As someone who aspires to be a GREAT portrait photographer one day, I admire Jeremy Cowart's work immensely. He gained even more admiration from me when I read about his charity, Help-Portait.

When I first explain to people what Help-Portrait does, it seems trivial, maybe even frivilous as a charity. But, if you take the time to read the letters of gratitude from the people who are recipients of a portrait, you get it.( http://help-portrait.com/about/stories/notes/ ) Those notes, and the letters on the site will bring a tear to your eye.

When Jeremy posted on Facebook that he was trying to put together a special Help-Portrait event for people who were impacted by Sandy, I wanted to help in any way that I could. While my efforts at finding people to participate in the event fell short, it ended up being a great day. 12 people from the greater NYC area met on 8th Ave to have makeovers, get their portraits taken by Jeremy, and then attended a red carpet premiere of a Broadway show.

I was able to spend about half an hour taking it all in at the studio. Here are some behind the scenes pictures from the day.

Getting to watch such a professional at work was amazing, and getting to be there for even some of this great event was an experience I won't forget.

Jeremy took the time to listen to each person's story, and made each participant feel like he was there just for them. This wasn't about making them feel like "charity cases", this was about giving these people, who had their lives turned upside-down by Sandy, a chance to smile, and to have that smile saved by a true artist.

I cannot wait until December 8th, which is the official Help-Portrait day this year. I am hoping to be taking photos of some really deserving people that day, and only hope that I can do half as much for them as I watched Jeremy and his team do for the ones they met yesterday.