Some photos from my college thesis, "Shooting Back," winner of a Hoopes Prize and nominated for a W. Eugene Smith Fund award in 1988. The thesis was spurred by having endured a number of assaults while a college student, everything from being kicked unconscious in the middle of Harvard Square while walking home from the library to fending off an attempted sexual assault by a stranger in my dorm room to armed robbery, twice, and more. The idea was simple: I'd go out into the streets of Boston, Philadelphia and New York where women were considered the most vulnerable back in the mid-80's: The Combat Zone, South Philly, and Times Square. There, whenever a man would accost me with a, "Hey, baby, wanna get it on?" I'd answer, "No, thank you, but I would like to shoot your photo." I used one lens and one lens only: a 28 millimeter Nikon lens, meaning many of these portraits had to be shot with the camera held inches from the subject's face.