Senior Smiles

I realized this morning that I haven't posted anything here for quite a while. The usual excuse, I've been busy.

One thing I've been doing is an effort called "Senior Smiles". It was started by someone who was going through an old yearbook and couldn't find photos of a couple of classmates. For a variety of reasons, including lack of funds, they hadn't had one taken. He figured that the problem still exists and probably has gotten worse due to the economy. After rounding up a couple of folks to help, he started contacting the schools and local photographers he knows.

I was one of those photographers. I have to admit, I wasn't interested at first, but after an in-person plea, I signed up. We are starting out small, just some inner city schools and 200 kids out of the 600 the schools identified as being eligible. So far, I've been out twice, with a total of 6 sessions. We've been having the usual start up problems, miscommunication, schedules crossing, that sort of thing. It's been exacerbated by the fact that the effort started late and we are running up against the deadline for photos to get placed in yearbooks.

The kids and the families have been great though, and the other photographers are fun to be around. I'm glad I let myself be talked into this.

A nice article came out about the effort in the Grand Rapids Press in the past week. They got some facts wrong, especially the role the GR Flickr group played and leaving the camera club out of it. I would have liked a link for other photogs to join up also, but any publicity is better than none at all. The article is here.