Kaye Martindale and Geoff Brokate traveled through Pakistan for around eight months making portraits of local women, including young blogger Malala Yousafzai, a runner-up for Time’s Person of the Year 2012 award. She was hospitalized in October after being shot in the head by the Taliban.

Photographer Ian Wagreich says the U.S. manufacturing sector is alive and well. For the past two years he has been making portraits of workers at dozens of factories and production plants across the country. “They’re the unknown heroes of the American economy,” he said.

Photographer Adam Ewing took portraits of Richmond residents who had groomed their head and facial hair for their roles as extras in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln.” The clothing, poses, and style of the portraits mix modern and 19th century aesthetics.

For his project exploring the small mountain towns and mining communities in the American West, Bryan Schutmaat tried to emanate the beauty and sorrow of Richard Hugo’s poetry. The poet’s work focusing on the Northwest during the Depression often directed Schutmaat to certain towns.

The Karen people of Myanmar have been embattled in a civil war with the country’s central government since 1949. It is considered the world’s longest ongoing war. In 2011, photographer Jason Florio traveled through the remote jungles of the Karen state, visiting villages and photographing the people he met.

Dutch photographer Jan Banning started taking portraits of homeless people across the southern United States in 2010. He wanted to focus on them as individuals and hopes his images make people look at themselves and possibly rethink their views toward the homeless.

When German photographers Joanna Nottebrock and Insa Cathérine Hagemann chose to explore the topics of death and dying, they made a decision to do so as a team. With their series on undertakers, they hope to give the viewer a closer look at the men and women in an often berated line of work.

In the past few years, photographer Peter Bohler’s focus has shifted from shooting portraiture to shooting subcultures and gatherings. He joined re-enactors for three days in California in the spring during the annual Manzinita High Mountain Rendezvous.