Vanessa, thirty-five, had three children with an abusive husband. She “lost her mind, started doing heroin”, after losing the children, who were taken away and given to her mother. The drugs led to homelessness and prostitution. She grew up on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, but now spends her time in Hunts Point, “trying to survive everyday. Just doing whatever it takes”.

Shephen Shine, 27, who lost a leg when serving in Iraq in 2007, is tattood with a regimental tattoo reading “Their Sacrifice – Our Freedom” during the Ink For Heroes event on June 18, 2011 in Catterick, England. Ink For Heroes is a charity event to raise money and awareness of the soldiers that get injured during service, with all proceeds going to both “Help The Heroes” and “The British Legion”. Injured soldiers can also get tattooed for free during the event. (Photo by Bethany Clarke/Getty Images)

Boats of fishermen are seen on the dried Poopo lakebed in the Oruro Department, south of La Paz, Bolivia, December 17, 2015. Lake Poopo in Bolivia, the Andean nation's formerly second largest after the famed Titicaca, has dried up entirely. With the water now gone, animals have died off in the millions, according to studies. And the local families, having lost much of their sustenance, have been forced to migrate. (Photo by David Mercado/Reuters)

A designer with over 20 years of experience in the fields of graphic, fashion, and web design along with an extensive career in illustration and the fine arts. All facets of the visual arts eventually combined and became the key contributers to my career in photography. I specialize in personal, event and wedding photography in the Grand Rapids, MI area and beyond.

The "Wedding Palace" (Bagt Kosgi) is located in the southwest of Ashgabat. while the building was designed in a sphere shape surrounded by the eight-corner "Oguzkhan Star" on the corners of the building. There is a map of Turkmenistan on the outer space of the sphere whose radius is 32 meters and it can be seen from far away as the sun reflects off it.

In the remote Argentine Pampas you can find an incredible forest formed in the shape of a guitar. More than 35 years ago, Pedro Ureta unexpectedly lost his wife to a brain aneurysm. Devastated by the loss of his love, he decided to create a shrine to her memory in their field that could only be seen above-head from an airplane. Ureta chose a guitar because it was his late wife’s most loved instrument.

“Sangoma” initiate Dipuo Banda (C) is led out of her teachers shack while she remains in a trance like state prior to dancing during her 3 day initiation ceremony with her teacher, family, friends and students in the Alexandra Township in Johannesburg, South Africa, 14 May 2021. Sangomas, the Zulu term for Medicine Women or traditional healers, fulfill different social and political roles in the community, including divination, physical healing, emotional and spiritual illnesses, directing birth or death rituals and finding lost cattle. (Photo by Kim Ludbrook/EPA/EFE)