Local man's photography selected for national collection

Carson City's Michael Rabe felt pretty good when he learned one of his photographs was accepted into the Muscular Dystrophy Association's art collection.

"OK, talk about being all jazzed up," he said. "I was like, 'This is cool.'"

Rabe's photograph, "Day's End," will join about 300 other works in a permanent collection by artists across the country with neuromuscular diseases. The collection was established in 1992, to show that physical disability doesn't disable creativity.

Rabe, 44, was diagnosed at age 3 with Friedrich's ataxia, in which peripheral nerves cause impaired coordination and muscle wasting.

"It basically means the nerves in the back of my neck are slowly but surely deteriorating," he said.

Though he said it makes him walk like he's drunk, he doesn't let it slow him down.

"If I fall down, I'll get back up again -- I don't care."

He has traveled from Alaska to Fiji and the Cook Islands in the South Pacific.

"If I see a nice picture, I'll take a picture of it. Even though my balance is a little wobbly -- hey, what they heck. You take six or seven pictures, and one of them is going to turn out. Of course, you spend a lot of money on film."

Rabe is a fifth-generation Nevadan. His family, which came to the area in the 1860s, once owned a thousand acres on the shore of Lake Tahoe, he said.

He works at the secretary of state's office, where his photographs are on display.

Using a Ricoh 35 millimeter, Olympus LT-1 and a Pentax IQ Zoom 170 SL, he hikes around Marlette Lake or down to Vikingsholm at Lake Tahoe, looking for nature shots.

Rabe's mother, Karen also has muscular dystrophy, but her siblings, cousins and nieces do not have the disease.

"I'm the only one blessed with it," he says with a smile, looking toward the heavens.

Rabe sat barefoot on the porch he had designed Sunday, enjoying the shade as a soothing waterfall trickled into a pond he dug himself.

He recently refinished the kitchen in the Carson Mobile unit he shares with Robert Sandberg, who also has muscular dystrophy. Rabe snapped his award-winning photograph of a salmon-colored sunset from their front porch.

"I'm not trying to become a big, famous photographer," he said. "I don't want to be a big famous photographer. I've got a state job. I've got what I need. I'm living comfortable, and that's all I care about."

He's not about to slow down, however.

"I'm not going to sit around and become an old hobo and feel sorry for myself," he said. "I look at it this way: It's a challenge -- life is a challenge. And I figure you might as well go for the challenge. In fact, I've been asked to submit a few more of my photos to the collection."

On The Net

To see Rabe's photo or order a print, go to the Muscular Dystrophy Association at www.mdausa.org/news/030703rabe.html.