Photo of the Day


Capturing the Human Experience

February 26, 2020

By Jacqueline Tobin

© Leya Russell

Little girl Samira lives in Bangladesh and suffers with cerebral palsy, which had left her completely debilitated and unable to walk or even go to school.

“Due to home therapy over the past two years, she is now able to walk, have an education, a future and is even required to do chores around the home, like cutting vegetables for the family meals,” explains photographer Leya Russell, whose work I discovered while reviewing her portfolio at WPPI in Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas this week.

Inspired by the work of people like photojournalist great Steve McCurry, the Calgary, Alberta-based Russell says she is filled with the passion and drive to document the human experience through photography. The happiness on Samira’s face as she experiences what is for her the simple joy of cutting vegetables immediately draws the viewer in.

(Photographed using a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV on a 16-35 f/4 L series at 1/250 sec., f/4, 16mm, ISO 4000.)

little Bangladeshi girl cuts vegetable in the family home

Check out more Photos of the Day, and email submissions to rangefinder@emeraldexpo.com.