Private Story
Anya award
Mu photo submission : In 2017, I documented the Rohingya refugee crisis ( images 5 and 6 ) as tens of thousands of refugees desperately fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh. This story proved to be one of the most demanding that I ever covered working in muddy rice paddies in the searing heat, the story of their suffering had to be exposed to the world. The result is that award winning work has been exhibited in numerous countries and widely published. In 2019, I documented stories in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for the first time. The country has a brutal history where rape is commonly used as a weapon of war. I was both shocked and traumatized documenting children as young as three years old who were sexually abused. You will see one image ( image 12) from the Panzi hospital operation room where Balati, age 3, was about to undergo an operation to repair her vaginal area after being raped. My project “Ukraine's War: Elderly Lives Frozen By Conflict” ( images 7 and 8) My focus in Ukraine was the vulnerable, fragile elderly population trapped by a war that sees their lives frozen by conflict, impoverished, living in dilapidated homes. When it comes to war the elderly are rarely the focus so it was important for me to bring global attention to this under-reported issue. Lastly, I wanted to show images from the USA - 2020, which shows my work covering the protests in Portland along with the historic wildfires that devastated parts of Oregon.