Award-winning New York Times photojournalist Michelle Agnis looks back on some of the obstacles she had to overcome as a woman interested in photography and the support she received from her grandmother.

Michelle Agins, is one of the longest-running staff photographers at The New York Times. She has worked since June 1989 as a staff photographer with the NY Times, and has been documenting life in major cities like New York, Chicago, and Baltimore as a journalist since the 1970s. Agins first got her start as an intern for The Chicago Daily News and in less than a year became a sports photographer. In 2001 Ms. Agins and her colleagues won a Pultizer Prize for National Reporting on the series How Race is Lived in America.