By Rebecca Wiessmann

On this episode of Foresight TV, Steve talks with Gina Martin, founder of the Bob and Diane Fund, and photojournalist Leah Hennel, the fund’s 2025 grant recipient. Their conversation explores how photography can make Alzheimer’s and dementia visible — not as abstract diagnoses, but as human stories of love, caregiving, grief, adaptation, and daily life. You can watch the full livestream HERE.

Gina started the Bob and Diane Fund 10 years ago while working at National Geographic. Her mother had Alzheimer’s, and her father was her caregiver. Surrounded by world-class photography, Gina saw how images could help people understand something they might otherwise keep at arm’s length.

So she created a grant for photographers working on projects related to Alzheimer’s and dementia.

The organization’s goal is not simply to document disease. It is to create visual awareness. It is to help people feel empathy. To bring to light something that too often lives in the shadows.

Over the past decade, the fund has supported 10 grant recipients. Their work has appeared in roughly 150 publications worldwide, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, BBC, and other major outlets.

This year’s recipient, Leah Hennel, brings a deeply photojournalistic approach to the work.

Her project, “In the Time We Have,” follows Joan and Alan, a married couple in Calgary, Alberta, as they navigate life with Alzheimer’s.

The Ordinary Moments Are The Story

Steve connects to the work immediately.

His 93-year-old stepfather has dementia. For a time, he lived in Steve’s home. Eventually, Steve and his wife reached the point many family caregivers reach: they could no longer keep him safe at home or keep themselves safe while trying to care for him.

He now lives in a small senior living setting.

That lived experience changes the way Steve sees Leah’s photographs. They are not distant or theoretical. They are familiar.

A doll in a laundry room. A nap in a favorite sunny spot. A ride in the car. A kiss on the cheek. A spouse hovering nearby, always watching, always adjusting, always protecting.

Leah says she is drawn to human emotion. Not only sadness. Not only joy. The full mix of what people experience every day.

Her connection to dementia is personal, too. Her father-in-law had dementia, and she watched her husband’s family wrestle with the disease. One of the things that surprised her most was the silence around it. Some family members did not want to tell friends. People did not know how to respond. Friends wondered whether they should still invite him for coffee or visit if he might not remember them.

That stigma became one of the reasons Leah wanted to do the project.

The Shrinking World Of Dementia

One image that hits Steve especially hard shows Joan holding a doll.

For Steve, it captures something many families know but struggle to explain: the shrinking world of dementia.

His stepfather had once been a Silicon Valley executive. Later, he moved into a one-bedroom in Steve’s house. Now he lives in a senior living community with a few photos and mementos.

The world contracts.

But Leah’s photograph does not reduce Joan to loss. Joan is still living, still holding, still feeling, still moving through ordinary moments that matter.

Leah explains that Joan often holds dolls or stuffed animals. She wraps them like babies. She carries them around the house. These small comforts become part of daily life.

That is the power of the project. It does not turn dementia into a clinical issue. It shows the laundry room, the grocery list, the favorite sweater, the hallway, the car ride, and the routines.

People are still living their lives.

Love Does Not Disappear

One of the most powerful photographs captures a fleeting moment between Joan and Alan.

Joan says Alan’s name — something he had not heard from her in years — and then kisses him on the cheek.

Leah admits the photo is not technically perfect. The moment happened too fast. But emotionally, it lands exactly where it needs to land.

Gina says this is what drew her to Leah’s project. It captures true love.

So much dementia storytelling focuses on loneliness, disappearance, and loss. Those things are real. But in this story, Alan remains by Joan’s side. He advocates for her. He adjusts his life around her. He helps her keep living.

Gina says people often think of Alzheimer’s as a death sentence. Eventually, it can be. But Leah’s work shows something else, too: Joan is living with Alzheimer’s. Alan has not disappeared from life either. They are living through it together.

That distinction matters for families. It matters for senior living leaders. And it matters for anyone trying to communicate about dementia with more honesty and humanity.

Living In Their World

One of the most practical lessons comes near the end of the conversation.

Steve asks what senior living operators need to understand about dementia from the perspective of families and caregivers.

Gina’s answer is direct: You are now living in their world.

People living with dementia cannot simply change the way they process information. They cannot be argued back into reality. They cannot be corrected into clarity.

The rest of us have to change.

That means learning how to communicate differently. It means resisting the impulse to rationalize, explain, argue, or correct. It means understanding that dementia is a disease, and if people could change what is happening, they would.

Steve connects this to an article he has started writing titled “I’m So Tired of Lying.” Editorial Note: This referenced article should already be published by the time this one is, please find the article and link to it.

Anyone who has cared for someone with dementia understands what he means. Families often have to step into an alternate reality over and over again. They redirect. They soothe. They answer the same question eight times in 20 minutes. They say whatever preserves peace and dignity in the moment.

It is loving.

It is necessary.

And it is wearying.

What Senior Living Leaders Should See

The lesson for senior living is not only about care plans or memory care programming. It is about seeing.

Seeing the spouse who has been carrying the emotional weight for years.

Seeing the daughter who is exhausted before the move-in even happens.

Seeing the resident not as a diagnosis but as a person still living a life full of preferences, habits, fears, joys, and flashes of recognition.

Seeing that love may look different inside dementia, but it is still love.

Leah’s photographs remind us that dementia care is not only about safety, medication, bathing, meals, or activities. It is about ordinary human moments — and the people who help make those moments possible.

A pink sweater so someone can be spotted quickly in a store.

A small card explaining dementia to strangers.

A tracker for safety.

A stroller-like chair so a couple can still get outside.

A caregiver who follows rather than forces.

A husband who adapts because, in his mind, there is no other option.

This is the work.

And when photography does its best work, it helps the rest of us see what was already there.