Help-Portrait MUSC Kids 2011

Every once in a while you take a photo that reminds you of why you love photography. Help-Portrait is an event where every time you press the shutter you make that picture.

On Friday, our small group of volunteers headed back to the atrium at the MUSC Children’s hospital in downtown Charleston, SC to give portraits to families of children who are being cared for there.

This year, the organizers of Help-Portrait have reversed their stance on sharing the photos of the subjects and have in fact encouraged us to do so. I’d like to share the photos I took of our 13 subjects during the event.

It’s amazing to be able to give the families of these kids something in a situation where so much has been taken from them. There is something about a kid smiling with you despite the struggle they’re fighting that makes you value the life we have.

Amy was in charge of gathering hats for our wardrobe since hair & make-up really wouldn’t work in this situation. For all the hats that we brought, the girls mostly liked the feather boa!

As I’ve mentioned before, the inspiration for us to bring Help-Portrait to MUSC Children’s Hospital came from leukemia survivor Jesse Dasinger. Last year, he was unable to participate due to his health. This year, he’s doing amazingly well and was able to drop in with his family to get his picture made:

I did have on technical problem that arose from a bad cable, and I had to retake Christopher’s photo here because the first attempt failed. He was a trooper, and was able to re-create the magic:

One of the brightest moments for me was when this girl, Amouri, came to get her photo made. She was also the last subject I shot. I grilled her a bit at first and found out she was a cheerleader. I knew she would be a great subject. She said something that made me feel tremendously enlightened about what goes on at MUSC. I asked her how she was feeling, and she said “I feel amazing”.

Another change introduced in this year’s Help-Portrait was the involvement of the participants. We came up with the idea to bring plain wooden picture frames to let the kids decorate them with – they loved it! John Lindroth took this shot of Megan:

Here’s the team photo shot by one of the staffers at the hospital:

Drew, John, & Eugene also have some photos of the event that I’ll share soon. All of the photos will be available here. I also participated in the Charleston Help-Portrait group at the James Island Convoy of Hope event yesterday. I’ll be sure to write up another recap of that event soon! Stay tuned…