Matt Druin, Woodstock, Georgia, USA:
We actually were able to have a number of the same people we served last year come back again this year. We were able to catch up on their lives, see the new additions to their families, and get to know them even more on a personal level.
Ananggadipa Raswanto, Jakarta, DKI Jakarta, Indonesia:
We photographed the eldery, the old people who have been kicked out of house by the family, left on the street, etc. It’s really something that we can give affection to them through our gift, the photographs.
The last photo is one of sweetest moment of that day when one of the elderly played with one of our member while we doing photo shoot.
Jens Winkler, Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland:
We only shot people with mentaly and cognitive handicaps. We had several employees reporting that models returned home very proud, showing their framed picture around the house to everybody, saying: that’s me.
One other example: A woman isn’t able to have makeup on her eyes for medical reasons. She has a severe cognitive disorder as well. The retoucher heard about it, took a ps-eyedrop of her eyecolor and painted some makeup on her picture – to her absolute delight.
A other retoucher had the patience to wait for a woman without language to point to one of two pictures on his screen after a long pause of waiting, to retouch this picture and print it out as her choice.
“I have never seen myself so beautiful – I will hang it up in my room and look at it every day.” 15-year-old girl with a cognitve disorder.
Help-Portrait LA organizer Emily Michel Ford shared these highlights from their event Saturday.
It feels like an impossible task to summarize the stories from Help-Portrait in Los Angeles on Saturday.
I have been so moved by the amazing redemption and transformation in these men and women’s lives and I hope you will find joy and hope in them as well.
Among the five sites, we got to serve over 400 guests on Saturday.
There was so much kindness, compassion, joy and excitement in this room. The group of volunteers who came together from all over the city to serve the homeless and forgotten literally brought tears to my eyes. Over 150 family groups (nearing 200 total people) came through this loud, wonderful chapel room on Saturday.
Over and over again, I have heard of the shock and surprise of many of these men and women in seeing THEMSELVES in a photo for the very first time. They would say how they never liked how they looked, but they liked themselves in this photo.
Women who had not had make-up on or their hair done in their entire lives walked out of this room looking and feeling like princesses.
There were several men who played instruments as people walked past them all day every day that brought the same instruments into this room and were received with praise, attention and care.
Children were held and included in the process – allowed to help edit the photos with our volunteers and proclaim how beautiful their parents were.
One of the residents of Union Mission Rescue, “Louie,” told us about his good friend “Caster” that he had taken under his wing while in the program at the center. Caster has had a hard life, struggling in the gang life, going to prison, etc. and finally ended up at Union Rescue Mission bunking next to Louie. Caster is about the same age as Louie’s son, so automatically, Louie felt the need to look out for him. A couple of weeks ago, Caster gave his life to Christ. One day, Louis saw Caster rapping with another guy in the alleyway behind the mission. The guy was super talented with freestyle. On Saturday, Louis asked him what goals he was trying to set for his life, job, career, etc. Caster said he didn’t know, that he wasn’t good at anything. Louis said how about rapping for Jesus? After hearing this conversation, a few of us encouraged Caster to try this new freestyle for us since we were all believers. This is what happened…
The families that came into this site were those that were involved in the gang prevention section of the LA Children’s hospital – particularly targeting kids ages 10-15 through house visits, interventions and outside programming to keep them from joining into the many local gang movements. What a cool way to show these kids and their families that they have a place, are included and are valued for who THEY are, not what group they have sworn allegiance to.
Even though the room for hair & make-up had blown fuses through half of the room, these amazing stylists were so determined that they continued to do work in only partial light. Many of them, through their bilingual gifts were able to connect with primarily Spanish speaking families and women while doing their hair & make-up for the portraits.
We had a single parent family of five children and their mom come in for their very first picture together. Her oldest child was 15.
A local pastor who had been caring for this community for years and was barely making ends meet, got to come through with his family and be loved on and cared for himself for a day.
Although the total guest count was lower than anticipated, I can say with total and complete confidence that the impact had on those present was INCREDIBLE. After touching base with the site coordinator, she had tons of stories of the renewal of people’s confidence and of how special of a gift this was for them.
There were couples there that day who had never had a photo taken of their wedding or together as a part of their marriage. One in particular finally got to take “wedding” photos together as they neared their first year anniversary at the end of December.
Some of the mothers who came with their children had never had a photo taken of their child since their birth. As many of them struggle to provide and care for their precious little ones, having a permanent reminder of their joy and love together is a powerful milestone as a family.
One sweet woman who came into PATH chose to be there on her birthday. Because we had extra photographers at PATH, when her photo session time came, she was surrounded by 4 or 5 different photographers all taking shots of her and her son. She said she felt like the most important person in the world. This was the first birthday present that someone had given to her in years.
Several families, including one seen below experienced a very similar feeling of how special and prioritized they were:
Several women who because of abuse and attack had taken refuge at the Downtown Women’s Center in the past few years gathered the courage to participate in the photos on Saturday. One of them communicated to me that she had not been able to look at her face in almost three years after she had been ambushed and knocked out with her nose and many other bones on her face broken. She just didn’t feel beautiful or worth being seen anymore. To watch the care with which our make-up and hair stylists treated her and the way the room came around her to encourage her during her photo session brought tears to many of our eyes. When she saw her pictures, all she could say was, “God bless you” and “God will bless you.”
There was a woman who came early on who was pregnant with her first child, preparing to be a new single mother. One of our amazing volunteers who was also four months pregnant with her first child and to see their connection and the way our sweet volunteer could encourage this woman in the beauty and strength she possessed was profound. How good are the faithful words of encouragement in remembering the treasure of new life.
I rode down the elevator with three women, one of which had just received her photo and was returning to her room. Upon some encouragement she showed the photo to the two other women to which they exclaimed “DAAAAMN GIRL. You look like a rock star.” and other words of affirmation that just seemed to seep deep into her soul. The look on her face was more beautiful than that of a young girl who just won a beauty pageant. Many of these women do not frequently encourage or build up one another yet that was what was happening among them on Saturday.
One woman’s son took the time to come down and take portraits with her for the day. He has been pursuing a new modeling career and so one of the photographers was generous enough to take a few head shots for him as well.
The site coordinator said that she had not seen the women in this facility so filled with joy all year. What an amazing blessing. The first time she walked into one of the rooms to see the progress, she had to leave to keep from crying.
Everywhere I looked there were women sitting in comfy chairs speaking one on one with such attentiveness and care while waiting for their turn in hair/make-up or for a portrait to print. This quality time meant the world to a lot of women who are there because their families or friends would not care for them or be involved in their life.
Through the time and care of our awesome hosting team, we got to include notes of encouragement with each of the envelopes of photos that women would be picking up the next day, reminding them of how treasured, strong and beautiful they were.
One single mother and her five kids were taking photos but the mom was reluctant to get involved, until the kids begged her over and over again. When she finally came around, the look on her face as she was getting her hair and makeup done was priceless. You can tell that she felt like somebody again. She had recently gone through a divorce and now is living with her sister on a very tight budget. So to have family portraits for this time of the year was such a blessing to them all. They got so involved in all the photos. And to see this beautiful family leave the school together looking like stars really did wonders for their self esteem. You could see it on their faces!
Another single mom who had gotten pregnant out of wedlock, was able to participate and have photos taken of her daughter just in time for her first birthday. She had been feeling like an outcast lately – feeling mistreated by her family because of the pregnancy and this session truly showed the beauty of this new family.
Also, a long-term volunteer of Harambee was able to get his family photos taken. He has one kid of his own but had taken in a cousin who was physically abused as a child to where she is disabled and walks with braces. To see them getting all glammored up and taking as many pictures as they like was a real boost to their self esteem as well.
Gabriel Doty shares this memory from Help-Portrait Atlanta:
This teen mother and her friend came in, both with new babies about 6 months old. The girls were both a little shy, a little stand offish, but both lit up as I took pictures for them and their babies.
Our site didn’t do onsite printing, but I had happened to bring in my small Canon Selphy printer that does 4x6s just in case. I only had 6 prints in it, and was down to my last 2 when the girls came in, so they got the last two.
The second young girl that I photographed was very quiet as we looked over the shots I had taken, and picked one for their Help Portrait print, as well as which to print for the 4×6 I could give her today. She quietly picked one, and said thank you, nothing more.
I moved on to the next editing task while her friend was having her photo edited at the other computer. A few minutes later I happened to look up as the young girl I had printed the image for was showing it to her friend, tears streaming down her face.
It was perhaps one of the most touching things I have ever seen… Teen mom, one can only imagine the challenges that brought her to this point, huge challenges ahead of her, moved to tears by holding a single picture of her and her daughter.
That is what Help-Portrait is about, guess what I will be doing next December?
submitted by Juan Rubalcava in Hermosillo City, México
“You know, I’m not rich, I don’t have nothing to give to my family when I die. This picture is my inheritance.” –Baltazar, the elder of his community
Juan also shared this story: “The other picture is from Miguel and his daughter Rosaura. They were a normal family when they had an horrible accident a few years back. His wife couldn’t go ahead with the situation and left him and Rosaura alone. They have no other family, it’s only him and the girl. He is her father and mother, he combs her, cleans her, and takes her to his daily job. He’s always talking in plural, always speaking for her and saying, ‘Rosaura says thank you’ (she can’t speak). He was struggling to smile for the picture until I said, ‘Now give her a kiss and tell her how much you love her.’”
If you have participated in a Help-Portrait event before, you know that there are amazing stories to be shared throughout the day. We’d love for you to be able to get those stories to a wider audience through the vehicles of your local news stations or newspapers. Below are a few simple ideas to help promote your Help-Portrait event and share the power of a photo.
1. Write and service a press release that talks about the basic information of your event. You can use the sample release here to begin.
2. Once you have your press release ready, find the right contacts in your area to make sure they have the release in their email inbox. You can find these contacts by looking online at the news sites – look for a newsroom contact or producer. Also ask around in your community and your volunteers – you’d be surprised how many people know someone who knows someone that can help get the word out and on the news.
3. A few days before your event, send another reminder to the same contacts about the event with all of the basic info – you could also resend the original press release just as a reminder of the event coming up. Many of the news outlets do not assign stories until the day before or day of the event – so do not be surprised if you don’t hear back from anyone. Most of the time these things happen very last minute.
4. On the day of the event, if you get a minute in the morning, give a call to the newsdesk and just remind them you have this event happening and you’d love to have someone come cover it. Be quick and specific – the person that is normally handling the phone at the newsdesk is in a hurry to grab your info and move onto the next call.
5. Since things happen last minute, make sure there is a cell phone number and contact that a reporter can reach on the day of your Help-Portrait event. This person needs to have all of the important info on hand for when someone calls – such as:
6. Also be sure to get a contact if they have called you so in case you don’t see them coming, and you need to reach out to them again have a phone number that you can reach that person.
7. A few other things to keep in mind if a media outlet attends your event:
8. Keep in mind that having the media cover your event is secondary to what you are doing that day – it is just the icing on the cake if it happens. We LOVE reading all of the stories that run across the globe, but what we love even more is knowing how many lives are being impacted on December 8th or whenever you hold your event.
–Lori Mahon
Editor’s Note: Andrew Fore reveals Lexington’s plans for 2012 Help-Portrait & a cool way a second location opened up for them.
Last year was the first year for H-P in Lexington, KY and we managed 132 guests and 72 portraits. It was an amazing event and some great stories came out of the day and lots of positive comments, but it wasn’t until a few days ago did the best story come to fruition.
I am in the process of putting together this year’s event and have decided to do two locations in Lexington so we can serve two parts of our city that desperately need this. I already had one location confirmed and had an idea of where I wanted the second location to be, but did not have any solid contacts in that area and was just about to start cold-calling when I got a voicemail on my phone.
It was from a lady who said she and her son were recipients of H-P last year, and she is now part of a church that turns out to be in the very part of town I want to do the second location. She was asking if I would be interested in using their facility. When I called her back she told me about how the event last year was so amazing for her and her son as they did not have any money for pictures or anything last year so they came to the event and were overwhelmed with the love they felt from the volunteers that spent time with them during the shoot, enjoying refreshments, and then the framed picture they received. She wanted to reach out to see if I would be interested in using their facility for H-P this year so she could be a part of the “giving” aspect of H-P after being on the receiving end last year.
Of course her facility is now our second location for this year’s H-P event. We are going to run two locations simultaneously on 12/8/12. What a blessing to be involved with this movement – stories like this one are what it is all about!
Here’s the little guy’s photo taken last year:
Do you know a former recipient of Help-Portrait who is now a volunteer? Share your story with us in the comments below.
Editor’s Note: Help-Portrait volunteer Jessica Barker sent in this bit of inspiration about Minneapolis/St. Paul’s Help-Portrait team.
Our Metro Help Squad team in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota is over 200 volunteers strong. Three of those volunteers are me, my mother Hanna, and my daughter Lily.
We’ve spent time together the last three years giving the gift of professional photographs to people at a homeless shelter, at a crisis center for women & families and a music high school for at risk-teens.
My challenge to you is to incorporate YOUR family within the volunteer group in your city – bring your sister or brother, your cousin, your dad, your grandmother, your kids, etc.
Neither my mother nor my daughter are photographers, but they love to help others and have huge hearts. I am proud to call them my family – both by blood and by being connected by Help-Portrait.
Share the love one photo at a time. Here are a couple of ours.
Committed Photography has chosen Help-Portrait as their cause of the month by helping to raise funds for Help-Portrait through fine art photography. Semi-pro and pro photographers are encouraged to showcase their work on the Committed Photography website. Committed Photography markets, sells, manufactures and ships the purchases to its customers worldwide. This is the final week you can order prints. This is a great way to support Help-Portrait. Help us spread the word about this campaign. Here are some sample posts:
Did you know you can help out #HelpPortrait through Photography for Cause? See all of the #art that is available for purchase – http://bit.ly/Utno3i
#HelpPortrait is part of @CommittedPhoto #Photography for Cause. See all of the great #art that supports us! http://bit.ly/Utno3i
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Hey it's us!! That's so cool! Nice submission Matt!
Jessica | 13/01/2013 3:02 pm
Yay !!! Was sooo proud and glad to be a part of this group again this year! It was so fantastic seeing some familiar faces from last year from both the volunteers and families ! Can't wait til 2013 !! WTG Cherokee HP Team!
Kate H | 13/01/2013 11:51 pm