26 Miles 4 MND

I’ve not posted on here for a while: Life has been hectic and in some ways my personal world has been turned onto its head recently. This has all conspired to keep blogging and other creative endeavors to a minimum for a while. Thankfully friendship, my mindfulness practice and photography itself are helping see me through this challenging time.

If you follow my blog of street photographs taken from a mobility scooter (Scooter Shooter), you may know that I’m co-running a photographic portraiture project to raise awareness of motor neurone disease and funding for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

Here’s a link to the main 26 Miles 4 MND website.

The portrait photography for the campaign is being taken by my good friend Cristian Barnett (pictured above to the right of me). We met years ago at art college and I count him as perhaps the most creative person I know. This is his website – http://www.crisbarnett.com/ I’d recommend having a browse – especially take a look at the personal projects that he mostly self funds through money he makes from commercial work.

26 Miles 4 MND is proving to be an emotional rollercoaster for me. I have a type of MND myself and I’ve been made very disabled by it. Some of the people we’ve photographed though have been much more severely affected than me, but not one of them has moaned about their bad luck! I’ve often felt humbled to be in their presence. We’ve also met some brilliant minds and hugely compassionate people who are devoting their lives to trying to find treatments and cures for this terribly cruel illness.

You can find out more about the people we’ve met on the blog pages of 26 Miles 4 MND here.

We now also have the backing of some household names who have either already been photographed by us or are waiting in the wings for their turn.

So what is 26 Miles 4 MND and how what does the project’s title mean?

The most important people we are photographing are those with direct links to motor neurone disease. We are taking 26 of these portraits and once they are all completed, Cristian will be running a marathon. On the 26 days leading up to his marathon, we will be publishing one of each of the portraits and the story behind it.

I’m in every one of the photos too (Cristian’s idea, not mine!).

So now, hopefully you understand why we called it 26 Miles 4 MND.

If you can spread the word about 26 Miles 4 MND or help in any way at all, both Cristian and I would really appreciate it.

Stay well, stay safe and thanks for reading. Miles 🙂