Welcome to the new IMPACT online exhibition, a project exploring the internet as a venue for insightful photographic work. In an effort to remind viewers of the important role photographers play around the world, we invited an array of imagemakers to share galleries on their blogs (like this one) that comprise 12 images representing an experience when they had an impact on or were impacted. By clicking on the links below the IMPACT logo, you can move through the exhibition, viewing other galleries by different photographers. You can also click the IMPACT logo to be taken to a post on the liveBooks RESOLVE Blog where you can see an index of all participating photographers. We hope that by linking different photographic visions of our first topic, “Outside Looking In,” we can provide a multifaceted view of the topic as well as the IMPACT individuals can have on the world around us.
—The IMPACT Team
Old Order Mennonite is a term for the Mennonite groups who dress plainly and reject modern technologies. They put the disciplined church community, rather than individual religious experience, at the center of their Christian faith.
Old Order Mennonites are found in five major settlements in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Ontario. They trace their origin to 1872, when bishop Jacob Wisler of Elkart, Indiana was expelled from the Old Mennonite Church because of his opposition to innovations, like Sunday schools, and organized separate regional groups in Indiana and Ohio.
This split was followed by the organization of affiliated regional groups in Ontario in 1889, in Pennsylvania in 1893, and in Virginia in 1901 where the Rhodes family lives and raises 9 children.
I had mentioned a couple of times on my blog that I was working on an body of work about an Old Order Mennonite family in the Shenandoah Valley.
I was introduced to the Rhodes family by Regina Harlow. Regina is a writer from one of the weekly papers published by the Daily News-Record. She has know the Rhodes family since childhood and one of their daughters now babysits her son from time to time.
I have to admit I was a little unsure how to proceed and what to expect. Old Order Mennonites are like the Amish in that they prefer not to be photographed. I was actually surprised that they had agreed. The only stipulation was that the images not appear in the local newspapers. I agreed and decided to do the story on my own time as a personal project.
My first meeting with the James and Mary Ethel Rhodes, the parents of 9 children in the family, was at the old order school where four of the children attend class. I think everyone was as curious about me and what I was doing as much as I was about them. Everyone was kind and welcoming.
Over the next 7 months or so, I would drop in on the Rhodes as they where going about their daily lives and I have come away with a new family of friends as well as some very nice images that look into the lives of a quiet and somewhat sequestered community.
The Mother Nature Network picked up a photo of mine from a recent press conference when Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters that republicans continue to block climate legislation. Click here for the story on The Mother Nature Network.
There were three photographers in the Senate Press Photographer’s Gallery when Mark Abraham, the gallery deputy director, received an email saying that the Capitol Police were responding to a disturbance in the Capitol Rotunda. After the obligatory 15 seconds of trying to determine if he was serious or just messing with us, we took off [...]
Images from Naples Italy. All images copyright Pete Marovich. Pete Marovich is a photojournalist based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He is represented by ZUMA Press
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