I was driving home an acquaintance from our mutual friend Allie's party. I've known Suzanne for a while, but not very well - her son is on my husband's speech and debate team. I thought we might talk about the speech and debate team, or Allie's upcoming reception...wrong!
She was telling me about some of the amazing work she does with an organization called the Soroptimist International of Silicon Valley. It sounded pretty interesting, especially when she described a bit about one of the groups the Soroptimists have taken under their wing, Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence. She told me about one woman at Next Door's HomeSafe project who, after Suzanne gave her a snapshot of the the woman's kids next to a Christmas tree, burst into tears. She told Suzanne that she had escaped with her kids and the clothes on her back and had to leave all her photos and baby pictures behind.
That would kill me to not have a single photo of Donovan as a baby. Wow. What could I do? How could I help? Suzanne asked me if I would give her a special rate to shoot all of these women and their children, but I was ready to do more, and didn't want a penny. What if we asked other photographers to help capture every one of these women and their families? And what if we brought in our favorite stylists and gave the women wonderful hair and makeup to make them feel special, beautiful? Then what if we just handed over all these images we've taken and let the Soroptimists present them with prints and enlargements - photos of them and their children no one could take away or make them leave behind?
Within two weeks, we had seven photographers ready for two separate sessions, teamed up with the best stylists in the Bay Area. Each one of these professionals jumped on board and like me, refused to take a thing. In Jeanne's case, she came with a big bag of extra towels, frames and other things she thought the women and kids could use!Our first session was yesterday and it was a huge success. All 12 slots were snatched up, with several more on call in case someone couldn't make it. Myself and Jeanne dePolo of dePolo Photography shot these women and their families at two separate locations, with separate hair and makeup teams at each HomeSafe.
Kristen of Makeup By Kristen, Gigi of On Site Weddings by Gigi, and their friend and associate Jennifer Sturken were there first thing in the morning, and by the time Jeanne and I scoped out where we would shoot, and running after the kids as they played, we turned around to see the stunning results of their work. WOW. The smiles were real - they felt like queens, getting pampered, trimmed, styled - and now we got the amazing opportunity to capture that feeling forever.
Can I even begin to tell you how rewarding that felt? To watch one woman start to cry when she saw herself in that tiny window of my Canon 5D? "I've never looked that good," she said. We were all in tears.
Several Soroptimist volunteers were there and they were SO helpful - in one case, two of them kept right up with me as I ran all over the yard chasing down a toddler on his tricycle, getting photos of him giggling and playing! Poor Dawn's arms were so tired holding up my reflector!
The same happened at the second location five hours later. The stylists were just as amazing, Teresa and Sarah of Bloom Beauty Boutique, plus Farzana of Beauty Clinica in Palo Alto. We even had one young volunteer from Notre Dame High School to help with playing with the little ones while moms were getting pampered.
One woman just wanted photos of her two little girls, 3 years and one about 4 months old, but not herself. She had only just arrived and if anyone looked like she'd been through a tough time and deserved some pampering, it was this young woman. But she smiled as she watched us photograph her girls. I made her promise to sign up for the second session we'd be holding on April 5th and she did.
April 5th will be HUGE. 7 photographers and 14 stylists. I'm so excited for my other collegues to experience what all of us photographers and stylists and volunteers did! For those women and kids to feel special...
More soon!
