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A photographer captures life inside Chicago Public Schools
Jael Augustin, Ogden International High School, 2019.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Melissa Ann Pinney photographed the everyday moments of adolescence inside Chicago Public Schools during a seven-year artist residency. Her series Becoming Themselves portrays students, especially those marginalized and underrepresented, as they navigate identity, community and the many transformations of growing up.
We interviewed Pinney about the making of her series and the stories behind some of her favorite images. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Mila Cardenas and Alvin Truong, Senn High School, 2023.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Antonio Epps and his walking stick, Senn High School, 2025.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
What drew you to photograph inside Chicago Public Schools?
I was invited by Artists in Public Schools, an organization that pairs artists for residencies in schools all over the city, to photograph Bell School and Ogden International Schools. It was an incredible opportunity to photograph and immerse myself in often overlooked communities of children and teens in Chicago.
Since I was in my teens and photographing my own family, childhood and adolescence has been a focus of my work. Girl Ascending, my 2010 monograph, explored the social lives and coming-of-age rituals of my daughter, Emma, her friends and teammates. The possibilities inherent in widening the scope of my work beyond these established personal connections was exciting.
Asmah Mohammad Zakaria and Arshia Tahir, Senn High School, 2025.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Hireath Magee, a 2022 graduate of Ogden International High School, in Chicago, 2024.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
When you first started, what kinds of images or stories did you hope to capture?
I’m interested in photography as a process, one of paying close attention to the richness and mystery already present in the everyday world. I capture what’s happening in the moment, and the story reveals itself afterwards in contemplation of the work itself.
This is an opportunity to make what I think of as real pictures — images that reward sustained and repeated viewings and eschew stereotype and cliché. I had no idea what to expect in the schools, but through trial and error, I found opportunities to make pictures as I became part of the school community. I never know what the students will do next — their beauty, their compassion and their conflicts are unrehearsed. The teens collaborate in the art-making by welcoming me into their world.
My photographs are both documents of a time and place and works of art. References to contemporary culture, to history and to ideas of representation are all embedded in the pictures. When I began photographing students in three different Chicago public schools, I had no idea of what was to come — how the project would evolve and shift through an ongoing global pandemic, a renewed focus on systemic racial and gender inequities and rampant gun violence. Now it’s a document of a historic time.
Emilio Castelan, Senn High School, 2024.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Kevin Cooper, Senn High School, 2023.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
How much time did you spend working on Becoming Themselves?
This project is ongoing and still evolving since 2018, when I started photographing in Bell School. In Their Own Light was the first book of my early pictures from an elementary, middle and several high schools. In Becoming Themselves, I focus solely on two high schools — Ogden International High School and Senn High School — between 2019 and 2025.
Halloween, Senn High School, 2023.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Khadijatou Sohna and Alyanna Manibo, Senn High School, 2024.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
What was the most challenging part of this project?
It is very hard to witness the grief and ongoing trauma many students experience as part of their everyday lives, especially when we hear that a student in the community has been shot and killed. Tragically, eight students I photographed died that way. The trauma of gun violence reverberates everywhere.
A flag football team, Senn High School, 2024.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Homecoming pep rally, Senn High School, 2022.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Lizzie Williams, Senn High School, 2021.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
What’s the story behind one of your favorite photographs?
With her My Little Pony leggings and arms loaded with jewelry, Lizzie Williams clearly stood out in the hallway crowded with students at their lockers gathering their coats and bags. I introduced myself and asked if Lizzie wanted to make a portrait. We went to the old gym for its brilliant light and huge south-facing windows. In the midst of working out Lizzie’s pose and position, the boys basketball team starting running laps around the gym, casting shadows onto the wall where Lizzie stood. At first I was annoyed by this unexpected disruption, but I soon realized that, far from an unwelcome distraction, the shadows suggest another level of mystery and complexity. I’m grateful for serendipity!
The DePaul University Art Museum added this photograph and six others from the project to their permanent collection last spring. A class of Senn students, many of whom are represented in the photographs, took a field trip to the museum to see the works.
Jae Nguyen, Sal Vega and Audrey Harmon, Senn High School, 2025.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Kho’vya Greenwood and her brother, Coby, at Kho’vya’s prom send-off celebration, Chicago, 2022.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Were there any moments that surprised you during the process?
Many moments surprised me.
One day early last fall, a student I hadn’t met before asked me to take his picture. I was happy to do so and we found a place by the windows with some light. When I looked through my lens, I suddenly recognized Axle, a student I’d first met two years before, when he transferred to Senn. I had photographed him several other times. Axle had transformed himself radically with a new short hair cut and different style of dress.
I am always surprised and moved when a student tells me that the project made a positive impact on their life. Travion Williams, at Ogden International High School, said he was shy, self-conscious and unsure of himself when we made his portrait in 2019. Travion’s portrait was one of the 84 portraits installed on panels in the school’s front lobby in the summer of 2020. Classes would be completely online that fall, but outdoor sports were still allowed. When the cross country team started practicing, Travion discovered that his friends and teammates recognized and admired him. It changed the way he saw himself.
It’s rewarding when I’m told by a student that my work is important to them. As my ties to the community have deepened — I’ve come to understand the meaning this project holds for me and for the students themselves, who tell me they feel truly “seen” by participating in the project. The students have profoundly affected the ways I understand the lives of others; my relationships now transcend school to include family events, parties and baby showers. I couldn’t have predicted the strong connections I would develop with some of the students, who keep in touch even years after they’ve graduated.
When I brought Sophiat Agboola a print of her portrait, she told me it was inspiring. Surprised, I asked in what way it was inspiring and to whom — I couldn’t guess. Sophiat said she had occasionally been made fun of for wearing her natural hair; her portrait had given her the confidence to do so.
Of course, the pandemic surprised me. And the fact that a project I expected to last one year could still be challenging and rewarding after seven was a complete surprise, too.
Jo Gonda and Andrew McDermott at prom, Senn High School, 2024.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Jakolbi Lard, at prom, Ogden International High School, 2019. Lard was shot and killed in Chicago in January 2022.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Do you have any memorable anecdotes or encounters from your time in the schools ?
I photographed Jakolbi Lard only once, at prom in 2019, drawn by the broken heart he had shaved in to his hair. In January 2022, I learned that Jakolbi had been shot and killed. Jakolbi’s death and the passage of time bring a different perspective to the broken heart shaved into his scalp. Now I see the wings formed by the mirror frame behind Jakolbi’s back. Jakolbi’s mother, Patricia Lard, told me that rather than being heartbroken, he was the heart-breaker. She brought Jakolbi’s daughter, Jamyah, to an exhibition that included Jakolbi’s portrait in 2023. She believes that exhibiting Jakolbi’s portrait honors his life. Ms. Lard thanked me for “… seeing in her Sun (sic) what the world did not.”
Shamaiya Mitchell and Stephon Wright, Senn High School, 2023.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
The last day of school for the class of 2025, Senn High School, 2025.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
Has working in schools changed how you think about education or childhood?
The students have a lot more agency than kids in my generation or even my daughter’s generation did. These students are free to define themselves through their chosen teams and clubs, their dress, sexual orientation, pronouns and sometimes taking on a new name. There’s a freedom in the acceptance and allowance for difference I see and a closeness in the physical camaraderie between many of the students.
I started reading the news more closely when I began this project. CPS (Chicago Public Schools) and the CTU (the Chicago Teachers Union) are frequently in the headlines. It’s clear that Chicago’s past is linked to its present by a history of events affecting the city in housing, education, racial and gender equity and immigration. All of these issues flow through the permeable wall between the city and the public schools.
DeJa Rae Reaves, a 2022 graduate of Ogden International High School. Reaves was shot and killed in April 2023, her freshman year at North Carolina A&T.
Melissa Ann Pinney
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Melissa Ann Pinney
What do you hope viewers take away from seeing these images?
I hope these pictures encourage a deeper consideration and appreciation of the radiant young people in our public schools that goes far beyond the stereotypes. I intend these portraits to honor and commemorate those who are vulnerable and often underrepresented.
Melissa Ann Pinney is an artist based in Chicago. You can see more of her work on her website, MelissaAnnPinney.com, or on Instagram, at @melissa_ann_pinney.
A man is tackled after spraying an unknown substance at US Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (L) during a town hall she was hosting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 27, 2026. (Photo by Octavio JONES / AFP via Getty Images)
OCTAVIO JONES/AFP via Getty Images/AFP
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OCTAVIO JONES/AFP via Getty Images/AFP
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was rushed by a man during a town hall event Tuesday night and sprayed with a liquid via a syringe.
Footage from the event shows a man approaching Omar at her lectern as she is delivering remarks and spraying an unknown substance in her direction, before swiftly being tackled by security. Omar called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign or face impeachment immediately before the assault.
Noem has faced criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis Saturday.
Omar’s staff can be heard urging her to step away and get “checked out,” with others nearby saying the substance smelled bad.
“We will continue,” Omar responded. “These f******* a**holes are not going to get away with it.”
A statement from Omar’s office released after the event said the individual who approached and sprayed the congresswoman is now in custody.
“The Congresswoman is okay,” the statement read. “She continued with her town hall because she doesn’t let bullies win.”
A syringe lays on the ground after a man, left, approached Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, during a town hall event in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. The man was apprehended after spraying an unknown substance according to the Associated Press. Photographer: Angelina Katsanis/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Bloomberg
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Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Bloomberg
Omar followed up with a statement on social media saying she will not be intimidated.
I’m ok. I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work.
I don’t let bullies win.
Grateful to my incredible constituents who rallied behind me. Minnesota strong.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 28, 2026
As Omar continued her remarks at the town hall, she said: “We are Minnesota strong and we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw at us.”
Just three days ago, fellow Democrat Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida said he was assaulted at the Sundance Festival by a man “who told me that Trump was going to deport me before he punched me in the face.”
Threats against Congressional lawmakers have been rising. Last year, there was an increase in security funding in the wake of growing concerns about political violence in the country.
According to the U.S. Capitol Police, the number of threat assessment cases has increased for the third year in a row. In 2025, the USCP investigated 14,938 “concerning statements, behaviors, and communications” directed towards congressional lawmakers, their families and staff. That figure represents a nearly 58% increase from 2024.
new video loaded: F.A.A. Ignored Safety Concerns Prior to Collision Over Potomac, N.T.S.B. Says
transcript
transcript
F.A.A. Ignored Safety Concerns Prior to Collision Over Potomac, N.T.S.B. Says
The National Transportation Safety Board said that a “multitude of errors” led to the collision between a military helicopter and a commercial jet, killing 67 people last January.
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“I imagine there will be some difficult moments today for all of us as we try to provide answers to how a multitude of errors led to this tragedy.” “We have an entire tower who took it upon themselves to try to raise concerns over and over and over and over again, only to get squashed by management and everybody above them within F.A.A. Were they set up for failure?” “They were not adequately prepared to do the jobs they were assigned to do.”
By Meg Felling
January 27, 2026
President Trump speaks as U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth looks on during a meeting of his Cabinet at the White House in December 2025.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Relatives of two Trinidadian men killed in an airstrike last October are suing the U.S. government for wrongful death and for carrying out extrajudicial killings.
The case, filed in Massachusetts, is the first lawsuit over the strikes to land in a U.S. federal court since the Trump administration launched a campaign to target vessels off the coast of Venezuela. The American government has carried out three dozen such strikes since September, killing more than 100 people.
Among them are Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, who relatives say died in what President Trump described as “a lethal kinetic strike” on Oct. 14, 2025. The president posted a short video that day on social media that shows a missile targeting a ship, which erupts in flame.
“This is killing for sport, it’s killing for theater and it’s utterly lawless,” said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “We need a court of law to rein in this administration and provide some accountability to the families.”
The White House and Pentagon justify the strikes as part of a broader push to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S. The Pentagon declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying it doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation.
But the new lawsuit described Joseph and Samaroo as fishermen doing farm work in Venezuela, with no ties to the drug trade. Court papers said they were headed home to family members when the strike occurred and now are presumed dead.
Neither man “presented a concrete, specific, and imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to the United States or anyone at all, and means other than lethal force could have reasonably been employed to neutralize any lesser threat,” according to the lawsuit.
Lenore Burnley, the mother of Chad Joseph, and Sallycar Korasingh, the sister of Rishi Samaroo, are the plaintiffs in the case.
Their court papers allege violations of the Death on the High Seas Act, a 1920 law that makes the U.S. government liable if its agents engage in negligence that results in wrongful death more than 3 miles off American shores. A second claim alleges violations of the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreign citizens to sue over human rights violations such as deaths that occurred outside an armed conflict, with no judicial process.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Jonathan Hafetz at Seton Hall University School of Law are representing the plaintiffs.
“In seeking justice for the senseless killing of their loved ones, our clients are bravely demanding accountability for their devastating losses and standing up against the administration’s assault on the rule of law,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel at the ACLU.
U.S. lawmakers have raised questions about the legal basis for the strikes for months but the administration has persisted.
—NPR’s Quil Lawrence contributed to this report.
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