Yvonne Albinowski took an ambitious photographic journey across the Nevada portion of U.S. Route 50 — or as Life magazine once dubbed it, “the loneliest road in America.” She discovered, however, that most of the towns along the road “didn’t really feel all that lonely.”

Mette Frandsen's photo collection from neon-charged Las Vegas is not what you’d expect in a glossy tourist brochure full of over-the-top scenes, taut bodies and high-stakes fun. Nor is it what you’d envision in a “Hangover”-esque movie, overrun with excess, despair and depravity.

After her mom passed away in February 2013, Jennifer Loeber was compelled to hold on to even the “most mundane” of her mom’s possessions. To cope with the loss and achieve catharsis, she juxtaposed these objects with vintage photos to make a special kind of memorial.

Ilana Panich-Linsman didn't know much of the child pageant world beyond the bejeweled dresses of reality television shows. But through Emily Dextraze, an 11-year-old competitor from Massachusetts, she was able to get an inside look at the real life of a preteen beauty queen.

Over the past seven years, Jane Fulton Alt has photographed controlled prairie burns in Lake Forest, Illinois. She discovered that although these burns are violent and destructive by nature, they are also regenerative. "We all come into the world and we all leave the world,” she said. “That’s just part of nature.”

Offering a different perspective on the American West, Lucas Foglia's book "Frontcountry" shines a spotlight on the rise of ranchers, boomtowns and mining companies in the area. The project also speaks to residents in more populated areas that are threatened by suburban sprawl.

As a musician from junior high through college, Walker Pickering was in step with his marching band and a part of the camaraderie the group developed. As a photographer for the last 10 years, he focused his camera on high school and college marching bands and traveling drum corps in Texas.

Inspired by an old photograph of the back of a young woman's head, Tara Bogart took similar portraits for her project called “A Modern Hair Study.” These photos highlight the subtle differences of women in a new way - not by their face, for example, or their clothes.