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When American photojournalist Nancy Borowick's (born 1985) parents Howie and Laurel were diagnosed with stage-four cancer and underwent simultaneous treatment, she did the only thing she knew how to do: she documented it. By turning the camera on her family's life during this most intimate time, Borowick learned a great deal about herself, family and relationships in general. Borowick's father died in 2013, and her mother followed 364 days later. The lessons she garnered from Howie and Laurel were plentiful: always call when the airplane lands, never pass on blueberry pie, and most importantly, family is love and love is family."Though it is nothing she would have wished for, in a relatively short time Nancy Borowick became an expert in photographing death.



About the Author

Nancy Borowick

Nancy Borowick (b. 1985) is a humanitarian photographer currently based on the island of Guam. She is a graduate of the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism program at the International Center of Photography and holds a degree in Anthropology and Photography from Union College.

Over the last 10 years Nancy narrowed the focus of her work, telling stories of illness and personal relationships, using compassion, humility, and trust as tools to connect with and explore the lives of her subjects. Nancy's most recent focus has been her parents' battles with cancer.

She is a regular contributor to the New York Times and has also been featured in the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times Lens Blog, CNN, National Geographic PROOF, Time Magazine, Photo District News, the Washington Post, Stern Magazine, and Newsweek Japan. In February of 2016 she was awarded 2nd prize in the Long Term Projects category in World Press Photo and was recently awarded the Arnold Newman Prize in New Directions in Photographic Portraiture, the Eddie Adams Workshop Award in Innovation in Visual Storytelling, and Honorable Mention in the NPPA Best of Photojournalism competition in the Contemporary Issues Story category.

Her Cancer Family, Ongoing project was presented at the Visa Pour l'Image in Perpignan, France in 2014 and the following year, 2015, was exhibited at the festival. Her work has also been exhibited at the Look 3 Photography Festival in the USA, and the Obscura Photo Festival in Malaysia, the Angkor Photography Festival in Cambodia, and in 2016, Nancy presented at the Norrlandsdagarna Photo Festival in Sweden, the Trondheim Documentary festival in Norway and at the Lumix Festival for Young Photojournalism in Germany. The Cancer Family project was recently exhibited in Spain at the Xavier Miserach Biennial as well as at over 100 locations around the world as part of the World Press Photo winners show. In 2017 the work will continue to be exhibited in locations in the US and in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and France.



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