Last Saturday we had a crew of over 70 volunteers help us make Help-Portrait 2011 a huge success.

Last year we managed to pull of HP with only 3 weeks of planning and though we all did a great thing that day things didn’t go very smoothly. This year with many months to plan and some of the most amazing volunteers (You know who you are) we had what could only be described and a 100% successful event. The biggest hurdle we had to overcome was the file handling, editing and printing. Thanks to all who participated in our auction we had a budget to get 2 amazing photo printers which will make every Hep-Portrait from this year forward so much better. We had two volunteers on laptops taking flash cards from the photographers, renaming the files and pushing them to an editor. Thanks to Monte Rudze we had the 2 laptops networked to 4 iMacs connected to the two photo printers. This process was so streamlined that people didn’t have to wait more than 20 minutes for their edited and touched up 8×10 print to be delivered.

We had an amazing team a hair stylists and makeup artists giving ladies the “Royal Treatment” and an outstanding team of 25 photographers working in 6 stations making some of the best portraits you’ve ever seen! Let’s not forget about all the general volunteers who were the backbone of the logistics.

The attendees may have only been able to walk out with one 8×10 that day but there were so many great images made that it would be a shame for those people to not have them as well. Since Dec. 10th I’ve been editing all the rest of the pictures taken in order to deliver the digital files to those attendees who’ve contacted us.

One more time I want to personally thank all the great people who put in so much time to help make a difference in the community.

The final tally for Help-Portrat New Haven 2011
Pictures taken: 4,183
People Photographed: 282
Prints Delivered: 121
Gallons of Hot Chicken Soup: 4
Pizzas: 21
Memories made: Too many to count.