Gina Martin // “I've always loved different things about books. Sometimes it is the photographer or the actual work, sometimes it's just the way the book is made. I love little boutique books. I love little unique books, how they're made, if they're different. I usually don't love the typical hardcover coffee table book, unless the work just blows me away. But it's usually not what grabs me with a book.”

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Welcome to @thesearcherpodcast, conversations with storytellers, creatives, healers, and others in search of what it all means, so we may understand why it is we do what we do. For our first episode, I would love to introduce my good friend Gina Martin. I met her more than 16 years ago when I was a photo intern at @natgeo magazine. Gina has an amazing photo book collection – wait until you hear how many she has, my guess was way off. I love her passion for photography books, and at the 27:06 mark, Gina shares one of her favorites. “It doesn’t have to be super complicated,” shared Gina. “This is the epitome of that. It is literally in his backyard.” Go to the link in our profile to listen to @thesearcherpodcast.

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We also talk about her nonprofit, the Bob and Diane Fund, which supports visual storytelling that documents Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Their annual grant of $5,000 USD supports the completion, publication, exhibition, and/or screening of photography that increases a visual understanding the disease. The application deadline is October 25, 2020 at 11:59PM EST. For more information about this annual grant, go to http://www.bobanddianefund.org/. The grantee will be announced in mid-November during National Caregiver’s Month.

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Gina Martin // “The Bob and Diane Fund is nonprofit I started five or six years ago in memory of my parents. My mom passed away of Alzheimer's in 2011 and then my father, who was her loyal caregiver – they were married for 49 years – he passed away three months later on his 71st birthday. So, I wanted to do it in both of their names because my dad took care of her so well and it affected his life as much as hers. We give a grant of $5000 every year to a photographer working on a story related to Alzheimer's or dementia, and then we work to get that published worldwide to bring kind of a visual understanding of what the disease is. We gave money this year for a mentorship. We've paid for a photographer to go to a workshop, we pay their airfare and registration and they work on a story for that week. We did a photo contest last year called Still Living, it was for people who were living with the disease to send in a photo. We've done different things, but our main is the grant each year is to help them either publish it into a book or to exhibit the work. We've given about $45,000 so far.”

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Follow Gina Martin:

Instagram: @ginamartindc

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Follow Bob and Diane Fund:

Instagram: @bobanddianefund

Twitter: @bobanddianefund

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Follow Stephen Gill:

Instagram: @stephen_gill_

“The Pillar” by Stephen Gill available at: https://www.nobodybooks.com/

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Additional links:

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Searcher Instagram: @thesearcherpodcast

Searcher website: http://michaelchristopherbrown.com/searcher/

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