Gillian Harris has always considered herself a water-baby. She grew up in Durban, on South Africa’s east coast, where the city and the coast, north and south, are a paradise of gorgeous, tropical beaches, embracing the warm Indian Ocean, and the golden sands. “Our...

When she was 10 years old, living in Durban on South Africa's east coast, Cherry Clark's father was under the surveillance of the apartheid government. He was teaching South African politics at the University of Natal, colleagues had been banned or even jailed and, as...

On the face of it, this image might suggest the means of transport for an immigrant to get from Point A to Point B. In fact, it is the Semester at Sea ship on which Ingrid Bianca Byerly has circumnavigated the Mediterranean and sailed around the world as a professor...

For Suse Cairns, this is such a Baltimore moment – a crabfest with her former housemates and neighbors the summer she arrived in 2014. This photo sums up Suse’s first feelings of community – and captures a bit of a crush, too, because one of these neighbors would...

This photograph was taken from the southbound platform of London’s West Finchley Station, which has, over the years, been the link to high school, college, cultural excursions, parks and recreation, intercity train services, and intercontinental air travel for John...

Mount Damavand, a stratovolcano built up by many layers, is the highest peak in Iran and the Middle East, as well as the highest volcano in Asia. It is in the middle of the Alborz Range, which surrounds the mountainside city of Tehran, the beloved birthplace of Pantea...

When Benn Edwards came to America in 2002, he wasn’t planning on staying, just on gathering himself. He’d gone through a painful break-up, and felt he needed to start fresh with no baggage from the past. Fourteen years later, here he still is, and it has changed him...

Kristine Smets is a self-employed genealogist, historian, and bibliographer from Kalmthout, a town north of Antwerp in the Flanders region of Belgium, and this image is of the well-known nature park in that area. Kristine says, “Every time I go back home I am again...

Alan Marcus is a professor of geography at Maryland’s Towson University. He was born in Rio de Janeiro to an English father and a Brazilian-born mother, who was of English and Egyptian parentage. With this background, it's not surprising that Alan developed an abiding...

Yvette Franklin is from Cape Town although, by chance, she was born in Los Angeles. To her, this picture means, “coming home, leaving behind, always there, not there anymore.” “Coming home” is reflected in the window’s reverse image of Table Mountain and Devil’s Peak...

Jo Smail is a South African born painter. She’s been a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art since 1988, and she sometimes asks her students: What would you choose to run off with if the building burnt down? She asked herself that question too, and the...

Outside In is a bi-weekly series that highlights immigrant experiences through words and images. Each immigrant chooses an image that somehow relates to their story, and I write up  a profile based on their answers to this quasi Proust Questionnaire: What does your...