Photos: A star-spangled Fourth of July in the Southland

Los Angeles Times staff photographer Allen J. Schaben is an award-winning journalist capturing a wide range of images over the past 34 years. Before joining The Times, he honed his craft at the Detroit Free Press, Dallas Morning News, Wichita Eagle and Connecticut Post. Schaben earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1993.

Zoë Cranfill was a 2024 summer photojournalism intern at the Los Angeles Times. In December, she will graduate with a degree in photojournalism from Ohio University.

Michael Blackshire is a 2023-24 photography fellow at the Los Angeles Times. He previously interned at the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune and his work has been published in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Huffington Post and New York Magazine. Blackshire is from Kentucky and spent his teenage years in Metro Atlanta. He received his higher education from Western Kentucky University and Ohio University.

Gina Ferazzi grew up in the small New England town of Longmeadow, Mass. She has been a staff photographer with the Los Angeles Times since 1994. Her photos are a part of the staff Pulitzer Prizes for Breaking News in 2016 for the San Bernardino terrorist attack and for the wildfires in 2004. She’s an all-around photographer covering assignments from Winter Olympics, presidential campaigns to local and national news events. Her video documentaries include stories on black tar heroin, health clinics, women priests and Marine suicide. A two-sport scholarship athlete at the University of Maine, Orono, she still holds the record for five goals in one field hockey game.

Wally Skalij joined the Los Angeles Times as a staff photographer in 1997.