Parker A Grimes Photography

A Shift In Thinking

As I have been editing my photos from our local Help-Portrait event, I can’t help but ponder about what a cool experience it was. I first heard about the Help-Portrait movement from Jeremy Cowart’s guest blog on Photoshop Insider. I thought at first that it sounded like a pretty good idea and began to follow @help_portrait on Twitter to just keep an eye on how it developed. I didn’t necessarily have any intentions to be a part of it. Then the brains behind HP launched a video and a blog post that blew me away. Seeing those really struck a chord with me. “That is some powerful stuff” I thought. I wanted to be a part of that. If you’re not familiar with Help-Portrait yet, spend some time at http://help-portrait.com.

With that, our Cedar City Utah Help-Portrait event was born with the help of 3 other local photographers. The experience has been amazing on several levels. First of all, what other profession/hobby has banded together on a global scale to just help people before? I don’t know of any. Second, the way we have helped people is completely different. It isn’t monetary, or physical help we were rendering. We were’t helping build schools, or feed the hungry. Rather, it was much deeper than that. It was us saying, “hey, you know what? I care about you. I want you to feel good about yourself. I want you to know that you are special.” We took people’s portrait and we will deliver a print, that is it. It is incredible that something so simple could have such a big impact on someone.

I’ve worn many hats when it comes to professions. I’ve always maintained a straight career path, but I’ve also branched off to do other things along the way. When I wear the “photographer’s” hat, so to speak, something fundamentally changes in the way I think about other people. My tendency is to think that people are idiots sometimes, however, as a photographer, I look at someone and think about how they would look in a photograph. I even imagine what type of setting and lighting would make them look best. This completely transforms my  thinking and my attitude toward other people. The most gratifying thing about photography is having someone look at a photo I’ve taken of them and love the way they look. Basically it is helping that person realize that they are special. Something we easily forget. It is easy to get down on yourself and feel like nobody cares or thinks you are important.

The other amazing thing about Help-Portrait is that it brought a group of photographers together which has now become a friendship. Our group had never all met together until Help-Portrait. We have interacted online, but never in person. We all had an instant connection- photography. Now it looks like we will be getting together just to collaborate and share ideas and information. I can’t wait!

Our Event

There were four photographers involved in our event. Terrel Fox, John Lisonbee, Jen Ova, and myself.  We held our event at Kolob Regional Care & Rehabilitation, a long term healthcare center in Cedar City. Dani Katwyk, at Kolob Regional, did an amazing job scheduling and organizing things. She arranged for all of the people we would photograph to arrive at scheduled times. The spacing between each photoshoot was perfect. We setup two backdrops and had two portrait sessions scheduled at a time. The four of us photographers took turns taking photos.

Dirk Evans from Evans Hairstyling College arranged to have two stylists there to do hair and makeup. The ladies at Kolob were thrilled to have that done. It was so fun to see them looking their best. The girls that did the hair and makeup were great.

We ended up taking photos of 40+ people. For me, I could have taken just one portrait and it would have totally been worth it. The reaction we got from some of the people was absolutely priceless. The whole Help-Portrait movement is about giving photographs. The point was to give the people their photo, not to share them and say look how great I am. Still, I would love to show you some of their photos. Not to show you how great I did, but we all took some great photographs of some really awesome people and I would like you to see how awesome those people are too. However, for privacy reasons, we have been asked not to share the photos publicly. That request isn’t specific to our event, but a global request by the whole Help-Portrait organization.

Next year I will absolutely do this all again. I may even find more opportunities like this throughout the coming year. We’ll see. One thing for sure, I made some great friends. So I wanted to give a huge thank you to Terrel Fox, Jen Ova, and John Lisonbee. Also a huge thanks to Dani at Kolob Regional and the gals from Evans Hairstyling College.