Tiny, but mighty, the petite “Sacramento Bee” photographer Renée Byer might weigh about 100 pounds when she’s dripping wet, but she’s no wimp. At 48, this native New Yorker is a veteran journalist who has worked at the Seattle Post Intelligencer, The Oregonian, The Hartford Courant and the Syracuse Post-Standard. She’s one tough photo journalist with an eye, a heart and a sixth sense. When she combines all that – watch out. Byer will get to the core of a story faster than you can blink an eye, and then she’ll nail it with just one shot.
Even for someone who moves at an accelerated pace, things have been busy for Byer this year. Her year-long documentary project, “A Mother’s Journey,” which chronicled Cyndie French’s poignant devotion to her dying child, garnered several international and domestic awards, including the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. Byer had a chance meeting with French in May at the 2006 Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, where French was volunteering at the survivors’ celebration after the race with her 5-year-old daughter, Brianna. Byer had a gut feeling that this might be a very good story on several levels.
“When we met, I was immediately impressed with this mom who was helping others while her son was at home suffering with a rare childhood cancer,” says Byer. “I was intrigued because Derek wasn’t the perfect child. He was the pre-adolescent kid, a very real child, not some storybook kid who was being pushed on a newspaper. He was very smart, very questioning and prone to meltdowns.”
Another element Byer found moving was that French made every moment count. She was a woman who had a big heart, opened herself right up and made sure her son knew he was loved unconditionally. “Her dedication to her son was beyond anything I could imagine,” says Byer. “She’d spray silly string all over and around him just to divert his attention from the next medical procedure and avoid a heart-wrenching meltdown, and then she’d go all over the floor to pick up every piece. She did everything to help her son although she didn’t have much – she was inspiring.”
Byer remembers that French and her children held carwashes to pay for the things they needed as they struggled financially.
“At one point she was going to use the money to buy a PlayStation 2 for Derek, and I remember him looking at her and saying, ‘No, Mom. I think we need to pay the rent instead.’ She made brownies and cookies for the medical staff because she wanted to thank them for treating Derek when he was so difficult.”
Renée and Derek
According to French, Derek bonded with Renée and saw her sensitivity, her smarts and her talent. He loved Renée, and he knew that his story and her photos would be forever bound by the same purpose and garner world-wide attention.
“He would tell me, ‘Mom, Renée gets it. She knows,’” says French. “He felt very strongly that she would win a prize for their cause.”
For Byer, as she was allowed to get closer to her subjects and further integrated into their lives, she needed to keep her perspective and stay objective.
“I became that fly on the wall,” says Byer. She managed her daily assignments at The Bee, and continued to work on this project with large chunks of time just being in their environment and not even taking a photo. Her boss, Mark Morris, took her off the daily schedule for the last few weeks so she could concentrate on Derek. Byer’s husband,Paul Kitagaki, also a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer at The Bee, supported her time-consuming efforts. “It was when I got the photo of Cyndie racing Derek down the hospital floor to keep
his mind off a painful medical procedure that I realized ‘This is a big story,’” says Byer.
In addition to the Pulitzer, Byer also received the World Understanding Award from Pictures of the Year International and the Days Japan International photojournalism award. “The focus of my story was that millions of dollars go into cancer research but very little to help families in their financial and emotional crisis,” says Byer. “It’s my hope that the attention this story has received will result in advancing Derek’s wish.” (
Dereks-wish.com)
