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| © Sean Salyards |
| WINNER: One of Salyard's portraits of his grandmother, Pauline. Click photo for more images from the competition. |
For more than two years, Sean Salyards has been documenting his grandmother Pauline's battle with diabetes, which has slowly robbed her of her ability to live independently.
Salyards says the most important aspect of this "Pauline" project is not the creative fulfilment of the work, though, but the relationship he now has with his grandmother. Before he began photographing her, he knew her only as a babysitter; now he is the caregiver, helping with housework and taking her to the doctor.
Salyards, a 25-year-old M.F.A. candidate at Indiana University, began the project slowly, visiting with Pauline daily and only gradually bringing out his camera to take pictures. "It's gotten to the point where if the camera wasn't there it was almost more awkward," he says. As he began showing his images to other people, especially members of his own family, they became an important way to bear witness to his grandmother's life.
"It kind of revitalized her," he says of his project. "It was like her suffering was purposeful."
Pauline showed the photographs to her doctors and others. "It created this aura of communal respect," Salyards recalls.
The work also helped when Salyards's father, Pauline's son, died last fall. Salyards says his father's death catalyzed a number of emotional changes that his photography had initiated, bringing his family closer together. Now, he says, his grandmother has finally agreed to accept outside help in her daily life.
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