“We now live in a post-contact sheet era, of course, but for so many years, the contact sheet was the place where you could see how we as photographers felt our way through a photographic opportunity. The negative that became “Assault” was taken as I wandered in and out of apartments, photographing residents of Bloomington’s housing projects, known as “Pigeon Hill”. I only made 4 negatives that day of Teresa,  a young woman who had just been badly beaten for protecting a neighbor, a black kid that a local bully was threatening. I burned in the background surrounding the woman and her daughter to accommodate the text, which is handwritten on the print and recounts her story of the assault. I love Teresa’s expression and the gesture of her hand, wrapped around the straw in an inverted “OK” sign. The daughter regards me with curiosity. Other images on the contact sheet reveal more about the exact nature of Teresa’s injuries including missing teeth, but I chose this one to show her beauty and resiliency and to enhance the pathos of her grim situation—recently divorced, vulnerable and living in a predatory environment with her daughter.” – Jeffrey Wolin