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He’s not too
friendly, not too reticent, not too anything. Michael Price,
53
is just a man who usually photographs stodgy CEOs and image conscious
models. But now, he begins his wait. For the right look, the right
moment.
When it arrives, as
it always does, he clicks and flashes and clicks some more. And then he
has it. One more beautiful face for the wall. “You’d never know by
looking at them that they were sick,” he says. But they are. That’s the
rub, that’s the injustice, that’s the reason Price has done what he’s
done. These are children with cancer. Children who know about needles
and operations and vomiting and bald heads. Kids who know things no
child should ever have to know. Not ever. Price’s project started about
three years ago when he was taking pictures at a local hospital for some
bureaucratic brochure. Something struck him.
Why are all these
sick kids so happy? And he began his mission.
After much red tape,
he found Teri Moran, executive director of the Connor Moran Children’s
Cancer Foundation, a group of funny, vibrant, grieving people
(funny-grieving... cancer is full of oxymoron's) who help families when
a child gets cancer.
And Michael Price
started taking pictures. When each is done, when he has caught them at
that moment that is so special, so beautiful, so alive with hope, Price
frames the black & white photograph and hangs it in the hallway at the
foundation’s West Palm Beach office.
Forty-eight so far.
The first was a kid named Michael Hanna, a boy so brave and happy that
he took Price’s heart and squeezed, hard. Young Michael sat in a
winged-back chair for his photo and wore two things he never left home
without: His smile and his cowboy boots. Price takes the photos after
chemotherapy, before they go to Gainesville or Miami for The Big
Operation, whenever he can. He strolls into homes where emotion perches
precariously on what could be life’s last limb, and he captures that
sick, frightened child’s soul. A lot of times it’s in their eyes.
Price said he took
these pictures so other kids with cancer will see that life does
go on. Children with cancer still swing and swim and dance and play the
trumpet. Kids with cancer still laugh. Kids with cancer are still kids.
Just ask Michael Price.
BY EMILY J. MINOR/PALM BEACH POST STAFF
WRITER
(Reprinted
With Permission From The Palm Beach Post) |
