Becoming the fly on the wall

Samantha Liss

My favorite first place pictures are located in the community awareness award, "Upstate Girls."

The pictures are honest and intriguing. I felt as though the photographer was a fly on the wall. The pictures are so simple but they speaks volumes as they explain the lives of the less fortunate.

The picture in the gallery I enjoy the most is "Savannah Smoking." The 13-year-old lets a cigarette hang loosely from the side of her mouth as she stares straight into the camera, wearing a bikini top. All of the pictures capture the struggle to succeed. As you keep flipping through the pictures each story is worse than the last. It's a cycle of poverty that is unforgiving, steering 14-year-olds to become pregnant and addicts because they know no other way.

I think the photographer did a great job capturing the honesty of the community and lives of those she photographed and really portrayed the story from the people, as opposed to just reporting about the issues people face. It made it all that more tragic since I could put a name, like Savannah, with a real issue in society.