Delray Beach, FL – The Palm Beach Photographic Centre, 55 N.E. Second Ave., Delray Beach, welcomes 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winner Renee C. Byer and her heart-rending exhibition, “A Mother’s Journey,” opening September 29 and running through November 10. This powerful exhibition includes 40 20x24 pictures and one large 30x40 image.

“A Mother’s Journey” is a yearlong photo journal chronicling the vigil of single mother Cyndie French, 40, over her youngest son, Derek Madsen. Derek was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called neuroblastoma around Thanksgiving of 2004. He was 10-years-old.

Cyndie French gave unprecedented access to the Sacramento Bee to cover her son’s treatment and its effect on her and her four other children. Renee C. Byer has been a staff photographer at the Bee since 2003. Her colleague Cynthia Hubert wrote the text for a four-part series that appeared in the newspaper. Derek Madsen died in his mother’s arms in May 2006 at age 11.

“The images are amazing,” said Photographic Centre executive director Fatima NeJame. “Everybody is being touched by this horrible disease. I have many friends who have died, and in my family three uncles have died of cancer. To see it in a child is the most heartbreaking of all. This is one of the strongest, toughest shows we’ve ever done.”

Byer’s images are available online at Dana Point, California-based Zuma Press. “A Mother’s Journey” won the Pulitzer Prize on April 20, 2007, and has since won more than a dozen international awards. A traveling exhibit opened in June in San Francisco.

Byer and Zuma Press founder Scott McKiernan will be present at an opening reception at 6:30 p.m. and lecture at 7:30 on Wednesday, October 10. The reception is free for members of the Photo Centre and $10 per person for nonmembers.

“When you look into the face of someone with cancer, you have no idea what is going on beyond chemo and radiation,” wrote McKiernan in an interview with Byer for DOUBLEtruck magazine. “It is human nature to turn away. But it is real life, often raw, and it’s going on in homes all over this country, where more than 1 million people are diagnosed every year. Billions of dollars are given toward cancer research, but virtually nothing is given to help families through the emotional and financial challenges to allow them the time to spend with their dying child.”

Cyndie French lost all her savings and her business, but she has three healthy surviving older sons and a younger daughter. All were affected by Derek’s ordeal and in some ways made stronger by it. Readers of the original story donated $40,000 to the family, and Cyndie French has since established a non-profit dereks-wish.com foundation for other families in similar situations.

Renee C. Byer has been a professional photographer for more than 20 years. She has served on the faculty of the Mountain Workshop for Journalism and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Florida. Her 2005 photo series “Seeds of Doubt” on biotechnology received the World Hunger’s Harry Chapin Media Award for Photojournalism. Also in 2005 she was awarded the McClatchy President’s Award for her photo series “Woman at War.” In 2004 she won Associated Press’s Mark Twain Award for excellence in new photography.

About the Palm Beach Photographic Centre:

A nonprofit visual arts organization dedicated to the enrichment of life through exhibitions, community programs, workshops and other educational activities that promote the arts of photography and digital imaging. Located at 55 N.E. 2nd Avenue in Delray Beach, the Palm Beach Photographic Centre is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Admission to the galleries is $3. For more information, call 561.276.9797 or visit www.workshop.org.