The photographs portrayed the reality that the youth, victims of gun violence, were/are real people, not just some name you hear on the news and forget a few days later. They had lives ahead of them with futures we’ll never get to see and no one except those in their own communities, who subsequently don’t have enough positive representation or positions in the media, can do much to voice their emotions - Carlos Ortiz is giving them that platform.

Aside from the emotions being portrayed by physical actions, the mother crying outside of the shop or the gatherers praying, Ortiz’s raw passion comes alive in these photographs as well as the pain and angst left on the streets of Chicago.

Though there isn’t much violence where I live, I know what it’s like to be unrepresented in media as a person of color and a young woman. I am both angry and saddened; lives are being lost and much isn’t being done to stop or prevent it - or even to be able to talk about it in schools or on the news (though most news is unreliable and biased). Unless it is one of us reporting what is going on in our communities, it won’t be accurate.

"If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X.