Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the horrifying earthquake and tsunami that literally wiped cities off the map in Northern Japan.  Having lived in Northern Japan for three years, I am very strongly connected to the area.

Last year, with the help of many friends, I organized a March Madness event and a raffle/silent auction to raise money for Japan.  Since then, I have been working with Project Kokoro to continue the rebuilding effort in Japan.  Right now, Project Kokoro is focusing on building a firehouse in Yamada-machi, a city in Japan where almost the entire city was submerged under water and most buildings were destroyed or damaged.  We are also exploring options to help with a garage for their firetrucks and a possible youth exchange for students in the area to come to Raleigh, NC to study English.

I’ve decided to do things a little different this year  and have a few ways for you to enter March Madness for Japan.  You can enter by doing either of the following, but either way, please join our group on causes.com and invite some friends:

1. I’ve created a page on causes.com for Project Kokoro, join our cause if you want (not mandatory, but we would really appreciate it) and donate $10 or more to Project Kokoro.
2. Have another causes that is important to you?  No problem!  You may still enter if you donate to another charity of your choice AND also post a link to this post on either facebook or twitter.

After you complete either way, contact me to let me know how you entered and I will respond with a link and password to this year’s MMFJ.

Prizes this year are still undecided will come out of my pocket.  The amount I decide to to give will depend on the amount of money raised, but at the very least it will be $35 for first and $15 for second.  I am leaning towards amazon.com giftcards for first and second place (also could do PayPal) and also looking for local business to donate giftcards for random giveaways (basically, after the final rankings are decided I will use random.org to get a random number and that person will get a gift card).  I already got two $5 gift cards from Neo-Asia in Cary.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments or by email.

Quinn’s senior portrait session was a lot of fun!  We had a blast and came away with some great senior portrait photos.  I’ve said it before, some seniors are just naturals infront of the camera and when they are like Quinn, it makes my job as a senior portrait photographer easy!

It’s not too late to schedule your senior portrait session, contact me today to reserve your session before it is too late!

The previous Carolina Panthers game I photographed for Cal Sport Media was hot and we had a huge rain storm but the Panthers got the win.  This time, bitterly cold, windy and Panthers lost.  Still got some great photos though!  Like the one above which was featured on Zuma’s Press’s site as one of their pictures of the day.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Our first appointment for Olivia’s senior portraits got delayed because of some hurricane or tropical storm that decided to send Durham a lot of rain and wind.  No matter, the second day we picked out turned out to be a beautiful day for a senior portrait session.  With mom and sister along for the ride, Olivia had a nice team helping her out at Duke Gardens.  She did a wonderful job and we came away with some stunning senior portraits!

It’s not too late to schedule your senior portrait session, contact me today to reserve your session before it is too late!

I was excited to be Noah’s senior portrait photographer after hearing what he wanted to do.  I love photographing seniors on location but was looking forward to having part of his senior portrait in the studio and part on the baseball field.  I knew we would come away with some awesome photos for his senior portraits…. Which we did and I gotta be a little more artistic than normal which is always fun!

It’s not too late to schedule your senior portrait session, contact me today to reserve your session before it is too late!