Memory makers

Photographers give gift of family portraits

The participants don't see that portrait of the man holding the urn. It stands on the table where they fill out paperwork, but it rests inside a metal box just out of sight. It's the portrait that Help Portrait NWA co-organizer Eric Gorder uses to remind himself why this busy day is important.

The image shows a man holding a vase filled with his wife's cremains. The couple visited Help Portrait several years before, while she was terminally ill. The man wanted a picture of her before she passed. When she died, it became the picture that ran with her obituary, which was then clipped from the paper and taped to the urn.

By The Numbers

Help Portrait events took place across the world last weekend. Here are some number pertinent to the organization’s operation:

COMING

That's how it appears in the photo, the man clutching those remains, his words of thanks to the Help Portrait staff written in gray ink to the side. Each picture may be worth a thousand words, so there are many thousands of stories generated by Help Portrait. And every participant yields one.

***

Down the hall from the check-in table, in what usually serves as a cafeteria for Root Elementary School students, is a wall of lights that would temporarily defeat the darkest hour of a moonless night. Perched on all edges of the room, the lights come on rapidly, a clicking sound accompanying each flash. The paparazzi treatment begins here. Past years have also featured student makeup artists practicing on those who walk in, but this is an all-volunteer event and that kind of person was not to be found this year. Instead, this year's participants get escorted into the gym directly. They have supplied their names and little else. Most were recommended for the Help Portrait program by case workers, church elders or aid stations such as 7 Hills Homeless Shelter. Word continues to spread about the Help Portrait event, which was founded nationally in 2008 and came to Northwest Arkansas in 2009. Event co-chairman Steven Ironside fielded calls seeking appointments for the first time this year. The committee of volunteers who staff the local Help Portrait event decided to take them. Making specific, arbitrary guidelines deciding who deserved a free photo session and who did not seemed contrary to the aim of the event.

The major difference between the stations set up in the cafeteria is the photographer staffing them. Everyone has a gray background. Everyone has a large camera, digitally attached to large lights. Everyone has the use of short stools of bare wood. One photographer brought a trunk full of wooden blocks just in case a very young subject showed up for a photo.

***

"Brooklyn and McKenna, come on down," photographer Meredith Mashburn tells a pair of young girls. Brooklyn Johnson, 3 years old, bounds across the room, her blonde pigtails bouncing along with her. Her sister follows, happy but not as exuberant, because it would be hard to match her younger sister's enthusiasm.

A series of commands from Mashburn puts them where she wants them.

"Big hug!" she yells as the girls squeeze each other.

"Stand right here," she prompts McKenna, who is 5.

The girls wear matching black and pink boots with white lining that look like they were purchased for this occasion because there's still a piece of a price tag stuck to one of the boots. The girls get a last-minute hair brushing from their mother, Kristen Johnson.

"You guys are the prettiest girls I have ever seen," Mashburn tells them.

The girls switch back and forth, taking individual shots.

"Let's do one together," Mashburn says.

"The three of us?" McKenna asks.

She meant herself, her sister and the photographer. Mashburn corrects her. One of the two girls together.

"You want to do a silly one?" Mashburn asks.

"Yeah!" they respond in perfect harmony.

The girls are pros at this, hooking their fingers in the corners of their mouths, pulling wide and sticking their tongues out.

The group photo comes next, with McKenna, Brooklyn, Kristen and Bill Johnson, all of Fayetteville, smiling at Mashburn.

After about 20 minutes of work, Mashburn is finished with this round of photos. During the course of the day, the photographers present would stand on their feet for some six hours, taking in excess of 1,000 digital images in the process.

***

There's a kinship among these photographers. They often compete against each other for wedding gigs and the like. That may be the reason for the timing of the event -- few weddings occupy these photographers' schedules right now. And photos make great presents, too, so that's a consideration.

There is no rivalry today, and the various photographers have jointly hauled in gear and cameras and editing software and speaker systems to play music to accompany them during the wait times. But not all of those volunteering are photographers. Gophers take memory cards from the photography sessions in the cafeteria to the editing session in the school's library. Others help with check-in duties, and a few have the enviable task of providing the completed photos to the families who wait in the hallways. Several companies have donated to the cause as well, including Bedford Camera with a gift of some photo paper, Tyson Foods with a gift of chicken and several grocery stores with other food items to serve the volunteers and families. The photographers present pooled money together to buy other supplies and food.

***

Gorder, walking through the halls and watching over everything, knows how remarkable it is to come into a building empty handed and leave with family photos. These images will become Christmas gifts, family keepsakes and memories. And the quality is excellent. The greater Help Portrait network that staged hundreds of these events across the world on Dec. 6 does not require any sort of professional qualifications for photographers, just willingness. But the crew in Fayetteville consists mostly of people who make their living doing just this kind of thing, but who charge considerably more than someone at a department store booth might.

There is lots of waiting -- waiting for the next subject, or for their photos to arrive. The 96 appointment times help, but as often happens with appointments, the schedule shifts. In the hallway between the cafeteria and the library, games and a coloring station help ease the wait, which can run an hour or longer. There's also lunch in the cafeteria to stave off hunger. Today's offering might be the most stereotypical and most perfect school lunch -- chicken fingers with macaroni and cheese, washed down with a choice of regular or chocolate milk.

***

The memory cards get delivered to the waiting masses in the library. There is loud music by Elvis and groups such as Queen playing, and there are slices of cake on a table, but this is a strange party. Those in the editing room generally hunch over at their desks, which are made for children. Banks of computers and their operators work together to speed the process, but the new arrivals might take as much as an hour between the last click of the shutter and the finished product.

Brandon Otto of Brandon Otto Photography is among those assigned to editing duties. No one gets much editing. Otto checks for focus, for exposure and removes blemishes. The photo set he works with now requires little of anything except cropping.

"This family has perfect skin, so I don't have to do much," he says. All of the members in this family are wearing a black and red sweaters, except for one late addition. The teenage daughter brought her boyfriend with her, and he shows up in a few of the photos. Otto remembers thinking a high school relationship of his might last forever. It did not. But this moment is important for the family, so the boyfriend photos get edited and filed like the rest of them.

From his desk, the photos travel electronically to another station, where the photos are burned onto a compact disc. Some sessions yield as few as 10 photos, while others might get as many as 100, depending on the combinations of family members who pose together.

Everyone gets that photo disc and two printed images. A framed 5-by-7 goes home with the family, and a 4-by-6 image is given, signed by the family, then returned to the Help Portrait staff as way to remember what this means to them -- just like the image of the man with his prized obituary photo did a year ago.

The assembled packets go out to halls where the families wait, and those volunteers might have the best job of all.

The photographers coaxed smiles from their subjects all day.

But the smiles generated when they received their final product never took any prompting.

NAN Our Town on 12/11/2014

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