It’s “Guest Blog Wednesday” featuring Jeremy Cowart!
I thought I would follow Zack Arias’s lead and do a video instead of a written blog entry. Don’t worry, I realize the level of awesomeness is nowhere near Zack’s video but hopefully it gets the message across.
Thanks to Scott Kelby for allowing me to use this platform for such a great cause.
A few additional thanks:
-My business manager, Michael Moore, for his hard work filming and editing this video.
-Brad Henderson for helping me figure out how to say what I wanted to say.
-Kyle Chowning for putting the Help-Portrait Website together.
-Matt Lehman for the great logo.
Thanks for listening friends. I hope you can join me this Christmas in serving our neighbors!
http://www.help-portrait.com
http://www.twitter.com/help_portrait
http://www.jeremycowart.com
http://www.twitter.com/jeremycowart
[Ed. Note: The information form on help-portrait.com is now up, so if you checked earlier and it wasn't working, check back now!]
Great stuff!
Can’t edit my initial post. Just wanted to say that, I just visited Jeremy’s site and there’s some fantastic photography there. Looked through all of the galleries and enjoyed the photos immensely. Very cool.
This is rad, I am so in
To me, this is what photography is all about. I’m in!
Short, sweet, right on the mark. I’m in.
Very Cool! H-town lets do something
This is wonderful! I’ve had the very good fortune of taking some child portraits for families that just aren’t in a position of having an actual photoshoot done. When the kids get in front of the camera for the first time and start eating up the attention, the feeling is just so wonderful . . . glad to hear about this and can’t wait to join in!
-pmk
Wish I could view the video. Alas they are blocked at work.
Same here but I’ll watch it at home tonight. I think I’m getting the general idea from the comments and affiliated website. This will be a great way to practice the skills I hope to acquire from a portrait class that I’m taking in October.
Awesome idea! This is a great way to help others! Thanks Jeremy, for the video and thanks Scott for having him!
Stephen you took every word I wanted to say
Thank you Jeremy & Thank you Scott!
Dec count me in!
–
Dwayne D.C. Tucker II
Nassau, Bahamas
I’m in too! That’s simply a great idea!
Brilliant. I’m already getting ideas for how to do this over here in Taipei, Taiwan. Tomorrow I’m going to put the call out to fellow creatives here and get the ball rolling. Great work Jeremy.
i am so in! in fact i have shot 3 families this week for no cost and i has made my week!!
Great idea…. I’m in…
Hey! I know that guy. I’m super proud of what you’ve accomplished Jeremy.
I will be in Paris, FR during that time and would love to join or help start the group in that area. If you are from that area and want to connect, follow the above link to my site and email me!
I’ll be in San Francisco then, but I’ll have just arrived. Any photographers in SF want to team up to make this happen?
Otherwise I’ll just grab some people and do it a bit low key.
Anyway, fantastic idea. Can’t wait!
I’ve been doing this the last three years in my community. It’s a small farm community with many poor illegal immigrants and equally poor locals. We get Santa to come to town, hand out treats, and I take portraits of the kids and their families. I set up my studio lights in a downtown business and the line forms. Last year I did about 125 families. No charge.
I don’t have any of the kids, but here is my daughter with Santa.
http://www.ericcloninger.com/Family/Family-2007/8843295_wzQTW#586044631_s7jWn
Not sure if Dec 12 is our date this year, but I’ll push for it. Get involved, everyone.
The most beautiful idea!!!!!!!!
Is so generous and lovely
Love this so much. I’m proud to be a part of it.
We are so in. We started to brainstorm to have the most impact on this project. Thanks Zach for your heartbeat for this movement.
This is a great idea and I hope to be part of it. I’m just an amateur but have done a few free photo shoots for families that would not otherwise have been able to afford it. I can’t tell you how grateful they were for the photos. One was a surprise Christmas gift for a single mother. I did a photo shoot of her two teenage children. She was so surprised and really appreciated the photos.
That’s really cool. Do you have a printer with you to make prints there, or do you deliver them later?
GREAT IDEA !
Edouard
(FRANCE)
Wonderful idea and we can’t wait to be a part of it. It’s so good to be a part of a community that wants to give back.
Nikki
You totally get my vote for “Best Use of Guest Blog Wednesday”!
I hope our whole club will join in; I’m thinking that the beauty school could also get involved. This is cool. I bet our local printers will be willing to help out, too. Mabe we’ll snag the local thrift store as a location…
Thank you very, very much.
Levi
I’m impressed! Fabulous idea! God bless, Brad
Heya we from the netherlands are on the streests at 12th dec, realy nice idea
This is really a terrific idea! Count me in.
I’m in and ready to start planning.
Jeremy mentioned in the video the need for Web Designers, I’m one as well, but I didn’t see on the site where to sign up to help out with that. I suppose they need a Web Designer to make that section first.
I’m in! I love doing pro bono for those that I know can’t afford my fees.
Signed up on the mailing list and on twitter.
OH MY GOD. I WAS JUST ABOUT TO DO SOMETHING JUST LIKE THAT.
I was going to create a photo…network of sorts that asked photographers to take photos of homeless people, ask where they are normally located and how they got into their situations, and stuff like that, then report it on the website. And hopefully, it’d get people going to help them out..
I’m 17, and a senior in high school. and I want to help out with this however possible hahaha
This is fantastic and hopefully all than can do this will either jump on this project or find others ways to do similar things in their communities. My job has me doing technical photography, but on my time my wife and I find ways to do things like this in our community. Such as shooting Christmas portraits at the local home for unwed mothers, portraits of the Head Start Program kids, high school senior portraits for families that can’t otherwise afford it and volunteering at the local hospital in the infant bereavement program. My point is that all of the things mentioned in the promo video are true and the gift of a portrait is invaluable to the recipient and the photographer.
I am so there. This is great as there is nothing better than giving back.
Norway calling.
my studio and myself are ready, Signed on the mailing list and on twitter. This is a great idea..:)
I saw this video this afternoon, and my brain has been churning all evening. My cousin is a make-up artist; I worked with a women’s shelter earlier this year that I would love to help (and I’d love to contact the local pregnancy crisis center—maternity portraits); I know a company that I think would donate photo paper (just need a printer); our city govt. restored a fabulous old house that would be the perfect place to shoot; I know our local Chick-fil-a owner who always helps feed people for a good cause.
If I can get these people as excited about it as I am, we’re onto something.
Wonderful idea, promoting the thought behind photography.
I will be travelling (as I am constantly) and will e somwhere in Southern central America around that time. I am on a bicycle and have no printer and printshops are getting rare here, so likely will not be able to deliver prints easily.
Is it a thought that people working for the big printers and/or mail/delivery services offer sponsoring for others like me (probably not too many, but I mean in a broad sense
).
Meaning: we can upload the images to somewhere as well as the address they need to be sent to. Sponsors pay for printing and shipping, image are available for inclusion in photobooks if needed (I know that s not the goal, but any profit can go to homeless shelters etc)?
Just some thoughts…
Cheers, Harry
looking forward to being a part of this project….within minutes of announcing it here, had lots of photographers on board….so Barrie Ontario Canada is definitely on its way to helping out….
Is anyone planning of going to retirement homes? Any tips?
I posted the video on my blog thanks for sharing this awesome idea. Anyone near West Virginia that would like to help please contact me.
http://www.tracyatolerphotography.com/blog/
A friend works at a local “soup kitchen” and for several years they have been helping clients to make up and send Christmas cards to relatives. a few years ago someone came up with the great idea of giving the option of including a photograph, initially they used Polaroids but they thought they could do better and my friend reached out to some photographers she knows so for the past three years I’ve been doing exactly what help-portrait is proposing, myself and another photographer take a camera and a 4×6 photo printer to the church where the program is hosted take pictures of willing clients while another team helps them put together Christmas cards and prints are included in the cards, or if they prefer the clients get to keep the cards. It’s been a great experience and a real eye opener.
Jeremy has the right idea when he says that they don’t want to see the photos, and that this is about giving rather than taking photos. I went into this process with an understanding that these photos were ALL private, virtually every client we shot sought assurances that that would be the case. So Jeremy please be explicit, make it a mandatory part of participation in the program that the photographers will cede their copyrights to the subjects and not use the photos for anything else, period, full stop.
Thanks
I’m very happy to share that I completed a self-assignment photographing elderly people at a local retirement home.
Read more at http://levycarneiro.com/2009/09/portraits-and-photography/
Great Idea ! Giving benefits both parties.
I don’t like the logo. Sorry. the hand looks like a policeman’s command to STOP.
How about the hand offered palm up, with the camera, in the gesture of giving.
Just my 2cents worth.
Jeremy –
Thank you!!
If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day — go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.
Chinese Proverb