Boise Idaho Portrait Photographer: Color of Disease

When you're given an assignment to focus on the technical aspects of color, composition, and exposure, all while creating a series with some kind of meaning, but no further instructions than that, it's definitely what one might call challenging. After stewing over different ideas, non of which felt right, I (with the help of a good friend) was able to dig a little deeper. 

With thousands upon thousands of disease, deformities, and disorders existing in the world, it's hard to find a single person who hasn't been affected in some way, by one or more of them. It's not just the individuals physically battling with the disease who feel it's effects. In each case there is someone close to that individual whose own life is changed and enveloped by the results of that disease, both in good ways and in bad. 

Each individual captured in this series has felt the effects of these diseases. Bluish green represents Uterine Cancer. This is the cancer that took my grandmother's life when my mom was only eight years old. The effects of that shaped my mothers life and in turn shaped the lives of my siblings and myself. Red, a representation of Heart Disease is family condition, forever hovering over the heads of each person in that blood line. Orange represents Leukemia. A disease that is painful for any sister, cousin, or friend to watch. Purple represents Pancreatic Cancer, a cancer with a four percent survival rate, which takes the lives of both young and old, father and grandfather. Yellow represents Spina Bifida, a deformity which occurs during a babies development which can leave them paralyzed from the waist down. Although it may not kill them, that child will always be different from that of their friends. 

Annelise Woodward Photography © 2012
 Representative of Uterine Cancer

Annelise Woodward Photography © 2012
Representative of Heart Disease 

Annelise Woodward Photography © 2012
Representative of Leukemia 

Annelise Woodward Photography © 2012
Representative of Pancreatic Cancer

Annelise Woodward Photography © 2012
Representative of Spina Bifida