Emma Dodge Hanson's portraits of the best known women in popular music — from Sheryl Crow to Jewel — received much critical acclaim from People, Publishers Weekly, and other magazines when they were published in her first book, SOLO (Bantam Doubleday Dell). A review in Billboard praised the startlingly “natural” and “refreshing” portraits for their “ability to show that these stars are real people with real lives.”
Faces of Layla, Emma Dodge Hanson's second book of photographs, focuses on the lives of children living in Layla House, an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Rather than depicting the one-dimensional sadness that such a subject might suggest, the book shows the complex web of light and life that animates these resilient, heartbreakingly beautiful children. “These photos offer up the grief, delight, and perseverance that are so pervasive at Layla House... They also give testimony to the courage and compassion at work in this orphanage on a daily basis.” —David Guterson, author of Snow Falling on Cedars.
