nelsonfotodotcom
17-Apr-2008, 08:48
I've been corresponding with Stephen DiRado since stumbling on to a piece about him late summer of 2006. Caught up with him yesterday, and this morning I received a reply which contained a link to a recent interview in Worcester Magazine. I thought some might enjoy the article.
Bio notes on DiRado:
Stephen DiRado is a Worcester photographer who has been exhibiting since 1983. His award-winning portrait and documentary photographs are shown in museums and galleries around the world. He is also currently the photography program director/studio lecturer in photography in the Clark University Visual & Performing Arts Department.
Entire article HERE (http://www.worcestermagazine.com/content/view/2640/_)
DiRado tells a funny story about how his father first admitted to having it. In 1998, after being hospitalized with his first stroke, DiRado's brother, Chris, walked into the room and said, "Hey, I've got this magazine and there's an article about Alzheimer's."
Picking up the story, the photographer says, "It talked about these cognitive exercises and so forth. My father looks at his sons and says, ‘Hey, I think I have that. I wonder how long it's going to take before I get over it?'"
Now, ten years later, Gino DiRado sits in the TV room of the nursing facility docile and detached. He is the living embodiment of everything the experts define as Alzheimer's.
Setting up his camera to photograph whatever is going on in the moment, DiRado talks about his father before the disease. "My dad was a graphic artist for the state," he says. "At night when he came home he would do his own art. He was a painter."
The short bio on Gino DiRado's life reads like this: He was born Gene Angelo DiRado on Aug. 5, 1927 in Marlboro. He studied art at the Vesper George Art School in Boston. In 1956 he married Rose Ferranto, a Worcester girl, who grew up around Shrewsbury Street.
Bio notes on DiRado:
Stephen DiRado is a Worcester photographer who has been exhibiting since 1983. His award-winning portrait and documentary photographs are shown in museums and galleries around the world. He is also currently the photography program director/studio lecturer in photography in the Clark University Visual & Performing Arts Department.
Entire article HERE (http://www.worcestermagazine.com/content/view/2640/_)
DiRado tells a funny story about how his father first admitted to having it. In 1998, after being hospitalized with his first stroke, DiRado's brother, Chris, walked into the room and said, "Hey, I've got this magazine and there's an article about Alzheimer's."
Picking up the story, the photographer says, "It talked about these cognitive exercises and so forth. My father looks at his sons and says, ‘Hey, I think I have that. I wonder how long it's going to take before I get over it?'"
Now, ten years later, Gino DiRado sits in the TV room of the nursing facility docile and detached. He is the living embodiment of everything the experts define as Alzheimer's.
Setting up his camera to photograph whatever is going on in the moment, DiRado talks about his father before the disease. "My dad was a graphic artist for the state," he says. "At night when he came home he would do his own art. He was a painter."
The short bio on Gino DiRado's life reads like this: He was born Gene Angelo DiRado on Aug. 5, 1927 in Marlboro. He studied art at the Vesper George Art School in Boston. In 1956 he married Rose Ferranto, a Worcester girl, who grew up around Shrewsbury Street.