Today we are featuring Kelly Manweiler’s project called Most. Beautiful. Collaboration. which is a play on the acronym MBC which stands for Metastatic Breast Cancer. Kelly became friends with Vesna, and together they are documenting Vesna’s life with MBC in order to raise awareness and support.

You can see more of Kelly’s’s work on her website, Facebook, and Instagram.

Lisa: What a beautiful collaboration you and Vesna have. As a friend, how do you approach telling her story? Do you try to be objective or do you embrace that personal connection you have while capturing her life?

Vesna and I met when she contacted me to create a memory quilt out of her husband’s old punk band shirts. In addition to being a photographer, I also have a small quilt making business where I make custom memory and memorial quilts. She mentioned in her inquiry that she was from Ottawa, so I looked her up to see if we were connected at all. When I did I found out that she was living with Metastatic Breast Cancer.

My wait list for quilts is around 2+ years. I didn’t know a lot about Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC), but I knew that time might not be on our side. I wrote to her, admitted that I’d creeped her on FB to see if we were connected through friends and found out she was living with MBC. I offered her an immediate spot and we started working together on the quilt soon after. The process can be pretty long, with a lot of back and forth, which gave us the chance to get to know each other.

As I got to know her I realized that she wasn’t just living with MBC, she was advocating for changes to the health care system and working to support women who live with or will one day live with MBC. She was giving talks, travelling to present her story, raising funds, all while balancing treatment, and life as a mother and wife. She’s pretty amazing. One day I mentioned that I was also a photographer and brought up the idea of collaborating on a personal project together to help her spread her story, if that was her goal. So our friendship started during the quilt making process, but has grown through the Most. Beautiful.Collaboration. When we first started working on the project, I asked her to make a list of what she wanted to share. She made a list of things from her personal life and a list from the medical MBC side of life. We work with our different schedules to try and cross off all the items on the list, which grows and changes over time. When we do a series for the project I accompany her either to some type of appointment or personal event/daily activity. I just follow her lead and document what happens as it happens to the best of my ability. I’m not a fly on the wall pretending I’m not there, that would be disingenuous. Especially during a personal series where we’re talking and hanging out. With each series of images we write what we think of when we see the photos from our unique perspectives. The photograph taking is an attempt at objective documentation, but the write up with each post is definitely subjective. It’s an important part of the project to share our very human subjective observations.

Leslie: Beautiful images and project. How has photographing this project over time changed how you approach photography in general?

I think my technical approach to photography is always changing. I’m always trying to improve and know I’ve got a lot to learn. From a personal approach, I’ve always felt really passionate about photography and the importance of documenting moments. I think there’s a lot of weight in even a simple photo, so I don’t feel like that has changed, but has become more enriched and reinforced.

Lacey: I see that most, but not all, of your photographs for this project are in black and white. What makes you decide whether an image will be black and white or in color?

I didn’t enjoy colour editing for a long time and felt much more drawn to Black and White (likely due to years of black and white darkroom love). Over the last few years though I’ve been working on colour and have become quite fond of it. Sometimes I’ll edit an image in both colour and bw and let Vesna choose, but usually I make my choice based on what it brings to the image. If colour is part of the story, or adds to in/enriches it in some way I’ll opt for it, but if it doesn’t than I’ll create a BW edit. I feel like sometimes colour can take away from the pureness of a moment or add unneeded distraction. There have been a few times where Vesna has requested an image in colour because there’s meaning for her in the colour and in those cases I’ll go back and do an alternate edit.

Jenny: Such a beautiful collaboration and images! There must be times where it was very difficult to photograph this story, especially as it is that of a friend. How do you remain professional in those times, or have there been times where your emotions go the best of you?

I don’t feel like there’s much of a division between professional Kelly and unprofessional Kelly. Aside from curtailing my swearing tendencies, I’m pretty much just who I am no matter who I’m with or what I’m doing. In an earlier session, where I documented Vesna doing self injections, I remember asking her if she wanted me to be a wall or a person when faced with big emotions during our project together. She said that part of the reason she wanted to work with me was because of my genuineness and that she wouldn’t want me to be any other way. So that’s how we roll. When she told me the story of the day she got her diagnosis I wept, and she wept. I don’t think it’s unprofessional to feel. I don’t think my emotions can ‘get the best of me’, I think they are the best of me. They are what allow me to sometimes see moments that others might not, to appreciate the light and dark, and to recognize how fleeting each moment is. I would never want my emotions to dominate a situation, but I don’t think they should be completely locked out.

Erika: Beyond raising awareness for MBC and telling her story outright, do you have an argument or concept that helps guide you while shooting, culling and presenting the images for this project? What do you see as being the end state for these images? Website? Book? Exhibit? Usage in collateral material for a related non profit?

My overarching goal is to do some good in the world. In this case it means helping Vesna tell her story and work toward change and understanding. The most important thing I’ve learned so far is how little I know. The statistics are frightening; what’s more frightening is how totally ignorant I was. When faced with new information I realized how many people I’d lost to MBC without even realizing it.

I go into each situation and document as I would with any other documentary session. I cull the same way too. I don’t limit myself on how many images to save from a session, but base my selections on technical quality, aesthetic, and emotion or moment. So if an image isn’t super crisp, but captures something meaningful then it stays. I share the images with Vesna and we choose our favourites for the post, write up our observations or ideas and share.

Since we began the Most. Beautiful. Collaboration. we’ve provided some of the images to help campaigns by The Ottawa Hospital’s Cancer Program, Rethink Breast Cancer, and The Pink Ribbon Project Fundraiser to raise funds and awareness. We hope to continue to help where we can. We currently share posts through my website and our various social media pages. We’ve talked about where the project will go when we’ve completed the list or if either one of us feels it’s time to morph it into something else. Two ideas we’re thinking of are creating a small exhibit and the possibility of a book down the line, but for now we’re focused on continuing with what we’ve started.

Thanks for the opportunity to share these images and Vesna’s story!

For more information about MBC, you can check Vesna’s Facebook page.

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Want information on how you can be a featured artist? Check out our submission page for all the details.

Ade Oshodi is a stay at home dad during the week and a wedding photographer on the weekend. He’s spent the past two years documenting his daughter’s life and has turned it into a long term project about telling the story of her growing up.

You can see more of Ade’s work on his website and Instagram.

Erika: What have you learned about yourself/humanity/your daughter as a part of shooting this project? And which of the images submitted is your favorite and why?

Toddlers are honest in their interactions with the world. For the most part, the dramaturgical presentation of self is not presented for others but solely for them.  Authenticity is central to their character and it is for this quality what makes her most interesting to me. Two months before Asha was born, my father was dying and I documented him on his death bed along with my mother and siblings interactions with him. What I learned from both situations is that in the beginning and the ending of lives, humans are most vulnerable.

Authenticity gives way to vulnerability and vice versa, when those two qualities are presented in photographs, they transcend the human condition; it connects us with each other.  This particular project and the types of photographs I like to make in general have taught me to present my authentic self: the desirable and not so desirable parts to the world in hopes of reciprocation for those I am photograph.

Which leads to the image I like the most from this collection; my favorite image is of Asha reaching for is a hard copy of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s essay “We should all be Feminist.”  I fancy this particular photograph because I agree with the premise of the essay; the image probably says more about me than it does about her.

Heather: What made you decide to shoot them all in black and white? Such great connections you have captured between your daughter and those around her.

 It is strange because I believe that I see in two extremes or better said I like my photographs to have strong shadows and contrast for black and white images and strong contrasting colors for color photographs, anything in the middle don’t interest me as much. For this particular project I like black and white because I believe that it forces me to produce stronger images that read well to the eye.  Also, I like the uniformity of black and white throughout this project.

Meg: I’m noticing the angle you’re shooting a good majority of these are from higher up, as opposed to being on her level. Is there intention behind that, and if so, what makes you choose that angle to shoot from?

I am as stay at home dad on the weekdays and a photographer in business on the weekends, so most of the photographs of Asha are made while parenting.  I wish there was some great aesthetic choice on why I shoot from high or some highly introspective answer like: “my subconscious is telling me that I am the parent, so I should be shooting from a position of authority.” The truth is that my toddler is rambunctious and spirited: busy, running, climbing, exploring, and investigating but she spends a great deal of her time in the house.

In addition, when she and I go out to run errands, most of the time, she goes from the car seat to the stroller or from the car seat to shopping cart. The notion of being confined strongly aggravates her because it is contrary to her spirited personality. As a result, when any door before her is opened or she is not confined in anyway, she runs freely and that means she is running into a parking lot, a street and or climbing in and out of sinks and toilets. So I stay on my feet in order to make photographs and parent at the same time.

Michelle: My favorites are the ones of your daughter outside of the home engaging with, what looks like, strangers. How do you find those strangers react when you go to shoot a photo of them interacting with your daughter? Have you had anyone protest or say no or has it broken the moment you’re trying to capture as they become aware of your camera? Very curious to find out how you approach this.

The camera and a little girl give me access into people’s lives that I wouldn’t regularly be allowed into without question, if only for a moment. There is an image of Asha about to kiss a strange lady; this particular image was taken at an airport in Hong Kong. Part of my process of photographing Asha with strangers is that I let her lead when we are in public places and I follow closely from behind with my camera held against my chest. This is first based on the notion that I never want her to be afraid of strangers, so I all her to freely interact with them under my watch. In my head, I have already written and signed a social contract with adult strangers; which states “if you are going to talk to, play with or she is going to walk into your vicinity you are going to be photographed.” So I photograph her and them without asking their permission.  After the photographic moment expires I quickly assess the situation, if they appear like the need an explanation I give a brief one and move on, for the most part in those situations I don’t have to, a smile suffices.

On the other hand, when she is about to interact with children as I am approaching, if the parents are looking at me or her I raise my camera and nod my head as to ask for permission.  Whether, I get that confirmatory-nod or not I make photographs and then explain if needed. Within the last two years surprisingly, I haven’t had any protest from adults. The only ones who seem to break the moments by being camera aware are other children.

Robin: What is one photography skill you are interested in learning or mastering this year?

Within the context of this project I am emotionally tied to the subject, so sometimes my first reaction is to be in awe as she is doing something clever and I get lost in the moment while photographing. This presents a problem for my compositions because I take my eyes off the edges of my frame and background. I believe the answers to this problem is simple in theory i.e. disconnect form the subject I am emotionally invested in; in practice, it’s not easy to disconnect from my child.