Arkasha Stevenson is a photojournalist currently based in Los Angeles. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina in December 2010. While attending school, she documented issues in the rural South, such as drug addiction and prostitution in Durham, N.C., and child care in Elizabethtown, Ky.
For the last year and a half Stevenson has worked as a photography and video intern at theLos Angeles Times. During her internship she has had the opportunity to photograph a wide variety of subjects, including the Occupy movement, the remote desert squatter camp of Slab City and the Coachella Music Festival, and has been sent internationally to follow the Stanley Cup. For six months, Stevenson had the privilege of documenting 19-year-old Jesus Garcia’s battle with terminal cancer.
In 2011 Stevenson won first place in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program National Photojournalism Championship. She was named the 2011 College Photographer of the Year by the North Carolina Press Photographers Association and was awarded first place for multimedia in the College Photographer of the Year competition.
Japan’s Disposable Workers examines the country’s employment crisis: from suicide caused by overworking, to temporary workers forced by economics to live in internet cafes, and the elderly who wander a town in search of shelter and food.