Help Portrait 2010

Dec 10, 2010     4 Comments    Posted in: Blog, News

You will have to excuse the extended absence I have had from this blog. I have been a bit busy lately with a project I have been very excited about. I have talked about it before when it started last year. Help Portrait was started by Jeremy Cowart, a photographer from Nashville. The idea is to have photographers volunteer their time and skills to take portraits of people who would normally not be able to have them done. I organized the event for Faded & Blurred this year at the LA Rescue Mission.

It was actually an unbelievable experience. We got there bright and early Saturday morning expecting to set up. When it came time for us to start no one was coming in. I panicked a bit, but we had a wonderful partner/volunteer. Tina Russek, the gifts-in-kind manager for the mission, not only was my “point” person for the day, but also very graciously offered her services as a makeup artist (not only that, she brought along a friend to help her with the makeup, Kristi Courtios). Tina saw that we had no “customers” so sent out for some help. Within minutes we had about fifty people walk through the doors and the stream seemed never ending.

The whole day was so overwhelming. The best part of my day was having a young kid (probably about 20) come up to ask me a question. He then threw his arms around me and said, “Thank you SO much for doing this. It means so much.” I heard several people saying they were going to send their photos to their moms, moms who hadn’t seen them in years. I heard stories of women as they were getting makeup on and being told they would be beautiful said, “No, I’m not beautiful.” Then would see themselves in the mirror and believe it.

I only took a few photos and only of things behind the scenes, I was too busy running around trying to make sure everything was running smoothly. Here are a few, though, just to give you an idea of what it was like. Tomorrow we do another one. We are shooting the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Gift of Love Party they throw for the battered women’s shelters in the area. We did this one last year and loved it so much we had to do it again. It’s making for a very busy few weeks, but it has been well worth it.

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.
~ Aaron Siskind

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