Saturday morning bright and early I met up with friends and fellow photographers, Jules Morgan and Christine Meintjes in the parking lot of the Red Cross Children’s Hospital. We were joining thousands of other photographer’s and volunteers in other parts of the world to celebrate (and participate in) Help Portrait day. Help Portrait is ” a movement of photographers who are using their time, equipment and expertise to give back to those who are less fortunate this holiday season. ”
Heide from Reach For A Dream had arranged that we could do some portraits of some of the children in the G4 cancer ward – some portraits on their own and some with a parent. The ages of the children ranged from a few months up to 7 years. I found this really heart breaking and hid behind my lens to block out the tears. It was such an awesome feeling knowing that on this particular day, other photographers and volunteers were also gearing up to do something amazing. In life when we are rushing around complaining and worrying about about small things, gossiping about others (my sister says this can give a person halitosis!), we can forget that none of that really really matters in the bigger picture. Having your health is your biggest wealth and without it we can’t function properly. It’s also easy to think that one person can’t really make it difference. Even touching one person’s life can have a ripple effect and giving feels incredibly amazing.
I went online to Help Portraits site, and by Saturday evening over 17 000 photo’s had been taken by approx. 1400 photographers – and only 43% of registered photographers had logged in their figures. We weren’t permitted to publish any photo’s of the children.
