Raise Your Glass

WHAT IS HELP PORTRAIT?

Founded by 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.

This past Saturday, December 4th, 2010, photographers around the world grabbed their cameras, found people in need and took their picture. When the prints were ready, the photographs got delivered.

And by the way, it's not about seeing our photos. Help Portrait is about GIVING the pictures, not taking them. These portraits are not for our portfolio, website, or for sale. Money isn’t involved here. We simply used the day to give a family something they may have never had before—a portrait together.

I had the opportunity to spend all day Saturday hanging out with amazing photographers of all different levels in an event that was all about giving back to the city of Seattle! I participated in my first Help Portrait event last year and had an AMAZING time! This year's event was extra special. Instead of going to one small site, we were allowed to use the new Creative Live Studio to bring many more people in from different organizations aiding Seattle's homeless & low-income families.

The day was spent building memories for the families that came and all those involved in making the event happen! I got to spend the day assisting an amazing photographer, Mike Folden, who was part of the group I helped with last year for our first Help Portrait event. We also had Emily, one of my friends from Westside, working with us and that made it extra fun! When we weren't taking pictures of clients, we were telling jokes, singing showtunes and Disney songs, talking about photo gear and techniques, and just getting to know each other more.

One of the sweetest moments that I'll never forget was when we were posing a family that included a single mother and her 3 little girls. The girls were all cute as can be and they cooperated so well. As the assistant, it was my job to help pose the family and keep the kids happy so they would  smile and look at the camera. The shoot went great and as I was escorting the family back out of the photo booth area to the front desk, I felt this little hand grab mine, and looked down as the youngest daughter was closing her hand around mine. Seeing the sweet smile on her sweet face and knowing that (even though I was only able to be a small part of her life) she trusted me enough to reach up, grab my hand and let me lead her the rest of the way just melted my heart.

Aside from being able to interact with all the amazing families that visited our booth, I also considered myself blessed to have gotten the opportunity to assist Chase Jarvis when he did a shoot at our booth. I also had the chance to chat with Jeremy Cowart a couple of times throughout the day. It was amazing to be surrounded by such amazing creative people as we joined together to give back to the city I love!

Here are some pictures of me & my team from the day!

Just let me know if you ever need someone to ruin
a perfectly good picture for ya

Me, Emily, and Mike hanging out between clients

Me and Emily smiling pretty

Our editors: Matt & Jason [and Lawrence (not pictured) for half the day]

Emily and I take this job VERY SERIOUSLY . . . 

A screencap of our group as we sign off from the webcast!

King 5 News was also there to get some footage for their evening broadcast:



The video feed from the day may still be streaming on the Creative Live site. If it is, you can click HERE to see the replay.

Brick By Boring Brick

For the record, i disgust myself with the lack of bloggage (ew . . . what a terrible word).

Alas, I am here! I am still alive! Wheee! (and there was much rejoicing)

Things have been super busy lately . . . no lie!

It's officially 10 days until I embark on the 3 day journey back to Austin for Christmas!! I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am to see my family—they are COMPLETELY worth every single crazy encounter I might have on that bus!

A lot of people are a bit concerned that I'm riding greyhound, but I see it as an opportunity :D It's an opportunity for me to sleep (which i REALLY need) and to write (which i REALLY need to do)!

I've been really excited about some of the songs that I've written lately and the melodies that keep me company while I do. Here is a snippet of some lyrics I've written lately about a friend of mine who has been going through some stuff lately:

and I will do the unthinkable
oh I will feed this chameleon.
I'll be whatever you want me to be
but when I get lost don't come after me
you might lose yourself between the thorns
I'm gone
and I've never missed me more

I haven't recorded it in Garage Band yet, but the story is really teaching me a lot personally.

In other news, tomorrow I get to be part of an AMAZING movement! It's called Help-Portrait and we're going to be taking pictures of people at a housing project in Lake City and I'm SOOO excited! I'll be sure to post pics here tomorrow! :D

PS: I called my niece on her birthday a few days ago and she said the cutest thing:

"It's my birthday, but don't tell anyone, okay."

They were having a family only party and they're gonna have her main party in January as a double party with her sister, Annabelle. I guess she doesn't want anyone to know they weren't invited to the family party ;) too cute!

Help!

I had a GREAT meeting last night with my Help-Portrait group! We met up at Cupcake Royale and talked details about our Help-Portrait event that we will be holding in Lake City. We'll be working with Low-Income Housing Institute to provide professional quality portraits for free to families that could otherwise not afford to have their portraits done. :D

For those who don't know what Help-Portrait is, it's a movement that is bringing together great photographers of all levels to use their time,talents, and energy to provide the less fortunate with a great portrait for the holiday season. My group has predominantly professionals, some who are almost pro, and then me—as amateur as they come ;) I really do enjoy being the hobbyist photographer on my team, because I feel like I get this awesome opportunity to learn more about professional photography AND I get to use this great hobby that i love to give back to people that I love :D

When I was a kid and my parents divorced, life was decidedly different. We went from living in a nice house, with tons of toys, and just about every privilege one can imagine to living in a small apartment with my mom, who was now a single-parent managing a job and 3 high-maintenance kids. Hand-me-downs became popular and we had to learn to make things last longer. I remember being selected at school to participate in some of the events they had for low-income-family kids and that odd feeling of "should I feel blessed that they're doing this or is it just another reminder that I'll never have anything fancy to call my own?" My sister, her boyfriend, and my 2 nieces are now also a low-income-family, and I know how great it feels to know that anytime I'm home, I get to do a portrait session (of sorts) with my niece and have some really nice photos to give back to my family. Thus, when I discovered this movement, started by famous photographer Jeremy Cowart, this event was a no-brainer—I'M IN!

I'm working with a group of Seattle photographers, to share the photographic love in our fair city. So far we have three separate housing communities that we are working with to provide family portraits to, as well we are seeking out at least one or two other locations. We estimate we will be able to provide at least 100 families with a wonderful portrait in time for the holiday season!

The awesome thing about Jeremy's vision for this is that it's ALL about others, and not about us (as artists/photographers). We aren't making ANY profit from the event and we're not using any of the shots to build up our portfolios. It's ALL about connecting with others in the way that only photographers can.

If you are living in Seattle and are saying, "Dude, that's cool! I'm not a photographer, and I wouldn't be able to be there at the event to help, but I DO want to help someway." Then please consider donating to the cause. We met last night and rounded up the guesstimation that with rentals and cost of printing the photos, it's about $3 per family. That's 3 bones! 3 smackaroonies! I'll be contributing my own money as well but our goal is to raise $200 for the event to be as successful as possible. If you are in the area and would like to donate three bones to help sponsor a family in need, please contact me by email: amomca@gmail.com or by twitter: twitter.com/amomca or by commenting on this post and we will work out a way for me to pick up the donation. I TOTALLY understand that this is a "strapped for cash" season and especially with the economy, it's harder to give, but if you DO have 3 dollars laying around somewhere, we sure could use it! :D

For more information on Help-Portrait, see the videos & links below:





Help-Portrait
Help-Portrait Seattle
Press Release