Help-Portrait Recap | Northern Virginia Portrait Photographer

If you recall any of my previous posts on Help-Portrait, this past Saturday, December 12, was the day we were going to get together with Sudley Manor House in Manassas, Virginia, to take portraits of residents.  It also happened to be their Open House Holiday Party, so many residents were going to have family there — and that proved to be a huge boost to the project!  The smiles were out in full force for the few hours we were there, and there were even a few tears.  I can’t tell you how good everyone felt that day, whether it was we who were giving, or the residents and their family who were receiving.  The holiday spirit was bursting at the seams!

We got there around 12:30 — I had planned to be early but apparently as photographers we’re an early bunch because many were there before me!  That made me feel good, because I’m not much of a fan of waiting for people to show up.  Backgrounds were being set up, lighting was being discussed and tested, gear was being tested, and when the printers got there, test shots were printed.  Everything was working out smoothly!  By the time 1:30 rolled around, we already had a few folks ready to have their portraits taken so we got started.  We rotated people in and out, utilizing three separate portrait stations, covering just over 2 hours of time.  Each person or family was talked to as if they were the most important person in the world, because they were!  Nobody was hurried in and out, which made the smiles even bigger.  Family expressed their thanks many times over to all of us, genuinely touched by strangers (many of us hadn’t met before) coming together to do something so wonderful.  After their portrait(s) was/were taken, we printed them immediately and in less than two to three minutes, we were delivering their prints to them during the party.

As I said, many of us didn’t know each other, but by the end of the day, we all became friends.  I’m honored and proud to be part of this project, and even more honored and proud of the twelve other people I got to work with that day.

I can’t wait to do it again sometime.

Here’s the group photo, and my behind-the-scenes photos are on my Facebook fan page here.

Photo by Bill Gercken

Help-Portrait was a worldwide effort on 12/12, with projects happening all over the globe.  You can do a Google search for Help Portrait to read all the news stories, or start with this one by CNN (videos here and here).  You can also find Help-Portrait on twitter and Facebook.

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