Forging Our Path at Midlife

by Diane Saarinen

Diane Saarinen: I can’t let the interview finish without focusing instead of on women but on you, Paola – you have, I’m holding a book called A Matter of Choice: 25 People Who Transformed Their Lives. And I read the essay on you in it, and you have such an inspiring story about someone who left corporate America, in midlife, and decided to do what you really wanted to always wanted to do — which was to be a photojournalist.

Paola Gianturco: I did. It’s true! Joan Chatfield-Taylor edited that book full of stories about people’s lives in transition. And my story, as you say, led from a 35-year career in advertising and marketing. And at age 55, I decided to take a sabbatical. I had been teaching as well as working with corporate communications clients all over the country.

And I thought I was, for one year – I didn’t think I was making a life-changing decision – I thought I was for one year going to do what I loved and wanted to learn next. And what I loved was photography and travel. And what I wanted to learn next because my whole experience had been in the corporate arena, was about women entrepreneurs in the developing world. The opposite range of that women’s working experience.

And I made that decision immediately after the Beijing Conference that had taken place in 1995. And I learned for the first time, that women in the developing world were sending their children to school with the money they earned. And that men tended to have the cultural [premitor] to spend the money they earned on whatever they wanted. And often it was radios, and beer, and so forth – and not their children.

And I thought: My God, the women are heroic! I wanted to document their work and their lives and I set forth – naively, not being a professional photographer, not being a professional writer – to do a book in one year. It took five! And I found myself so challenged and engrossed by this new avenue both of learning and creative expression, that although I continued to do some consulting for several years, enough to fund this new passion, ultimately I never went back full time to business.

DS: That’s amazing!

PG: Yes, it was!

DS: I love it though because it really tells people that if you have your own path, you go on it, and it can take a little longer than you think it’s going to take – in your case, you thought you were taking a year and this turned out to be like an all-encompassing project. And I’m glad you did it because I love your work!

PG: Well, thank you very much. And it turns out that I work just as many hours, like twelve to fourteen a day, but I’m doing something that I’m passionately involved in and I’m very excited about.

To hear the rest of the Her Circle Ezine interview with photojournalist Paola Gianturco, please return to our site on Saturday, March 8, 2008, when we will make the full audio available for listening. For more information on Gianturco’s books, please visit www.paolagianturco.com.

Interview: Paola Gianturco

In Celebrating Women, photographer Paola Gianturco trains her eye on the world’s most vibrant festivals that honor women. These moving celebrations, idiosyncratic to their indigenous roots, take the form of parades, parties, competitions, and religious ceremonies. Gianturco spent five years photographing seventeen festivals in fifteen countries across five continents. Collected for the first time ever in a single edition, Gianturco provides insightful text describing the specific occasions and detailing their historic and cultural significance, culled from her extensive interviews with musicians, dancers, vendors, mask makers, costume designers, journalists, priests, governors, and spectators—not to mention a princess and a king.

Visit the author online, and join us Saturday, March 8th for an exclusive interview with the author.