the Maine State Cheerleading Championship at the Augusta Civic Center in Augusta, Maine. Last year, Lewiston came in fourth place, interrupting their chance to become the first four time champions in Class A history.
(Photo by Maria Daniel Balcazar) Honoring Yemanja: the Godess of the Sea. February 2015 - Niteroi, Brazil
(Photo by Meghan Dhaliwal) August 16, 2014 - Kjirsten Gray, a member the Wisconsin National Guard 829th Engineer Co., at cigar night with her company at Forward Operating Base Fenty in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Gray is part of a group of engineers working to build up contractor housing at FOB Fenty as U.S. military combat operations in Afghanistan end.
(Photo by Stephanie Cordle Frankel) Army Sgt. Janet Howell, center, closes her eyes as she listens during the dedication of the Weldon Springs Army Reserve Center in honor of Sgt. Melvin Mora on Saturday, May 17, 2014 in Weldon Springs, MO. Sgt. Mora died in 2004 in West Baghdad, Iraq, when his camp was hit by a mortor attack.
(Photo by Sarah Miller) Seven year- old Nishu sits in on the after school English classes taught by her mother, Asha, in a village outside of Jaipur, India. Though not enrolled in the class, she avidly took notes alongside the other girls in an after- school Women's Empowerment program in June of 2014.
(Photo by Sarah Miller) Jalynn, pictured here, experienced India very differently than her white counterparts when she visited for a month in June of 2014. For her, it was a traumatic experience-- no thanks to unsavory comments about her skin color and hair texture-- that has caused her to further examine beauty standards and the systemic racism at play in India and elsewhere.