So here it is folks, the weekend that we have been working towards for a better part of the year.
Help Portrait Milwaukee is in full swing! We started off yesterday with a large group of subjects to photograph and a large supporting cast. Not much more you can ask for right? …. That’s what I thought 
Its amazing to see what this has come to be in the past three years of doing this. The first year was us not knowing a lick about what we were doing in terms of photography event management and our support staff out numbering the subjects we had to photograph, to now we have it down were we could do it in our sleep. And not to mention the amount of people we are giving back to grows by leaps and bounds each year.
So what makes Milwaukee’s Help Portrait group different than most? Well, instead of setting up shop in one location and expecting people to come find us, we find them. The first year of doing this we setup shop in a studio and hopped for the best. That year we photographed maybe 20 people through the course of the day. I know that sounds like a lot of prints to give, but we wanted… needed to do more. This lead to devising a plan that would allow us to reach a greater base of people. The result was finding shelters, rehabilitation facilities, and nursing homes, contacting them and gaining trust to show why we were really there. This lead to a great turn out and an amazing amount of portraiture given. This year we will now have seven locations over 3 days.
This year so far has proved to keep the trend going. During day one of Help Portrait Milwaukee we were an amazing shelter in Milwaukee called Repairers of the Breach, and then followed by a community food hall by the name of St. Ben’s the moore. These two places are truly instrumental to helping people get back on their feet. Repairers of the breach offers a warm place to hang out and also new clothes to those who are in need, St. Bens serves a community meal 5 days a week to as many as 400 people at a time. Truly amazing places.
With our amazing volunteers this year we were able to provide hair/makeup services to anyone that would like it, a professional photograph, an 8×10 printed photo along with a 4×6 photo with a holiday card.
Here are a few photos from the first day. Please take a look and see how one photograph can really change someone’s life.
Also please check out some of the local media coverage of the event here
http://www.wisn.com/video/29965581/detail.html
If you would like to volunteer of find out ways to help.. please feel free to email robg@helpportraitmke.com
by Rob
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