A native of Lima, Peru, Juana Arias got her start in photojournalism while traveling with friends in El Salvador during the 1984 elections. "After I sold my pictures to one of the wires everybody said, 'You have good luck. The first time you go out and you get some pictures.'" Bolstered by her initial success, Arias started freelancing in Latin America for Reuters, the Associated Press and the Contact Photo agency. A staff position with the Philadelphia Daily News lured her back to the United States in 1990, where she worked three years before joining The Post. Juana's pictures have been recognized for their excellence by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the White House News Photographers and in the Pictures of the Year Contest. In Nov. 1999, she and fellow staff photographer Michael Lutzky married and now live in Takoma Park, Md., with their black lab Bear.