Artist Mary Helwick has always been fascinated with the faces of people she observes in everyday life and wondered how she could capture their uniqueness in a portrait. She has now found the perfect subject: construction workers.

A series of portraits of 18 construction workers, including the artist herself, are included in Helwick’s exhibition, "Hard Hats: Portraits of Construction."

Helwick’s focus of her portraits was to capture the workers’ individual traits while playing with color to create a vibrancy and synergy between the faces and backgrounds.