It's Just Me is a portrait of Allie Cole, a black transgender woman who lives at the fault lines of America's concerns about gender and race, just by being her authentic self. She negotiates the demands of sex work, activism, her complex relationship with her parents, and finding love. Allie Cole is a 26-year-old Black trans woman in Austin, Texas. After overcoming her childhood trauma and negotiating her own gender transition, she is inspired to support the growing trans community further. We witness firsthand her interest in helping trans women to feel safe, visible, and loved. Allie wants to create a non-profit called Allie's Angels, and her hope is to offer social and emotional support to other trans women. Allie wants to learn the best ways to help by learning what other girls need and how to counsel them. Allie's own experiences with being rejected for coming out to her family have left a scar. Now she dreams of offering resources, so other trans women don't have to struggle alone

‘Was This All Worth It?’ Grieving the Death of One of the Last U.S. Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan

1st Place = World Press Photo 2017
1st Place = Visura 2017

Chester, PA, a small town just south of the city of brotherly love, has a rich history and strong African American heritage that dates back to the mid-1600s. In the early 60’s the town experienced an industrial collapse and the subsequent economic meltdown was devastating, still affecting residents of Chester today. The domino effect of pervasive socio-economic issues and a long history of government corruption have created a microcosm of the structural inequalities that plague American society.
We want our audience to understand the complexities of living in a place like Chester and how everything is interlocked: a patchwork of trauma and courage interwoven with the banality of everyday life. While Chester has one of the nation’s highest homicide rates, it has a far lower than average clearance rate. This predominately African American populated city, where education is not adequately available, has a murder rate eighteen times the national average. Chester has become a place where you can get away with murder.

In the 1980's the local governmental bodies around Chester redrew the zoning maps, effectively excluding the city from the surrounding affluent, predominately white school districts. This exclusivity forced countless budget cuts causing seven educational bodies to close in Chester since 2000. In 2013, the school district's graduation rate was 56%, a stark contrast to the national average. With this project we explore the parallels between a lack of education
for youth and the ever-rising crime in Chester without the objective of perpetuating racial stereotypes, a popular tactic with mass media. We strive to expose latent misperceptions of black youth by creating a positive image of black identity through an intimate portrait of the city in the words and voice of its own community. We are vehement in our pursuit of disproving the typical perception of Chester. This is not a forgotten town, these lives are not expendable…and Chester is NOT a place where you can get away with murder.