First of all, thank you to all of you who read my previous two posts, shared comments, and let me know your thoughts by email. In cased you missed the posts, in the post called 'Worthy of Exploration' I answered the question 'What is a photographer' and explained why I photograph. In the previous post titled 'The Cost of Something,' I talked about the difference between those photographers who choose to share what they know versus those who don't.

Today's blog post is inspired by several posts on Zack Arias's blog. I first brought attention to Zack's video Transform in my blog post 'Inspire,' which I posted in February 2009 (that was a dark winter for a lot of us). If you haven't already seen the video, check it out on Zack's blog or watch the embedded video at the bottom of my post.

Next came Zack's post titled 'How Many of You Are Standing on the Dock?' in which a reader named B. emailed Zack letting him know of his frustrations with photography. B. was 'dreaming, fretting, and ... making excuses.' More than two hundred readers offered their views and encouragement to B. He is not alone, and a lot of us are frustrated or unhappy with what we're doing (important question: how can we escape from the rut?).

Then a door-to-door salesman came to Zack and offered amazing words of wisdom. In his next post on motivation, Zack asks: 'If last week’s series of blog posts sparked something inside of you then what are you going to do about it? If you felt a call to action then how are you going to answer that call?'

I was thinking about all of these things, which led me to my writing spree of the two blog posts I mentioned at the beginning of this post, and the build-up for the 'special announcement' which I mentioned here.

So here's the big announcement, which is inspired by Zack's post: I'm going to help serve someone with my camera. As Zack writes:
You are going to find a person, a family, a ministry, an organization, a place, a shelter, a movement, a something that needs pictures. These pictures are needed for advocacy or fund raising or simply giving portraits to people who can’t afford even the cheapest of the Wal-Mart packages.
The idea is simple: to help someone in need through a service. In this case, this service is taking pictures. It could be of you or your family. Maybe it's an organization of which you are a member. Perhaps it's a non-profit at which you work or know someone who works there. The key point is that I will undertake this photography project at zero cost. I am hoping to serve someone who ordinarily wouldn't be able to afford a service such as this, and I will do it for free. Perhaps my only restriction is that this project/shoot has to be in the metro Atlanta area and wouldn't take more than a day or two to carry out in entirety.

But I need your help: the photo and title behind today's post reflect this stance. One thing I need to work on is marketing - i.e., promoting myself, reaching out, making phone calls. So if you know someone (a person, a family, a company, a group) who would appreciate this service, please let me know via comments (use the 'comments' link at the bottom of the post to leave a comment). The point is not (necessarily) to promote my work with this project, so if you want to remain anonymous, then you should email me (I will keep things confidential). I am envisioning in undertaking one to two of these projects between today (September 1, 2009) and the end of October 2009. What I can promise: I will be professional in my approach and will deliver excellence (this is one of my life's philosophies: 'Always strive for excellence rather than perfection. For if you strive for perfection, you are bound to fail'). Over the next few weeks, I will keep referencing this post and updating Erudite Expressions to reflect the progress with this project. Feel free to join me in the process. If you have any questions for me, let me know.

Note: I have no idea whether anything I've said will resonate with you, so perhaps this is a venture destined to fail (i.e., I may not be able to find any interested parties who are willing to take me up on the offer; As Zack cleverly puts it: 'Not everyone will need you. Some will reject free stuff! Who cares? Move. On. Dot. Org. with it and knock on the next door.'). But I hope some of you respond. I think the most important thing for me to do is to give it a try and see where things go. If you're a photographer as well, I encourage you to try to do something similar sometime.


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