Wednesday, May 6, 2009
IDW marketing pics
This week I took some promotional marketing photographs for I DO WINDOWS! LLC. IDW is a service company that offers window cleaning & pressure washing. Here's a few pics from that shoot...
A family by choice
Last evening I had the opportunity to photograph something unique. I was asked to be the photographer at the Foster Parent Appreciation Dinner held by Allen County Children Services.
Roughly 20 families paraded in front of my camera, one at a time, allowing me the chance to see what foster care is all about.
I didn't engage in any in depth conversations, or inquire about the difficulties involved in fostering a child. But I could only assume that it had to be challenging at times. In many cases, couples had opted to foster several children, many of whom were of different race. Additionally, most of these parents already had their own children. It struck me that "family" can take on many different meanings and definitely isn't the narrow vision that I often perceive it to be.
For someone like me, it's hard to envision opening my home to a stranger, be it a child or otherwise. I know it's hard enough to maintain our own little hooligans let alone throw somebody else's biological kids into the mix. There's a great amount of sacrifice that goes along with that commitment from the entire fostering family. Perhaps the hardest part would be when the kids were removed from the foster home for whatever reason. That would have to be incredibly hard for everybody involved. I kept asking myself, "Could we manage this?". In all honesty, I just don't really know. I suppose it comes down to if that's your calling in life, you can pretty much tackle anything.
Having thought about the difficulties and challenges, it also occurred to me that there would have to be a great sense of satisfaction involved. Intervening into a child's life and making a positive contribution to them is just about as worthwhile as anything that I can think of. And that's what these people do. They make investments in people. As one of the keynote speakers noted, not only do the individuals who find these homes benefit from the sacrifice and benevolence of the foster parents, but society as a whole does as well. A kid who is shown some love and made to feel like they matter is probably less likely to lash out against a society who otherwise would have wrote them off.
I'm not much of one to dwell on the dramatics or to overly indulge in sappiness. That's why I can't handle watching another episode of "Extreme Makeovers - Home Edition". If I see Ty Pennington tell a slobbery hardship story one more time my head will explode. Not to mention the constant bombardment of annoying excessive product placements. Ty, I miss the days of "Trading Spaces". But in the case of the foster care families, they deserve recognition for their selfless contributions to the world. I truly am in awe by what they do.
Roughly 20 families paraded in front of my camera, one at a time, allowing me the chance to see what foster care is all about.
I didn't engage in any in depth conversations, or inquire about the difficulties involved in fostering a child. But I could only assume that it had to be challenging at times. In many cases, couples had opted to foster several children, many of whom were of different race. Additionally, most of these parents already had their own children. It struck me that "family" can take on many different meanings and definitely isn't the narrow vision that I often perceive it to be.
For someone like me, it's hard to envision opening my home to a stranger, be it a child or otherwise. I know it's hard enough to maintain our own little hooligans let alone throw somebody else's biological kids into the mix. There's a great amount of sacrifice that goes along with that commitment from the entire fostering family. Perhaps the hardest part would be when the kids were removed from the foster home for whatever reason. That would have to be incredibly hard for everybody involved. I kept asking myself, "Could we manage this?". In all honesty, I just don't really know. I suppose it comes down to if that's your calling in life, you can pretty much tackle anything.
Having thought about the difficulties and challenges, it also occurred to me that there would have to be a great sense of satisfaction involved. Intervening into a child's life and making a positive contribution to them is just about as worthwhile as anything that I can think of. And that's what these people do. They make investments in people. As one of the keynote speakers noted, not only do the individuals who find these homes benefit from the sacrifice and benevolence of the foster parents, but society as a whole does as well. A kid who is shown some love and made to feel like they matter is probably less likely to lash out against a society who otherwise would have wrote them off.
I'm not much of one to dwell on the dramatics or to overly indulge in sappiness. That's why I can't handle watching another episode of "Extreme Makeovers - Home Edition". If I see Ty Pennington tell a slobbery hardship story one more time my head will explode. Not to mention the constant bombardment of annoying excessive product placements. Ty, I miss the days of "Trading Spaces". But in the case of the foster care families, they deserve recognition for their selfless contributions to the world. I truly am in awe by what they do.
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