Living With Cerebral Palsy

Christopher Capozziello is a freelance photographer from Hamden, Connecticut. His work focuses on documenting both life around him, and stories that are outside of his own experiences. He believes that there is a redemptive quality to photography; that it can take the unpleasant or repulsive and make it beautiful, not by misleading anyone, but by allowing the viewer to stop and take a deeper look at the subject. As a photojournalist, his method of making pictures is not something new or incredibly deep – it is, simply, to tell the truth.  Christopher introduces Living With Cerebral Palsy with the following narrative.

In most cases, photojournalists are encouraged to use their cameras to explore experiences outside of their own life, in order to understand the world around them. This body of work is really different for me, in that I used my camera as a tool to investigate issues in my own life, as I started to make pictures of my brother Nick. Over the course of years, one image lead to another, and they became a way for me to really process and deal with the realities of having a twin live with cerebral palsy, while I lead a rather normal life. As my brother’s story has changed, and grown, and developed, so have my pictures of him. Looking through my camera has brought me a step back, enabling me to really watch and listen, to learn and perhaps have a better grasp on what is happening in his life. The suffering he has experienced has raised all sorts of questions for me. The question we are most prone to ask when hardship strikes – why me? – makes no sense. That question presupposes that pain, disease, and death are distributed according to moral merit. They are not.