Vogue recently photographed Chelsea Manning, who has been released from prison after being convicted of espionage and theft.
Manning, a transgender woman, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking classified national security information. She served just seven years before President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.
Manning has now been photographed by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz for Vogue, a women’s fashion magazine. In the headline for a story about Manning, Vogue says, “Manning changed the course of history. Now she’s focusing on herself.”
The photo features Manning standing on a beach in a red one-piece swimsuit, with her hands placed on the back of her neck and on her head.
“She is 29 now, with a confidence that, even in a novel city, hits like sunlight at high altitude,” Nathan Heller writes for Vogue. “Though she’s petite—just a few inches over five feet—she speaks with a clarion directness, as if constantly projecting toward an unseen back row.”
“When Manning’s role became clear, she turned into a polarizing figure—celebrated as a whistle-blower by some, condemned as a traitor by others,” Heller explains of Manning’s sentencing to prison.
Manning tweeted the Vogue photo on Thursday with the caption, “guess this is what freedom looks like.”
guess this is what freedom looks like @voguemagazine https://t.co/g7YYNkcd9l https://t.co/nyAUje52bE pic.twitter.com/n4ixFkIdVn
— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) August 10, 2017