Beyond the Obvious

Sometimes the most obvious image isn’t the one you should concentrate on.

I wrote a long draft about this topic and why it is important, but I think I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. I’m making it too complicated by trying to explain it away. These images are from Camp Ukandu, a week-long summer camp for children with cancer.

The tricky part of an assignment like this is not the shooting, but the editing and the selection process. It would be easy to focus on the grim; many of the children have scars from multiple surgeries or are bald from chemotherapy. But I wanted people to look at the essay as a whole and see the children in the pictures as kids first and as cancer patients second. Because yes, they are sick, but they are also children. And they shouldn’t have to be defined by their illness when they just want to swim and play ball.

The essay that appeared on The Oregonian’s website can be viewed here. Below are a few of my favorites, some of which didn’t make it into the final submission (a lesson in self-editing, but that’s a post for another day).