The current issue of Photo Technique magazine has a section devoted to “Giving Back.” On page 37, “More Ways You Can Give Back” highlights Rehabilitation Through Photography, Operation: Love Reunited, Help-Portrait, and Shutter Mission as resources for getting started.

San Francisco photographers Andrew Sherman and Marcell Puzsar have a couple of their Help-Portrait images featured in this section as well.

Photo Technique also showcase two photographers who are using their talents to give back. These articles are worth a read: ”Daniel Beltrá: Photography and the Environment — Conservation PHotography and Greenpeace,” by Robert Hirsch and “Mathieu Young on Assignment: Photographing by Moonlight in Cambodia — Helping Others Through Photography,” by Wendy Erickson.

Thanks to Wendy Erickson for the head’s up about the “Giving Back” feature and to Photo Technique for helping to spread the word about photography charities!

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This is so awesome.

Over 500 photographers from around the world connected on Google+ recently to collaborate on a photography book to benefit charity. The result is the Plus One Collection.

Photographers of all skill levels are represented — established professionals, up and coming artists, and amateurs alike. The book is being published in three formats: (1) Print edition containing 193 photographs, (2) E-book containing the work of all 520 photographers, and (3) iOS mobile app, also containing all photographs in the project.

A Collectors’ Limited Edition of the Plus One Collection is available for purchase until Feb. 20, 2012.
A standard edition (fulfilled by Blurb) and the e-book version will be released on Feb. 21, 2012.

The best part? All net proceeds from the sales of the book will be donated to Kiva, a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty.

Go reserve your copy. It looks gorgeous and benefits a great cause!

Cool Facts About the Plus One Collection:

• Photographers contributing to the project are from four continents, representing 53 countries. Less than 50% are from the USA.
• Photographs in the book are just as diverse, representing all styles of today’s photography.
• The book’s editor and project manager is Ivan Makarov.
• Plus One was designed by a professional designer, Andy Lee, who volunteered his time to put the book together.
• A team of 11 photographers chose the images for the print edition. The PDF and mobile app will include ALL photographs submitted to the project.
• The total team working on the project consisted of 15 volunteers – none paid.
• You can find the Plus One Collection on Google+.

As you can see, there is a growing community of photographers on Google+ — are you a part of it? We’d love it if you’d add Shutter Mission to your circles and help us spread the word about portrait charities and photographers who love giving back.

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From The Maple Leaf Mission:

For The MLM, giving “The Gift of Life in Pictures” means providing qualifying families with lasting memories through free sessions with a professional photographer.

The Maple Leaf Mission offers 3 types of free photography sessions:

• Final Moments —  for those families with members of any age with terminal illnesses who want to capture one last memory of their beloved.
• Your Moment — for families/individuals that have a debilitating or life limiting illness, a genetic condition, or disability, but are living your everyday life to the fullest despite your diagnosis.
• Military Moments — for homecoming reunions and deployments.

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“Inequality and intolerance are perpetuated not only by ignorance and hatred, but also by those who know better, saying and doing nothing about it.”

— Charles Anderson, Founding Director and President, The All Family Project

There is an immediate need for volunteer photographers across the US to help with The All Family Project. Read on to learn more about this important organization.

What is The All Family Project?

The All Family Project (TAFP) is a nonprofit whose focus is on family, and their organization is dedicated to educating the general public on gay and lesbian families. They use positive imagery to counter the negative narrative that is often aimed at these families. TAFP seeks to show the humanity of same-sex couples, demonstrating that their relationships are not so different from heterosexual relationships and that their existence does not threaten the rights of others.

Currently, TAFP has a campaign running in Salt Lake City with ads on 12 buses. Their goal is to raise enough money to display ads on billboards and buses all across America.  They would also like to start internet radio and television programs — all designed to promote a positive image of family and to encourage dialog.

How Can You Help?

TAFP is looking to partner with professional photographers, but they are open to working with amateur photographers as well. The preferred style of photography is photojournalistic, although they will accept traditional portraiture too.

Ideally, volunteer photographers would reach out to any same-sex couples they know and complete a portrait session with that family, at a location and time of their choosing. Photographers would then submit their session images to TAFP along with signed releases (linked below).

How Will the Images Be Used?

All photographs submitted will become property of The All Family Project and may be published in a variety of locations including web sites, social media sites, public transit, billboards, etc. Releases must also be submitted on behalf of the photographer and subjects.

If a participating family is comfortable having their portraits displayed on the TAFP Facebook page, but does not want their images featured on a billboard, for instance, TAFP will respect their wishes. Also, they will not include any specific information about the subjects — only first name and general location, e.g., “Sandra and Jill in northwest Kansas.”

Photographers are welcome to use their work for their own purposes, and TAFP will feature the photographer’s info on their web site and Facebook page — giving the artist full credit for the work.

Interested Volunteers

If you are a US photographer interested in donating your time and images to The All Family Project, please print and sign the Photographer Release and have your subjects sign the Model Release.

For questions or further information, contact TAFP’s President, Charles Anderson. He can be reached via email at charles@allfamilyproject.org or by calling (415) 967-1679.

Learn More About TAFP

Here are a couple of videos from TAFP that shed more light on their mission:

Website: allfamilyproject.org
Facebook: facebook.com/AllFamilyProject

Please pass this info along to any photographers you know who may be interested in joining to help The All Family Project!

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This past December, we had five Help-Portrait events in the Bay Area. FIVE.

Locations included the BayView Opera House (SF), La Clinica (Oakland), Mission Economic and Development Center (SF), The North County Women’s Center (Berkeley), and St. Vincent de Paul (SF). In total, H-P volunteers delivered hundreds of portraits and photographed over 1,200 deserving people. It was an amazing day!

These images are from the event held at the St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco, the largest homeless shelter in Northern California.

Thank you to volunteer photographer Daiva Natochy for these great photos! See her entire Help-Portrait 2011 photoset here »

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From Red Thread Sessions:

Red Thread Sessions celebrates adoptions by bringing together adoptive families and professional photographers from across the United States. A group of volunteer photographers have enthusiastically agreed to donate their time & talent to adoptive families so that they can receive the gift of professional photography.

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San Francisco Help-Portrait Team 2010 (photo credit: Marcell Puzsar)

Has it really been a year since our last Help-Portrait day? I can hardly believe it. Also hard to believe: we had one great event in San Francisco last year, and this time around… we have FIVE planned — with the potential to give portraits to almost 1,000 people in need around the Bay Area. How awesome is that?

If you’re not yet signed up to volunteer, no worries… you can still join in the fun. Check the H-P community site, find the community group nearest you (Help-Portrait has events worldwide), and see if there are any last minute needs — there probably are.  I know we still have some empty slots at several of our SF events.

Don’t feel weird jumping in to volunteer at the last minute. My husband and I did that last year, and it worked out fine because they still needed more help.

One position almost all the locations cannot have enough of is runners. This is an important role and one that does not require any photography experience. A runner is responsible for leading the portrait clients to each of the stations in the process and making them feel welcomed.

A lot of locations may still need help at the sign-in table, or with set-up and tear down. You could also bring food for the volunteers. There are many ways you could help out with this amazing event that will impact so many lives around the world.

If you want to get involved, head over to the H-P community site, search for your location, and then get in touch with the site leader for that location.

Can’t Participate?  Donate!

If you’re unable to serve this year, you can still contribute by donating online to a Help-Portrait event near you.  (As of this writing, we are still about $500 shy of our goal in SF to cover printing costs for our events). Every little bit helps!

Hope everyone’s event tomorrow goes smoothly! Have a great time!

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From Shoots for a Cure:

Shoots for a Cure, formerly known as Think Pink Photography, is a charitable organization that serves two main purposes — celebrating life and supporting the cause.

Celebrating Life — Through our professional photographer network, we are helping cancer patients to celebrate life with charitable photography sessions. Sessions are available to document the fight before or during treatment or to celebrate the victory when treatment is completed.

Supporting the Cause — A portion of all funds generated through donations and various fundraising efforts are paid directly to The American Cancer Society, the Susan G Komen Foundation, in our name, or used 100% for marketing and awareness of our program; we are not for profit.

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HeARTs Speak‘s first collaborative effort with The Unexpected Pit Bull, an amazing 2012 calendar, is now available for pre-order!

The Unexpected Pit Bull (TUPB) is a not-for-profit organization that creates, markets, and sells merchandise celebrating pit bull dogs. They donate 100% of their net profits to pit bull rescue, education, and advocacy organizations in need of support.

Since 2004, their unique and professionally photographed calendar has celebrated the pit bull love, energy, and spirit. This year, for the first time, TUPB calendar is collaborating with HeARTs Speak, an organization made up of an international community of artists working to improve the lives of animals in need. Their members have contributed the photographs that grace TUPB calendar pages this year, creating an energy you will love.

By illustrating stories of pit bull dogs sharing their lives with a variety of people and animals, TUPB’s mission is to inspire a better understanding and appreciation of these dogs and combat the negative stereotype held against them. In doing so, they aim to:

• Keep pit bull dogs with the people who love them — and far away from the ones who don’t.
• Fund pit bull specific legal, rescue, advocacy, and education initiatives throughout North America.
• Create calendars that communicate the unexpected surprise, delight, and satisfaction that comes with loving pit bull dog ownership.

Learn more about HeARTs Speak at www.heartsspeak.org and visit The Unexpected Pit Bull to purchase a 2012 calendar and learn more about their efforts to help pit bulls.

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Totally diggin’ Lens on Life — a nonprofit org that has partnered with schools and organizations around the globe to host programs led by volunteer photographers.

Their first program, led by Stephanie C. Roberts and Jen Lemen, takes them to the Koseli School — a center for slum and street children in Kathmandu, Nepal. There they will be teaching students (age 10 and up) the art of photography using donated iPhones.

“The workshop will consist of daily instruction on camera and photography basics; study and discussion of photographs by seasoned photographers; journaling and story planning; creative exercises to engage students in shooting, processing and captioning their photographs; and group critiques of students’ work. A selection of student photographs from the program will be shared in the Lens on Life online gallery and made available for purchase.”

Meet the students participating in this first Lens on Life program:

To get involved or learn more about Lens on Life, visit their site at lensonlife.org.

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