Three Women

Three Women is a work of fiction. Eirc Maierson wrote the script and directed the actors. But for him, these stories are also true.  They tell the story of women in pain who struggle to make sense of their lives. Photographs tell these stories, not video, as he wanted viewers to have the opportunity to linger, to consider in a way that only still images, in their slowing down of time, can afford

Echolilia: A Father's Photographic Conversation With His Autistic Son

Timothy Archibald's eldest son was born in 2001 and diagnosed with autism five years later.  At that time, Timothy began making photographs as a way to find some common ground and attempt to understand his son.

Grave Digging For Mugabe

On the same day that President Robert Mugabe declared cholera did not exist in Zimbabwe, photojournalist Robin Hammond secretly entered a hospital teeming with men, women, and children fighting for life, many on the verge of succumbing to the infection.

A Forgotten Existence

In the remote countryside of Vietnam, lies small populations of people with disabilities from Leprosy.  Having survived a history of persecution, they were exiled and forgotten. These people live a difficult life with little funds and contact from the outside world.

Disability In India

In January 2006, Mimi Mollica was sent on assignment to India from the NGO Leonard Cheshire International, to photograph the activities they bring forward to help people with disability in the poorest areas of the country.  This set of pictures cuts across the different areas that I visited, from the Academy for Blind in Bangalore, to the tsunami affected areas in the south east of India and from the coffee plantations in Coorg, up north to the slums of Dehra Dun, city famous for its schools and the near-by Himalaya chain.

Haiti Cholera Outbreak

Haiti, a country still recovering from the devastating earthquake of January 2010, is now dealing with a major cholera epidemic that has now reached all of the 10 provinces in the country.  Reportage by Getty Images photographer Walter Estrada is currently in Haiti covering the outbreak.

Bloodline

The AIDS epidemic that came to light in the 1980s still rages today across Africa, killing 1.4 million people and infecting another 1.9 million in 2008 alone. The disease does not discriminate, infecting educators and corporate professionals, as well as the poor.

As a concerned documentarian, Kristen Ashburn went to Africa to address this crisis after being struck by reports of the numbers of those dying. What she found, and what she relates in her deeply moving work, are human beings who are desperate for their story to be understood by the larger world.

Through her work we come to know these people, and to see the larger implications of the disease, as it snakes through whole villages, threatening peoples' livelihoods, intensifying the effects of poverty, and threatening the economic stability of the whole region. Lack of education, awareness, and access to medical care have made the problem seem insurmountable. Through Ashburn's efforts come some glimmer of hope toward a solution.

Legacy Of Horror

Severely disabled and abandoned at birth, 124 orphans live at the Ba Vi Orphanage and Elderly Home near Hanoi, Viet Nam.  They are believed to be 3rd generation Agent Orange victims but nothing is known about their family history and the center lacks the resources to conduct the medical tests to prove such a link.  

View Legacy of Horror by Justin Mott. 

On Borrowed Time

In the summer of 1999, Henrik Malmstrom's older sister Maija was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, only 20 years old. Her prognosis was not good. With the help of different treatments and a strong will she was able to extend, and periodically enjoy, her life.

In November 2007 Maija was hospitalised again. This is when Henrik started to document her and the rest of my family in hospitals and at home. The following months were to be her last, for she passed away at home in April 2008.

Lovensky's Miracle

A little boy who survived the 2010 Haiti earthquake goes to California for vital surgery to fix a hole in his heart. Happy go lucky, 7-year-old Lovensky Alexandre, had just endured two huge life changing ordeals. First the quake destroyed Lovensky's home and with it his heart medicine was lost. Lovensky's desperate mother ended up at a Port-au-Prince clinic where Sacramento fire Cpt. Barbie Law was volunteering. Law called her doctor father, who got Sacramento's Sutter Medical Group heart specialists to provide a life saving free surgery.

Read and watch the rest of the story by the Sacremento Bee's Paul Kitgaki here.

Bound By Faith

The sounds of a child yelling in pain echo through the house unnoticed. A twelve-year old boy with a rare genetic skin disease enduring one of two weekly bandage changes. Skin and bandage peeling off together, he begs his mom to stop. He's all too familiar with the drill. Though this time the pain is too much for him to handle. Granted a minute to catch his breath, he takes it. They must keep going. Once the bandaging process has started it must continue. Garrett was born with EB, a rare genetic skin disease that the majority of people have never heard of, yet it affects 100,000 children across the United States. Children born with this disease lack the ability to produce the collagen-7 protein that acts as a glue to bind the inner and outer layers of skin together. They live relatively short lives wrapped in bandages and in constant pain.

View the rest of the photo essay by Andre Hermann here.

Hansen's Disease: A Forgotten Existence

In a remote area of the Vietnamese countryside exists a community of Leprosy victims. There are currently 22 Villages like this in Vietnam and approximately 3,600 patients. Having survived a history of persecution, war and murder, they were exiled and forgotten by the outside world. These people live in little brick shacks with no insulation from the elements and poor sanitation. They have no means to improve their lives and solely rely on their caretakers. They receive most of their contact from the outside world from little broken radios and TVs. Subjected to poor healthcare and inadequate funding, these people continue to survive and live a life forced upon them by their ill fate.

This is their story as documented by Ehrin Macksey.

The Dad Project

The photo essay below was produced by Briony Campbell who documented her father's battle with terminal illness. She introduces the slideshow with the following comments.

This is the story of an ending without an ending.  This is a work in progress and I hope it always will be.  This is my attempt to say goodbye to my Dad with the help of my camera.  Being a good daughter to my dying dad was tricky.  I struggled to find the balance between dedication to his needs and distraction from my grief.  At first the idea of introducing a camera into this already un-resolvable equation seemed unwise, but eventually I think it became the solution. 

You can view the entire series of images here.

A Diary Of Healing

Mary Ann Wasil Nilan is sitting in the rectory of Saint Ann Church when Father Tom walks in and her cell phone rings. She is waiting to hear results from the doctor regarding the biopsy of her left breast. The voice on the other end of the phone asks if she is driving, if she is alone, and if her family is with her. And then, very apologetically, the doctor gives her the news. Her left breast does indeed have cancer.  

His Body A Prison

In the prime of his life, rendered a quadriplegic.  Photography and audio by Liz O. Baylen  for the Los Angeles Times.

Metamorphosis

Click here to view a slideshow of photographs of Peggy Battin and her husband Brooke Hopkins set to narration by Battin describing how their lives have been changed by Hopkins' bicycling accident in November 2008. Battin has devoted her decades-long career to medical ethics, particularly end of life issues and the role people play in the ends of their own lives.

Bop

Living with a disease that was incurable until the 1980's, Bop has lived most of his life at the Van Mon Leprosy Village in Thai Binh, Vietnam. His life has been filled with little joy. He survived through shortages in food, money and the Vietnam/American War. Yet, even with all the disparity in his life, he still finds the strength to keep living, praying and looking forward to something more.

We Are Fine Enough

We Are Fine Enough is an intimate, powerful and sensitive portrayal of the life of an autistic child and the ways in which he and his family cope with his disability. In 1994, Marc Schlossman began a photojournalism project documenting the life of Charlie, a five-year-old boy with severe autism and profound learning difficulties. He has continued documenting Charlie, now 20, and his family. Cynthia Bartlett, Charlie's mother, saw her one-year-old son develop the most severe level of autism within autistic spectrum disorder. Only now is Charlie starting to seek and enjoy social contact. Yet he remains self-injurious, he has no ability to speak and he is incontinent. He is dependent on his mother and those around him for his basic care.

'We Are Fine Enough' consists entirely of still photographs from Charlie's life with a narration by his mother. The film began as four 3-minute films commissioned by Channel 4 in the UK for their '3-Minute Wonders' slot and was broadcast in September 2005. Marc began the project to increase awareness of lives with autism and to build a greater understanding of autistic spectrum disorders. 'We Are Fine Enough' is the culmination in film of a long-term commitment to providing a unique view into lives with autism.

Difficult Decisions on End-of-Life Care

In the image below, Frank Foster, 60, sleeps under sedation to relieve pain and other effects of liver cancer, in the hospice unit at Franklin Hospital in Valley Stream on Long Island. Terminally ill patients, their families and their medical teams have the option of choosing palliative sedation to make dying less painful and to ease other effects of the transition, like shortness of breath, delirium or anxiety.  

Watch the rest of the slide show by Ozier Muhammed here.