Photojournalism | Nominiert

Caspar Martig

Bern / CH

Fuck the cancer

Concept

The Melody of a Fallen Tree

And all of a sudden everything comes to a halt. A dark and viscous cloud envelops the happiness we had found. Cancer is silent and insidious. It sneaks up on you unawares.

They cut out the tumour – leaving you disfigured. Then came the fear of losing someone most dear or that our child would have to grow up without its mother. I did not know if I was strong enough for you, for us, for the children. Seeing you suffer so made me angry and at the same time humbled me; everything else was of minor importance.

We faced the challenge and wandered through this period of pain, grief and fear – not knowing where our path would end, but our fortitude was great.

Finally came the time when your hair began to grow again. Slowly things began to return to normal; daily routine became more commonplace. The scars remained, scars on your body and in our souls. What also remained is the knowledge of having survived something dire – for the time being.

“Life is Beautiful”

Vita

Caspar Martig, born in 1970 and father of four children, is a freelance photographer and lives with his family in Bern. After completing an apprenticeship as a chef, he began taking photographs. Since 1996 he has been working as an advertising, architecture and reportage photographer. He realized stories for Du, NZZ Folio and Das Magazin, produced campaigns for SBB, Die Migros, Swisscom and Appenzeller cheese, among others. To this day, he accompanies Red Cross missions and works as a lecturer in photography at various educational institutions. In 2011, Caspar Martig realized the project "1191 grams of Bern" - a coffee table book about the federal capital, which was complemented by an exhibition. Caspar Martig is a member of ADC Switzerland.