Mike Peterman: A Senior Profile Portrait by Drew Russert (2014)

Big Mike - For the profile unit, I chose to interview my close friend Mike Peterman, an independent contractor who works as a play therapist. Mike spends his days working with kids on the autistic spectrum, or who have other physical or mental disabilities, to develop their social and play skills. He loves to work in small groups, composed of both typically developing and special needs kids, so that the kids who Mike targets can get a full experience of interacting on a school playground. The reason why I selected Mike was that not only have I known him since I was little, but he contributed in a big way for me overcoming my autism. He is a huge inspiration because he believes that kids can still interact and behave in a typical way even though their disability seemingly prevents them from doing so. I learned how to treat other people the way I'd like to be treated because society can progress when we include everyone and not single people out due to their disabilities. Plus, you who can discover that people with mental or physical setbacks aren't so different from normal people and they are fun to be around.

I took the photo in Mike's ''man cave'' where he had several pictures of the San Francisco Giants and 49ers, plus a mannequin of Elvis Presley. The photo I took was very well done. It had the right exposure and the colors were vibrant. However, the shot was busy, so I had to create a blur effect so that the focus was on Mike. I took hundreds of shots similar to this, and this was the photo I settled with because Mike's personality is compressed into this one photo.