Lebanese-Brazilian photographer Lamia Maria Abillama grew up in the shadow of Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, ultimately leaving Beirut to pursue advanced legal and diplomacy studies at the Sorbonne in Paris and then at Boston's Tufts University at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. But she soon found that photography and the arts are her true calling. After graduating from New York's International Center for Photography in 2006, she embarked on several series of portraits that led to assignments from leading publications and important prizes. Her work is now part of the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York and in private collections.