For the third year in a row, yesterday I participated in an inspirational day. The brainchild of celebrity photographer Jeremy Cowart, Help-Portrait is “a community of photographers, coming together across the world, to use their photography skills to give back to their local community. On or around December 10th, photographers around the world will be grabbing their cameras, finding people in need, and taking their picture. When the prints are ready, the photographs get delivered. Yep. It really is that easy.”
I volunteered with our local group (find yours by clicking around on the community site here) and met some wonderful people, both in front of and behind cameras. The Hyde Square Task Force hosted the event at their facility, and we (25+ photographers and volunteers) provided over 100 families who live or have roots within a mile of Jackson Square with portraits over the course of the day.
Attendees were welcomed…
Primped, by volunteers from Empire Beauty Schools:
And then they got to show off their pearly whites… here are just a few of the fantastic people I met:
Then they came downstairs to the spot where another group of fabulous volunteers were printing them an 8×10 and two 4×6’s, as well as burning them a CD of all their pictures to take home. It was so well organized! So many team members made it happen, but the most visible on our end were Howard and Jessica – thank you guys for doing TONS of legwork before the event (and I’m sure, late into the night!). All our team members, send me your websites and I’ll link to you! 🙂
And our wall of love got bigger and bigger throughout the day. This picture shows only about half of the families we saw. Go team! Wonderful to work with you all, so fun to get to see all these smiles.
P.S. This was the first year we got releases from the subjects to show their beautiful faces on our websites – to help get the word out about this event so it can spread to more than the fifty countries it already spread to. Of course, if any of my gorgeous subjects would prefer I not post their picture here – send me an email and of course I’ll take it down.
P.P.S. For historical perspective, I do have a blog post from the first event I took part in here (I slacked and didn’t do one last year, sorry).
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