((PKG)) CANCER PHOTOGRAPHY
((Banner: Through Art))
((Reporter/Camera: Elizabeth Lee))
((Map: Los Angeles, California))
((Madeline Morales, Student Photographer))
I try to look at things with a lot of light, a lot of what draws me to is positivity. Something that means love or happiness. I could say something with my pictures about my cancer journey with just, like, one picture. It helps me take my mind off of it. A distraction to think of something else other than cancer, cancer, cancer, chemo. I was diagnosed when I was 11, and it’s a muscle tumor.
((Monica Valdez, Madeline’s mother))
She’s relapsed twice. They both have been really, really hard to deal with. Pablove, it’s that one positive thing in her that she’s always looking forward to.
((Ashley Blakeney, Program Manager, Pablove Shutterbugs Program))
We invest in underfunded cutting edge pediatric cancer research. We improve the lives of children and teens living with cancer through the arts.
((Madeline Morales, Student Photographer))
It makes me feel excited, a little bit nervous, you know, putting your art out there and seeing what people have to say about it.
((Ashley Blakeney, Program Manager, Pablove Shutterbugs Program))
Pablove Shutterbugs serves as a distraction for these students while they’re going through their treatment because it literally is an out of hospital experience. We provide all of the cameras free of charge to our students and it’s something that they can literally take with them anywhere. Being in these classes with other people that completely understand their experience and can be a community with them has been really impactful and has really made them feel a lot more comfortable in what they’ve been through and where they’re going with it. So, to date, we have served about 1,300 students across the country. We encourage them to use the camera and use what they learned to tell their cancer experience and to share that with the world. We do sell our student prints and so with each print that we sell, all of the proceeds go into funding our research grants.
((Bayu Lukman, Student Photographer))
Hello, my name is Bayu Lukman and I have some photos in this gallery. Most of my photos’ themes focused on hope. Hope is, I’d say, decently important as it’s a strong motivation to just keep on living through what you’ve been through, in a way, because when you have cancer and you’re like super young, you don’t know what’s really going on and then when you realize it, you kind of get really depressed and you don’t want to live anymore. You need to stay optimistic and push yourself through. Pablove helped me understand more about the struggles of cancer and has given me a small chance to actually assist in the world a bit with photography, I’d say, to express my story and allow it to hopefully reach other kids so they can understand how to deal with it hopefully.
((Madeline Morales, Student Photographer))
I think with photography and having that faith in God has really helped me a lot to staying positive and being motivated to want to keep fighting this disease.
