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Articles Tagged with: Event

Help-Portrait Charleston SC 2013

That picture says it all. Little Dereon was the first to come visit us in the atrium at MUSC Children’s Hospital on Friday for our annual Help-Portrait event that we organize there every December. She was also the last to get her photo taken! It took her a while to warm up to me, and she wanted to watch the other children with a curious eye to see what the deal was. The whole morning she was wearing a mask that covered her beautiful smile, and when she finally built up the courage to get her picture taken, she took off that mask and instantly transformed into an excited and confident little girl. I couldn’t think of a better story to explain what our Help-Portrait event at the children’s hospital means – It’s a way to make these kids and their families feel normal.

The holidays are an emotional time, and to add the struggle that these kids are going through is not easy to say the least. To give them any experience that lets them feel like regular kids is important in keeping them hopeful and strong. We’re just but one event of the hundreds of different kinds that are held every year for the hospital, but to see the happiness in Danielle’s face and the gratitude from her mom, you can see why we get so excited for this event every year:

How about little Kloeiann, who came out like a rock star? We had her and her mom design a sign for her to hold up for one of her pictures, and very awesome is quite appropriate for her 🙂

We also had a frame crafting station set up for the kids to design their own picture frame to put one of their photos in.

Thanks to Amy, Crystal, & Christina who volunteered to make this happen with me again this year. Also, thanks to the staff at MUSC Children’s hospital for letting us do this every year!

The photos are up on my gallery here, and there’s also a set on Flickr.

Help-Portrait MUSC Kids 2012

Photo by William Long

On Friday morning, I was joined by 5 great volunteers to gift portraits to the families of children at MUSC Children’s Hospital in Charleston, SC. This was the 3rd Help-Portrait event I’ve led at the children’s hospital and every year it gets better.

Top Row: William Long, John Lindroth, Joseph Nienstedt
Bottom Row: Katee Cornette, Jen Pfeffer, Kathy Hare

Due to the nature of the event we hold and HIPA, I don’t ask the subjects too much about the nature of their conditions. Instead, my philosophy is a little different than most other Help-Portrait events. My goal for the team is to make these kids and their families feel normal. We treat them as if they were coming into a studio and walk them through the whole process. We also provide them with craft photo frames that they design for their portraits, which is always fun for the kids.

Photo by William Long

One of the children asked to see my camera, so I showed him how it works. Then he wanted to take pictures of our next subject, so we let him – and the portraits turned out perfect! In fact, we printed those out and gave them to the subject, and they loved them. This is exactly what we wanted to provide for these families – a fun event that made them forget why they were in a hospital.

Photo by Kathy Hare

Here’s one of the portraits that Tyreq made:

Photo by Tyreq

There are a lot of meaningful things that the families and hospital staff say, but one that sticks out was a parent who’s child was too sick to leave the room but really wanted to participate. Because it was the parent requesting it, we were able to send a photographer into the room and take their family’s portraits – something they haven’t been able to do because of their situation. The photograph meant so much to the parent that she figured out a way to make it happen. This was such an example of the power of a photograph and what it means to someone in need.

Photo by William Long

Please take a moment and watch this slideshow of images from the event. I hope the images move you even slightly as much as they moved us:

Art For Charity Event

Click the poster for the full size version

I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be shooting portraits of the guests at the Art For Charity event at the Michael Mitchel Studio in Charleston, SC on Friday, June 1st, 2012.

First, the details:

-Michael Mitchell Gallery is located at 438 King Street, Charleston, SC 29403
-The events are held from 6 pm to 9 pm.
-A $10 donation would be greatly appreciated
-The event I’ll be shooting will be benefiting the Ryan White Program and Wellness Center

What is Art For Charity?

Art For Charity is a unique gallery event where a portion of profits from sold artwork benefit local, non-profit organizations. This year’s charities include Friends of MUSC Children’s Hospital, Crisis Ministries, Komen Lowcountry, Roper St. Francis Ryan White Program, Charleston Waterkeeper and MUSC Hollings Cancer Center.

The event I’ll be shooting will be benefiting the Ryan White Program and Wellness Center.

Who is Ryan White and what is the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program?

Ryan White and his mom courageously fought AIDS-related discrimination and helped educate the Nation about his disease.
Ryan White was diagnosed with AIDS at age 13. He and his mother Jeanne White Ginder fought for his right to attend school, gaining international attention as a voice of reason about HIV/AIDS. At the age of 18, Ryan White died on April 8, 1990, just months before Congress passed the AIDS bill that bears his name – the Ryan White CARE (Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency) Act. The legislation has been reauthorized four times since – in 1996, 2000, 2006, and 2009 – and is now called the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.

I’m pretty stoked to be a part of this, and I hope to see you there. Heck, just bring $10 to donate at the door, get your photo taken, & check out some art (and possibly buy some since part of the proceeds benefit the charity). I’ll be posting the photos for you to download just like I did for the recent Change For Change Art Show.

Change For Change Benefit Art Show Is Back

Just wanted to invite you all to the Change For Change Benefit Art Show, which will be taking place at Mixon Barn in Park Circle this year on Saturday, May 12th, 2012 at 7:00PM.

What is the Change For Change Benefit Art Show you ask? Well, from their event page:

The Change for Change Art Show is back again for a second year to raise money for Water Missions International! It’s a FREE event where local artists have donated some awesome artwork and photographs to be sold for $50 or less. Artists will also be displaying/selling tons of other pieces as well.

Last year’s event was a blast, you can read my recap of that here.

Go ahead, visit their Facebook event page and get all the gory details. Did I mention that the art show itself is free? Come see some stuff and possibly buy some art for a heck of a lot cheaper than usual to support a great cause.