Saturday, December 12, 2009

Help-Portrait Boston

What an incredible day! Fourteen other photographers and I came together today to take some pictures just to make people feel good. And look at that. It made us feel good too.

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 12th, 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."

This Boston crew had an amazing shoot today at Germaine Lawrence, a residential treatment center for adolescent girls. We shot over 50 girls, aged 11-18, and though I don't want to put any of the girls' photos up here, here are a few I snapped of the crazy photographers and the setup there.

We set up four "stations" in the gym:


And the best part was the group of volunteer hair and makeup people (thanks to Empire School of Beauty in Warwick, RI) who came and did hair and makeup on all 50 girls! The aroma of hairspray wafted waaaaay down the hall :) But the girls really felt like rock stars. You could see it when they came for their photos - their eyes were twinkling.


Lisa grabbing some crazy shots of two of our fabulous volunteers (as we waited for hair and makeup on the girls... this stuff takes time, after all!):


See what I mean? You go there, hoping to make other people happy, and you just get happy yourself.


Meg getting a kick out of her subject:


A couple of the sweet photographers gave the girls a chance behind the lens, too - this girl has a future in fashion photography ahead of her...


Another switcheroo - photographer as subject:


It was not only an incredible day because the girls were so awesome, but it was also great to get to spend some time with like-minded photog peeps. This team of people has been meeting and planning this event for months now, and I can't thank them enough for letting me join them after I wasn't able to attend ANY of the planning meetings.

Great day, gorgeous photos - I'm so excited for the girls to get their prints (kindly donated by iPrintfromhome.com). I think they're really going to love them.

5 comments:

Nate said...

Great narrative. Glad to meet you and look forward to seeing more of your work!

Julia Snider said...

Hey Jess, what a fun time. You are on the ball getting this together so fast! I'm Julia, the volunteer in the photo with Tom.

Rich said...

What a day!
Great stuff Jess.
I too tired to post tonight but I'll have some suff in the morning.

--Rich

Unknown said...

Jess

Great blog. You nailed it as well as your shots behind the camera.

You guys made their day with your skill and I was glad to be a part of it

--John

Brian Matiash said...

Jess,

I am proud to have had the opportunity to see you in action. You did such a great job shooting the girls and assisting the other photographers by emoting with some of the more introverted models.

I look forward to shooting with you again for Help Portrait next year.

Also, like Nate said - wonderful narrative. The shots are perfect.

Best,

Brian