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brianamelia
PHOTOJOURNALISM
Publication and self assigned reportage
El Paso constituents gather to protest the 380 tax agreement with Meta’s controversial new data center development at a contentious El Paso City Council Meeting on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 in El Paso, Texas. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
The Adoption Trap / Carmel Swann fights in a Fort Bend County district court to regain custody of her son three years after signing a contract for a brief foster care placement. Pictured at home on Friday, May 30, 2025. Briana Vargas for The Texas Observer
Can the Texas Shrimp Diva Save a Dying Industry? / Nikki Johnson-Kunz, also known as the Texas Shrimp Diva, working in Galveston Bay on April 12, 2025. Briana Vargas for Texas Monthly
When a Vintage RV Is Your Home, Repair Is a Way of Life / Scott Gilbertson drives his 1969 Dodge Travco along the Pensacola, Florida coast with his family on February 19, 2023. Briana Vargas for Wired Magazine
Ana Reza, bridge chaplain, runs an asylum shelter at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in El Paso, Texas. Reza works with the Rio Grande Borderland Ministries to provide safe haven to recent arrivals seeking asylum who have been released by Customs and Border Protection. Briana Vargas for The New York Times
The interior of Southern News Group building following the Get Out the Vote Rally hosted by the Asian American Democrats of Texas in Houston's Asiatown on October 15, 2022. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
Aubrey Freeman holds a hat belonging to his late father, Ancel Walton Freeman, in Batson, Texas, on Saturday, July 30, 2022. Bud, as Ancel was known to friends and family, died of blood loss following surgery performed by Eric Heston Scheffey in 1994. Briana Vargas for The Texas Observer
Aubrey Freeman contemplates a photograph of himself in his Batson, Texas home on July 30, 2022. Briana Vargas for The Texas Observer
Delegates listen to proposed amendments to the legislative priorities list during the 2022 Texas State Republican Convention on June 18 in Houston, Texas. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
An abortion-rights demonstrator speaks in front of the Bob Casey Federal Courthouse in Houston following the Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, June 24, 2022. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
Deshana Green and her children visit Galveston Beach during spring break on March 11, 2021. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
Lisa, an anonymous HPV patient living in a Houston hotel to escape domestic abuse, navigates the uncertainties of Planned Parenthood being withdrawn from Medicaid coverage. The state's health commission gave Planned Parenthood's Medicaid patients until Feb. 3, 2021 to find new doctors. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
Maya Francis sits outside her current place of employment in Sugar Land, Texas on December 2, 2020. After losing work to the pandemic, she found support from a Facebook group that helps thousands of jobless Texans maneuver through the state’s unemployment system. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
Thousands of Texans are still not able to afford rent because of the COVID-19 recession in Texas. Elsa Ramírez and her daughters Josseline, 11, and Francheska, 4, have managed to stay housed in their two-bedroom Houston apartment thanks to a federal eviction moratorium that expires on December 31, 2020. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
Lexy Bogney, a senior at Baylor University, serves as secretary and community coordination chair for the Baylor NAACP and is a member of the Commission on Historic Campus Representations. Texas universities promised action after summer’s racial reckoning, but they’re still reluctant to shed Confederate relics. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
William and Virginia Reitmeyer hold signs for motorists in support of Biden with their mother, Jenny Reitmeyer, outside the Kingwood Community Center on Election Day 2020. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
As schools reopen with mostly online classes due to COVID-19, surplus desks and chairs are provided to help students create effective remote learning spaces in their homes during a drive-thru school supply giveaway in Houston, Texas on August 22, 2020. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
The sun rises on The Grand Candela memorial in El Paso, Texas on August 3, 2020. One year later, El Pasoans remember victims and survivors of the Walmart shooting that claimed 23 lives in 2019. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
Friends and family gather outside of Power House Gym on July 5, 2020 in Houston, Texas, to honor the life of Fort Hood soldier Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén, who went missing in April from the Central Texas Army post. Briana Vargas for The Texas Tribune
Amid nationwide protests against femicides, a demonstrator spray paints "Where is Esmeralda" and "ISA LIVES!" inside the Centro de Justicia para las Mujeres “Maricela Escobedo Ortíz” in Cd. Juarez, Chihuahua on March 9, 2020. The agency, named after the Mexican social activist who was killed while protesting the murder of her daughter, was instated to investigate crimes against women.
Activists from feminist collectives protest femicides outside the Centro de Justicia para las Mujeres “Maricela Escobedo Ortíz”, an agency instated to investigate crimes against women in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua on March 9, 2020.
Anas Kabani leads his friends through an alley in Ouzai on May 17th, 2018. The boys are part of Ouzville, a project conceived in the Beirut suburb by businessman Ayad Nasser. His aim is to beautify the area by inviting artists to paint the neighborhood, simultaneously engaging young residents creatively and teaching them community conservation and care.
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