The Small Story

ARLINGTON — She was small at first, standing against a white backdrop, surrounded by soft lights, and upside-down umbrellas, and photographers smiling behind their cameras, encouraging her to pose. Then Shanaya, 17, had an idea:

“What’s that thing they do on the red carpet?”

And everything was easy from there. She turned her back to the cameras, placed her right hand on her hip, cast a pouty look over her shoulder, and suddenly, there was the fun. Whole, long minutes of it, designed especially for her.

“It felt good to take my guard down,” said Shanaya, who lives at Germaine Lawrence, a residential treatment program for at-risk adolescent girls. “I went all out.”

All around the world last weekend, photographers gathered to take portraits of people who are often overlooked—people without homes, or good health, or a steady income, people who might see portraits as something only others can afford.

They had their hair styled. They got their makeup done. And then, smiling like celebrities, they stepped into the spotlight at shelters and schools, churches and community centers.  By the end of the weekend, according to the organizers of Help-Portrait, 36,000 people had professional portraits to give as gifts this holiday season.

The idea for the project came from celebrity photographer Jeremy Cowart, who sparked the movement this summer from his home in Tennessee. It traveled through Twitter, and other social media, until more than 3,000 photographers had signed on, not to mention the hair stylists and makeup artists. 

Days after the event, the web was buzzing with countless videos of Help-Portrait shoots, from the streets of Mexico to a studio in Lithuania. 

The Germaine Lawrence session was a quieter kind of success. Many of the 80 adolescent girls here have suffered trauma. Some have been sexually exploited. There are girls who have repeatedly run away from foster homes, and girls who have tried suicide.

But last Saturday, they sat like ladies of luxury, reading magazines in a makeshift salon on the second floor of the school. Stylists from Empire Beauty School had driven from Warwick, Rhode Island to braid their hair, and curl their hair, and tuck it all into an updo. 

The girls closed their eyes, so the artists could brush blue and purple on their lids. They opened their mouths slightly, for the lip gloss to glide on. Then down the carpeted staircases each girl went, walking through dimly lit hallways, to make her debut in the gym.

“Oh, my God, here she comes!” yelled Nikki Valila, a program director for Germaine Lawrence, and the organizer of the event. “Work it!”

The girls were giddy with the glamour. They flipped their hair. They twirled around. They pulled friends into the frame with them, playing at a Charlie’s Angels pose. 

Fifteen photographers fawning over them for the day. Calling out compliments: Gorgeous! Perfect! Look at you! Huddling with the girls, showing them the shots on the camera screen.

This is why Nikki really wanted to bring Help-Portrait here: the attention. The girls can never get enough.

“I can’t pretend to know what their experience is like,” said Marshall Goff, a photographer who lives in Newton. “We just try to be a positive moment in it.”

Nothing about the girls’ healing is easy. But on this suburban campus, surrounded by supportive staff, many said they had found a family. They measured their progress by new feelings—confidence, independence, a growing interest in school. 

For some, the Saturday session itself was a step forward. 

A couple of the girls came to the gym shaking. One sat hugging her legs, trying hard for a smile. Meg Taintor, an assistant in that shoot, inched in beside her.

“I’m just gonna hang out here, cause it’s kind of scary,” Meg said.

Slowly, the girl unfolded herself. She let one photographer brush the hair from her eyes. She let another ease her out of her winter coat. Then she began to smile.

As part of the Help-Portrait experience, each of the 40 girls photographed will get a series of pictures—two 8”x 10”s, one 5”x 7,” and a bunch of wallet-size images of themselves at their best. On Saturday, some had plans already to send them to a sister or a brother, a father or a grandmother—the people they had left behind, or the people who had left them behind.

Shanaya knew one thing for sure. The biggest picture she got would go to her mother. 

“My mother deserves it,” she said.

Shanaya was in another photo shoot once, years ago, as part of an adoption campaign. Her portrait hung in a furniture store. Potential parents passed her by.

But everything was different now. A few months shy of her 18th birthday, she was growing out of being a girl. Getting stronger all the time. This portrait would be there to remind her: she was on her way.



Note: Several girls were interviewed for this story, but because of privacy concerns, and because they are all under the age of 18, they were not able to use their names, and their photos cannot be shown. Shanaya gave permission to use her full name, but her social worker, who is her guardian, allowed only the use of her first name.

For more photos from the shoot at Germaine Lawrence, go to:
http://www.intheviewfinder.net/HelpPortrait2009/. For more on Help-Portrait, go to: http://www.help-portrait.com

Saturday's event was made possible by stylists from The Empire Beauty School, http://www.empirebeauty.edu, and the following photographers:
Jeff Tamagini http://www.tamaginidesign.com
Rich Beaubien http://www.intheviewfinder.net
Leah Haydock http://www.leahhaydock.com
Jessica McDaniel http://www.boston-baby-photos.com
Julia Snider http://www.juliasniderphotography.com
Brian Matiash http://www.brianmatiash.com
Chris Lazzery http://www.onefiftyeightphotos.com
Meg Taintor http://www.megtaintorphotography.com
Darcy Dubois http://www.wix.com/darcys7/blackwhite
Nathan Tia http://www.simplynate.com
Lisa Seidel http://www.portraitsbylisa.com
Schuyler Ortega http://www.schuylerphoto.com
Marshall Goff http://www.marshallgoff.com
Jason Liu http://www.jliuphotography.smugmug.com
John Tammaro http://www.flickr.com/photos/nu_husky_91/

With prints donated by http://www.iprintfromhome.com