A Book is Born
It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a worldwide community to create a book. After months of research, gathering materials, chasing down contacts, obtaining endorsements and diligent editing, "Torina's World: A Child in Madagascar" is ready to go to print! Publication date is October 1, 2007. A quick side trip to Madagascar to find Torina and ask her about her goals occurred in June. See images and travel along with Joni and her son at her blog and learn more about this book (which has become a whole project!) at the Torina's World website. We are grateful to Arnica Creative for publishing the book, to Meredith Sorenson for giving us many wonderful contacts in Madagascar, to Josh Poole and Diana Skelton for their help while in Madagascar, to Sharon Kitzhaber for all of her promotional ideas and energetic support, to Pro Photo Supply for supplying equipment for the Madagascar trip, to Nau, Inc. for their collaborative support and publication of side story, to Pure Digital, Inc. for supplying video cameras and to countless others. This is the first book in a series about how young people live in challenging situations all over the world. A portion of the proceeds from the books will go to a non-profit organization within each country. Organic Valley Assignment
Joni can be sometimes be found pouring over old photo books from eras past, where photographers were sent out all over the country to photograph farms. Growing up a city girl, but having had early experiences on a farm in Pierpont, Ohio that literally changed the direction of her life, Joni has a deep affinity for farm life and has many times self assigned projects that bring her to farms in Eastern Oregon. A dream commercial assignment came through a few months ago, with Organic Valley sending her to several California farms and one in Washington. She spends the day at each farm, capturing its unique essence in photographs to be used in Organic Valley branding ads. The families have been wonderful, ranging from the hilarious wildcat-like rancher to the quiet and lovely non-English speaking Portuguese immigrant. Joni relayed that "this is heartbeat material, and it is an honor to be involved with such a great commercial assignment". |
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