The Last Best Hope
Memphis has one of the busiest pediatric brain surgery unit in the world. I spent time at LeBonheur Children’s Hospital a few years ago documenting the work being done there.
Long Term projects and in-depth visual story telling is what I enjoy doing the most as a photojournalist. Documentary long form stories take time, but they are important to the community. People love them and learn from them. We, as photojournalists, take people places they would not go without us. This is an intimate type of photography, my subjects need to be my partners and buy into the process. We spend a lot of time together. The story telling is pure, honest and authentic. The people I work with tend to want to share their stories to help others.
On occasion I am asked about work that I have done in my career and the archives are not always available to share. Students and community members remember the work and are interested in hearing about it. I am creating this blog post with some of the images from this project for that reason.
Often I am asked about Anna, the child in the lead photograph. You will be happy to know that she is a healthy and happy child today, she came through her surgery well.
I worked on the project with reporter Mary Powers, who is an excellent science writer. She now works at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
https://issuu.com/karenpulferfocht-photojournalist/docs/complete-sunday