the life of m

Long before photography, my first love was soccer. I played from age 5 through the start of college, on travelling teams, my high school team, and with the Olympic Development Program. And then one day, I just stopped. I was tired. I was burnt out. And I needed a change. Right around that same time, I took a black and white photo class at a community college, and I fell in love with photography. But, if I hadn’t, I would have gone to Auburn University, where I had a shot at a walk-on soccer scholarship… And if I hadn’t, I’d be a veterinarian right now.

So while I miss soccer terribly. I still get super excited about things like watching the World Cup, and getting out to see our local team, the Tampa Bay Rowdies (next time I’m at my dad’s house, I absolutely must scan in the photo of me at an original Rowdies game in the late 70s, with Pele in the background when the NY Cosmos came to town to play). Usually I don my yellow and green striped jersey and scarf and cheer them on, but tonight I got to photograph them for the paper… my worlds colliding, I had a blast.

Writer Leonora LaPeter Anton and I were in Chicago for four days last week, covering protestors at the NATO 2012 Summit. Tampa is hosting the RNC in August, so for us this is a first look at the level of chaos and disruption our city might see.

“The Socialists shouted and the Hare Krishnas hummed. Half a dozen men held up a Palestinian flag the size of a swimming pool. Middle-class moms in pink wielded cardboard guns, part of the antiwar crowd.

On the first day of the NATO summit last weekend, an estimated 3,000 protesters with every message imaginable swarmed south on Michigan Avenue. They were flanked on either side by compact lines of Chicago police officers…” (you really should read the rest of Leonora LaPeter Anton’s story here, superb writing, as always.)

From the story:

…Her obstetrician scheduled an ultrasound and Addie watched as her baby sucked her thumb. But the results of an amniocentesis confirmed the diagnosis.

Trisomy 18, the doctor said, is “incompatible with life.” The baby would likely die before birth. If she did live, odds were a coin toss that she would die in the first weeks and less than 1 in 10 she would live a year. She would not cry or smile, the doctor told them. She would never walk or talk.

Typically, women who hear a doctor say their child will be a “vegetable” choose to end their pregnancies, or as an online support group calls it, “say early goodbyes.”

Addie’s boyfriend, Ryan Allen, told her it was her choice. He would stand behind her.

So Addie chose. She chose to ignore the doctor and the grim statistics.

And she chose a name.

Riley.

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I’m still working on a final edit of the pictures for this story for my website, which is tough because for me this story isn’t over. So for now, I’ll just call it a work in progress and share some of my favorite moments on the blog with Riley, Addie and Ryan.

Had the honor of telling Addie, Ryan and Riley’s story, along with Elisabeth Parker — who wrote the hell out of it. It started on 1A, jumped to the front of Floridian, our feature’s section, and then to a doubletruck inside. I’ll have another blog post soon with some of my favorite moments that we didn’t have room for in the paper.

Happy Mother’s Day to Addie and all the mom’s who have chosen a path that’s not always easy, but that’s right for them.