Scott Serio, Photo Editor, Photographer
 |
Colora | MD | USA | Posted: 2:23 PM on 09.19.11 |
->> Good afternoon,
This is definitely off-topic. I usually shoot sports, but this is an idea close to my heart, and to help, it is free.
My idea for a photo book has been selected by the folks at the Pepsi Refresh Project as a finalist for voting. This will be a $10,000 grant to publish this book about missing persons. What many people do not know is that the National Crime Information Center regularly has more than 85,000 people listed as missing. That is 85,000 empty spots at the dinner table, 85,000 families wondering what happened to their loved one.
It also means scores of criminal investigators, volunteers, police analysts, advocates, family members, family friends and the like who invest their time, and their lives, to find these people and bring closure, and hopefully a happy ending, to families of the victims.
You can vote for it here - http://www.refresheverything.com/vanishedproject You can vote several times a day and the voting goes all month long. Only the Top 15 projects receive this funding, so it is imperative that you vote early, vote often and SHARE this project with others.
In 1992, while a student at Missouri I photographed a story about a woman from Clinton, MO who vanished named Angela Hammond. I have always wanted to look back on that story. This year, I am returning to Clinton as part of the Missouri Photo Workshop, and I hope to finish that photo story. What I do know is that she is still listed as missing. Her disappearance made the little town of Clinton lose a little of its innocence. I wanted to know what has happened to the Hammond family and the town of Clinton since then? When I called to do some research the detective (the original detective who still has this case on his desk) said, "Well, sometimes you just have to know how to put this on a shelf for a while."
But I thought, why stop there? I have a totally different perspective now, after 18 years as a cop. The mission is to publish this book. The initial funding will allow me to photograph the integral parts of the story and self-publish up to 500 initial copies. Hopefully a larger print house will like the idea and publish more.
Please vote for PROJECT VANISHED at http://www.refresheverything.com/vanishedproject
OR
You can just text in a vote by texting 108449 to PEPSI(73774).
THANK YOU |
|
