I have been working on my main project for this quarter which was to explore the experiences that my cousins have had in moving from Pakistan to Cleveland, Ohio. They were kind enough to open up their home to me and I spent a wonderful 10 days getting to know all of them much better. For the past few weeks I have been writing an article and creating a layout for a mock magazine, but I wanted to share some of the images before the project is completed.

Above: Halal meat vendor at the West Side Market

Making decorations for the mall windows.

Above: Yasir, right, looks at the website that he and his father are making. They are working with a teacher in Pakistan to create an online Koranic school for kids.

Above: The Khans skype with other members of their family in Pakistan. Yasir, second from left, has an eight month old son who he has never met in person.

Below: Aasma and Hifsa prepare breakfast at their brothers’ apartment.

Classes officially start tomorrow so here are some images from winter break. From Ohio to Maine to New York and back, I took a break from using my “real” camera and played around with my new iPhone 4.

While on a six week break from classes, I’ve begun the editing process for the work I did this past summer in Burkina Faso. The images will eventually be put together in a book for my final master’s degree project. Here’s an image that distracted me while editing.

Turning 21 at Ohio University, America’s newly-named number 1 party school, can be quite an experience. The birthday girl who I photographed, attempted to do a shuffle with her friends, which consists of drinking one shot at each of the potential 18 bars from Union Street to the end of Court Street. After having 9 drinks in one hour, she didn’t quite make it to every bar, but the progression of the night is shown below…

The Indian Mound Festival in The Plains, Ohio held its first Queen contest this year. Here are a few images from the weekend event.

Our first assignment was to shoot only 100 frames…a few of the results are below.

In Dano, there are always people around so this week I stepped back to try to get a sense of the larger community as well as some of the different activities that start to define the roles of men and women in society. This is a part of the project that I´m still working on and I hope to spend some more time in family compounds.

a delicious protein-filled snack…well, I assume since I didn´t actually try one