“I’m motivated by a piece of advice given to me by Brent Stirton, who told me that everything is about the personal projects,” says Adrian Fussell. “Some of my friends have done projects that didn’t really work out because they didn’t have a personal connection to the story. I think you’re going to tell the best stories when you can connect with them.”

The 23-year-old photographer from the US is best known for his project, My Name is Victory, a portrait of the Patriot Guard drill team from Francis Lewis High School in Fresh Meadows, Queens. The team is part of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, which seeks to “motivate young people to be better citizens”. Fussell stumbled upon the story when he was documenting the Veterans Day Parade in New York.

“In the staging area, I saw these kids training with rifles and wondered where they were coming from,” he tells BJP. He approached four schools before Francis Lewis High School authorised him to document its students. “That school happened to be the national champion, and it happened to be an all-Chinese team.”

Fussell was raised in Switzerland, Zimbabwe and Guatemala, and is of Panamanian descent. He says his background helped him feel close to these children of immigrants, who joined the squad because they wanted “to become more American”. His work won him the Ian Parry Scholarship in 2012 and he went on to join the Emerging Talent group of photographers represented by Getty Images. “It has been incredible,” he says. “I knew from early on, having seen the work of some of their photographers, that I wanted to join Reportage.”

Since then, Fussell has been documenting the devastating effect Hurricane Sandy has had on the Rockaways in New York. In 2013, he’s planning to go back to Panama, where his family lived for more than 20 years. “Right now, Panama is widening the canal,” he says. “It’s a really big infrastructure project that will affect the local and global economy.”

Image © Adrian Fussell / Reportage by Getty Images.

Once again, Fussell will be using his personal connection to the place to inform his work. “My grandfather worked on the Panama Canal; I want to be able to explain that connection to people who are in a position of authority,” he says. “That’s how, I think, you’re going to be able to tell a good story.”

Fussell is also planning a long-term project about the American South, looking at the history of his family, which was Confederate and owned slaves before the Civil War. “I’m interested in exploring that side of my family’s history, but also, in a more general sense, to explore what the South is going to become and how some people are nostalgic for how the United States used to be.”

Visit www.adrianfussell.com.