max s. gerber(the latest shot)

i’m a photographer, and i’m from a secular jewish family. this means i love complaining. i love it, i was raised on it, and i excel at it. but every once in a while you meet someone that just shuts you up. the plain fact is that my life is pretty damn good and i don’t really have all that much to complain about. i’m reasonably healthy at this point, i get to take pictures for a living, i can occasionally do things that other people find helpful, i live in a great place, i have the world’s most awesome cat, and i’ve got a lot of good people around me.

erica murray, should she choose to exercise it, has every right to complain. but the thing is, she doesn’t. at least, she didn’t to me and i gave her every opportunity to vent. erica is in her mid twenties and is currently undergoing treatment for her second round of cancer (leukemia). she beat it into remission once, two years ago, and then it came back. these pictures were taken on tax day (even more of a reason to complain), and just a couple days before erica headed back into the hospital for a several-week stay of intense chemo and stem cell treatment. she was agreeable, funny, insightful, beautiful and gracious.

erica keeps a blog (with contributions from her friends and family) detailing the course of her treatment, and it’s a really engrossing thing. you can see her blog here. she’s out of the hospital now and seems to be recovering well.

thanks to dick anderson and jamie murphy for their help in setting up this shoot, and thanks to corporal bennett, as always, for assisting.