A Mother's Journey and Selected Photographs

Pulitzer Prize–winning photographs document a single mother's emotional and financial struggles as her son battles a rare form of childhood cancer.

This collection of photographs presents photojournalist Renée C. Byer’s Pulitzer Prize–winning series, “A Mother’s Journey,” along with other early and recent photographs. “A Mother’s Journey” is an intimate portrayal of a single mother's emotional and financial struggles as her son battles neuroblastoma, a rare form of childhood cancer. This year-long documentary project was originally published in the Sacramento Bee as a four-part series and on the Web as a multimedia package. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 2007, the series won a World Understanding Award as well the Society of Professional Journalist’s Sigma Delta Chi Award for feature photography. “When done well,” said Byer, “photojournalism is a powerful tool because it connects people to the reality of life and can bring understanding and awareness to important issues.”