Maria Bryk is a professional photographer in Washington, D.C. She is a graduate from the University of Michigan School of Art and Design and has traveled on fellowships to Southern Africa and Norway as well as lived in Paraguay with the United States Peace Corps. She worked as the in-house photographer for the Newseum, a museum of news, in downtown D.C. for seven years before starting her business as a freelance photographer. Her work has been published in the Washington Post, USA Today, Huffington Post, Communication Arts, The New York Times, abc.com and bbc.co.uk, among other publications. She was featured in Art202 Journal’s “Thirty-two under 32” as a local young artist to watch, and was a 2010 Artist Grant recipient from the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities for her photo essay "Devotion in the District," documenting places of worship in the nation's capitol. Her longest ongoing photo essay documents watermen and the fishing industry on the Chesapeake Bay.  A selection of photographs from this essay were featured in Washingtonian’s “Best of PhotoWeek” spread in December, 2010 and exhibited at the Tubman Mohan Gallery as a solo exhibit in 2013. She was given a Communication Arts Magazine 2013 Award of Excellence for her "Golden Dreams" alphabet, a photo project playing on the aspirations taught to girls through their exposure to hyper sexualized dolls. Her photojournalistic essays span a wide variety of subjects, including documenting migrant workers along the Atlantic coast, femininity in D.C.'s queer culture, and Michigan's small town tourism industry.