Photographer Rania Matar’s practice focuses on portraying girls and young women as they see themselves. To that end, she encourages them to have a say in their pose, clothes, accessories and surroundings. In this photograph, her subject is actress Iman Vellani, known for her television role as the comic book character Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel. Ms. Marvel is the first female Muslim superhero, who has given a generation of young women the ability to see themselves represented in popular media, a factor that inspired Vellani to audition for the role. For this photograph commissioned by LACMA, Vellani chose to incorporate items meaningful to her, such as her grandfather’s camera and the old family photographs he shot with it. Born in Beirut to a Palestinian family, Matar moved to the United States in 1984 during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90). Originally trained as an architect, she shifted to photography after the September 11 attacks with the intent to counter negative stereotypes about the Middle East. Primarily photographing girls and women in the United States and Lebanon, her work highlights shared commonalities across cultural lines.