When the week began I told a very simple truth that when I was a student at the workshop [what feels like many moons ago - if you want to relive my experience there you can do so HERE] I left with a refined and much improved perspective on life. My image making improved tenfold and all that good stuff but I could see the world better. I began to see life through the most stunning of perspectives - my own. Up until then, my entire photo education had been based on other people's visions of what photography - in particular weddings - should be. I found myself through the lens at Roots. I realized that what was important to me wasn't flowers or macro ring shots or pictures of dresses or a bunch of people standing there looking at the camera. What WAS important to me was humanity - how precious every single gasp of joy is, how miraculous that we are filled with such a breadth of emotion that if it weren't for the visual historians, would be ever fleeting. We are what we do and how we do it. Roots helped me to understand the creed which is the foundation for my documenting philosophy - Behavior defines character and environment shapes behavior. This year, though I was on the staff side instead of the student, the experience was no less palpable and rewarding. To see a new crop of eyes opened wider and lives changed for the better does a body good. Once people get it, you know you're not alone and that this world will be better because of the experience that the 12 students had.

To the Staff :: You are beacons of light. What you give is palpable and we are in dire need of it. Thank you for realizing the wisdom in preservation and having the foresight to see so far beyond trends into the core of truth.  

To the Students :: Thank you for all that you gave this week. You came from all over the place and did your best to check your insecurities and judgments at the door and because of that we were all treated to a spectacle of wonder I don't think any of us had expected or could have imagined. You are what is good. Share yourself with everyone you can and continue using your craft to remind people why they are important.

To emilie :: It is so easy to pour thanks on those on the front line but were it not for you, all would be for naught. They are the faces we see out there in the field having the most direct contact with us. Nobody knows how many hours of sleep you miss working behind the scenes to make this indelible experience a reality for all of us. When I was in the AmeriCorps we called it Secondary Service - but more affectionately it became known as the Man Behind the Curtain. For what you have given and continue to give we all are forever in your debt. You are the pinnacle of wisdom, the  pure essence of kindness, and living proof that angels walk among us. Your little peanut is going to be the luckiest nut around :]

So for now, I most humbly present to you some images that I made from the week. I hope it can serve as a reminder of all you went through and an encouragement to keep finding the miraculous in the mundane. 

ROOTS 2010 - a Visual Yearbook of Sorts.

Be Joyful. Seek the joy of being alive.