Maureen Ruddy Burkhart: “Slice of Heaven” looks at the people who live in Kibera, Kenya’s largest slum

At first, Burkhart found her greatest challenges to be technical—dark interiors, bright sunlight against dark skin—and it took her a few days to get the hang of things. She said she didn’t intend at first to create a series in black and white, but after a few days it became clear color wouldn’t work. “I see color as the ‘great seducer,’ sucking us in with its vibrancy,” she explained. “Color is full of emotion, and I knew that I wanted the emotion to come from the subjects themselves. I needed to convey the virtues that I was handed by my subjects, pure and raw.”