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.

We Are The World

I love Twitter. There, I said it. I do. I get a lot of flack from people often telling me I'm wasting my life by having/using Twitter. And you know, maybe I am to a certain extent, but I'm okay with that. I actually find Twitter to be a powerful resource. It helps me stay connected with my friends and other people that I like to learn from but would never get a chance to be around in full-time in my current position in life. A lot of people tell me I just need to have Facebook and not Twitter. But I find them to be two completely different social networking tools and since I know how to use them both "properly" (in my opinion), I get different things from each. I think for most people, social networking scares them. Maybe it's right for you, maybe it's not—that's for YOU to decide. It's also up to you to decide how to use them and what boundaries to set. I know people who maintain the balance without "losing their souls." (As I've heard others state about the dangers of social networking sites.)

One of my favorite people that I follow on Twitter is JEREMY COWART. I probably wouldn't have even ever heard of him if I wasn't following Parachute on Twitter. They tweeted one day about a photo shoot that Jeremy was doing for them. They posted his Twitter handle and I went over to look at his site. I was completely stunned at how amazingly talented he is. And it was a huge bonus plus when I discovered that he is very much into faith and social justice.

Today he tweeted something that has just been resonating in my own heart lately concerning the situation in Haiti:


Jeremy was a huge supporter of serving and taking care of the people in Haiti after the disaster struck. He flew over there to help, not just take pictures. In fact, he stated in a message to people in his social network about how his primary concern in going was the people, and not the job of being a photographer. That is honorable—yet he remained humble about it all. Ever since he went over, he's been doing all he can to provide help for those in Haiti.

With the rainy season approaching and many of the Haitians still without shelter, I've been thinking and praying a lot about how Haiti has been slipping off the radar. I realize that all of a sudden there seems to be an influx of natural disasters and that we can't always save everyone. That doesn't make me want to remember any of them any less though. Our world is huge and crazy stuff happens, but I am not alone. We are not alone. It is our job as human beings to care for each other and help each other become the best we can with as much as we are able to give—whether that be with money, time, possessions, thoughts, or our voices.

The other day I was looking on MSN, as I do every day and reading the news updates and such. On the bottom side bar, they were tracking which topics were trending and which were fading away on Twitter. Justin Beiber and Avatar were up and Haiti had a big red down arrow next to it. My heart sank. Really? Justin Beiber and Avatar are more notable? I get that the majority of users on Twitter are teenagers and are currently obsessed with the Beibster. If you know me, you know that I am a HUGE fan of pop culture. But after seeing that, I just couldn't help but worry that I might one day reach a point where I also become so consumed in pop culture that I forget about the world around me. It is my utmost prayer that that never happens.

It's amazing to me how all these thoughts that have been building up in my head all week have kind of made their way to the forefront of my mind even more, with a little help from social networking. In fact, this morning, my friend Cory tweeted this:

And I wanted to Re-Tweet it, but I'm 95% sure it would just come across as arrogance and elitism, and that's NOT what I'm going for. It really challenged me. I can't do anything but agree. I am sometimes WAY TOO in love with myself and not others. I've got work to do. I never want to get to the point where I lose sight of the things and people that matter. I'm just a small spec on this planet, and I have an opportunity every day to sow seeds of love, compassion, honesty, and kindness. I never want to miss those opportunities—I can't get them back.