Francesco Mastalia has spent the last twenty-five years mastering the art of the black-and-white photography. Advertising and corporate assignments dominate his career as a portrait photographer, while his commitment to documentary photography has taken him around the world. A native of Italy, he is now based in New York.

Alfonse Pagano turned to photography as an art form in 1994, after a distinguished career as a painter, during which his mixed media and oil works were exhibited in such venues as the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Laguna Gloria Museum of Art. He is the recipient of New York Foundation for the Arts and Change, Inc., grants. Pagano lives in New York.

Alice Walker is a poet and novelist whose work includes The Temple of My Familiar, Possessing the Secret of Joy, and The Color Purple, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1983. A longtime advocate of dreadlocks, she did not comb her hair for more than ten years.