Interactive Narratives

On January 21st, hundreds of thousands of Americans traveled to Washington D.C. for President Obama's second Inauguration. I was among them to celebrate the event. Here are some of the people I met. These photos follow a set I took at the first Inauguration in 2009 as well as photos I took on the election night in November; I plan to continue attending every Inauguration in the future in order to document the type of people who gather for this event. I call the series "The America We Elected" because I am interested in focusing on the faces of the people in the crowd rather than the main spectacle shown in the media; it is interesting to think about how the faces would be different given a different outcome in the election. For instance, we are looking at radiantly happy people and strangers bonding together with a shared sense of hope, but we can imagine alternate situations where the people I would have encountered might have been angry protestors, or just entirely different demographics of the population. The main thrust of the project is to capture reality as it is and present this little seen aspect to a larger audience. The photos are unmanipulated, spontaneous, and captured on film by a Rolleiflex camera. More…

The Ethiopian Mekane Yesus Church owns and runs Aira Hospital - a small but by Ethiopian standards well equipped health facility - situtated in the far western part of rural Ethiopia. Despite financial hardship and lack of the most basic resources the dedicated surgeon Dr. Erik Erichsen and his team of local colleagues try as hard as they possibly can to serve some of the poorest people in the world More…

Everyone pictured in this 12-person photo gallery has a mental illness. They live in this community. A daughter. An uncle. A sister. A friend. A neighbor. A co-worker. They are us. Photography by Lauren M. Whaley/CHCF Center for Health Reporting. More…

Joyce Plis directs the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Modesto, California. She's a hero to sick people who have nowhere else to turn. Her son Eric, 46, has schizophrenia. Photography, audio and production by Lauren M. Whaley/CHCF Center for Health Reporting. More…

Matt Freitas, nurse practitioner, treats people with mental illness, including his daughter, who has schizophrenia. The number of patients seeking treatment for mental illness has tripled over the past three years, Freitas says. Photography, audio and production by Lauren M. Whaley, CHCF Center for Health Reporting. More…

The 2012 french president's election from the side of political activists. More…

"Reframing Mexico" looks at the Mexico City beyond the violent headlines. The site features 12 short video documentaries and multiple interactive features. Topics include a single mother raising children in a large metro dump, a carpenter whose illegal immigration to the US ended when the American dream eluded him, a disabled father overcoming stigma and discrimination, and others. Interactive features include a border crossing game, a "build your own wrestler" feature, and more. This project is a collaboration between UNC Photojournalism and Monterrey Tec. More…

"Reframing Mexico" looks at the Mexico City beyond the violent headlines. The site features 12 short video documentaries and multiple interactive features. Topics include a single mother raising children in a large metro dump, a carpenter whose illegal immigration to the US ended when the American dream eluded him, a disabled father overcoming stigma and discrimination, and others. Interactive features include a border crossing game, a "build your own wrestler" feature, and more. This project is a collaboration between UNC Photojournalism and Monterrey Tec. More…

Chinese-Australian students have come under increasing scrutiny, raising debate about the role of culture, coaching colleges and notions of childhood in an increasingly competitive school environment. Are Chinese parents too pushy, their focus too narrow and the children too obedient? Or are there lessons to be learnt from Chinese students to ensure everyone shares in the success? More…

“Viral Sockpuppets” is a character-driven crowd-sourced conversational story-making game, played within the YouTube community. Every time someone asks you a question it has the potential to change the direction of your own personal narrative, but two people can only develop a narrative for a short period of time before it eventually dies. Equipping a community of storytellers with the power to design and resolve conflicts on a public stage can not only guarantee a committed audience for his or her story, but will also produce a one-of-a-kind experience. The creation of a good story does not need to be linear, formulaic or built around a single plot. The “Viral Sockpuppets” is a virtual “story-world” populated by characters that create new organically developed stories through an “exquisite corpse”-like game. The protagonist asks the community to help resolve a dilemma by responding to the question with a “sub-plot” story suggestion. Players are then divided into categories: the active players who produce “sub-plots” and the passive players who vote on which sub-plot is selected for the narrative. Once an active player wins the public vote two times within the active narrative (it does not need to be consecutive), that player assumes the role of protagonist. At that time, the current dilemma is resolved and a new one is launched featuring the new protagonist. In this way, the “story-world” of the game never ends facilitating “sub-plots” and narrative chapters to continue the story forever. More…