Help Portrait 2012

December is the month of the holidays, over here we have Sinterklaas and christmas, in the US of course thanksgiving (around December) and christmas and maybe in other countries there are also other holidays, but for most people it’s the month that we all look forward to…. however what we often don’t realize is that there are a lot of people who don’t really look forward to that month, maybe due to the loss of a loved one or simply because they don’t have anything to look forward to….

That’s why a few years ago Jeremy Cowart decided it was time to give these people something worthwhile and because (just like us) he is a photographer that had to be a portrait, the movement was called Help Portrait. At this moment Help Portrait is a worldwide movement with many countries participating and many many photographers and volunteers working together to give people that really need it a portrait (we call it the portrait of hope).

Every year we have people coming in with their pets, and the dog training ladies which I love to photograph with their dogs. Also this young lady with her dog was a delight to shoot, only getting a rather large dog on a table was…. well a bit more trouble than we expected 😀

Organizing something like this is not an easy task, you can of course just do your own region but often you will find problems on your way and let’s be honest… when you’re alone (or a small group) you can’t really make a “fist”, so last year I decided I would try to organize Help Portrait for the whole of the Netherlands, this way there is one team that can help out all the other regions, one website and “one fist”… and last year was a huge success, so we decided to also do it for 2012, and looking back I can really say we are more than happy with how it turned out, we know of at least 21 locations and more than 700 volunteers spread throughout the Netherlands that are connected to us, there were also locations that did everything by themselves so we don’t have a real number but the numbers we do have are impressive. For us more than enough reason to also start organizing everything for 2013 (7 December).
This means our team will start preparations in February again to make sure we enough time to help out new locations and volunteers. If you want to join us (and of course you do) make sure to mail us at [email protected] or visit our website www.help-portrait.eu where you can find stories and images (updating in the coming weeks). For other countries than the Netherlands surf to www.help-portrait.com and join, it will literally change your life.

From our side I would like to thank everyone in the Netherlands (and of course worldwide) who decided to spend their time giving something back to people that really need it. In Emmeloord we worked with a great team of volunteers and photographers which I hope to have back again next year.

Team Emmeloord, you guys ROCKED!!!!