This is the final blog entry on the recent Flood Portrait Event I organized back in Octoberish of 2009. It has been a couple months and God has shown me so many things. I want to give a little history and then move on to the most recent events.

When the floods happened here in the Austell area in Atlanta, GA I was really effected emotionally. To be quite honest, this was probably the first large scale tragedy that happened to an area that I lived in. I come from California, land of the earthquakes but really, I only experienced one LARGE earthquake, that was a long time ago, and it really only gave my area aftershocks, the large part was in LA and we were a couple hours from there so it didn’t hit us like it did them. But the flood on the other hand, came right up to my back door, literally!  We live near Sweetwater creek and before it was about a football field away from the back door of our basement, but after the waters rose the day after the flood, the creek was about ten feet from our door. Looked like a lake back there! (That picture is standing on my deck looking down in the yard).

I couldn’t believe it! It did scare me a bit because I really wasn’t sure if they were going to get higher or not.  When my kids’s school was shut down in a different town, I realized it was all over atlanta that was effected, after looking online and browsing the news sites, I saw the total devastation that happened over one night. Hundreds of families rushed out of their homes with five minutes notice, you see, it happened while we were all sleeping. Woke up at 4 am and saw the waters rising. So no one really thought that it would get like it did. It was over a hundred years ago when the rain came down like that.

I wanted to help, in anyway I could. I felt so saddened for the people who lost their homes, the possessions are just material items, but to lose everything even your roof over your head, what do you do? Some of them didn’t have insurance for floods, why would they when Atlanta has been in a drought for years… So they were really distraught.  I volunteered at my church, First Baptist Church Powder Springs, to photograph the aftermath of the cleanup.

My church was one that helped families tear all the old wet drywall out of the homes, and pull the belongings out to the yards for pickup by fema, I think. So I went with them and photographed the people working, and also the “Stuff” that was piled in all the yards. I also documented the waterlines, and where they were in relation to the homes. I was totally bummed I couldn’t get out and photograph the water actually there, but that was not my calling. I had to take care of my family and home at the time. See we were blessed that about ten marines came and made us a sandbag wall to block the water from coming into our basement, what a chore that was, but the marines always are awesome for coming to the rescue!

Sorry, I digress… So after photographing these homes, I felt that I couldn’t just stop there, I really wanted to help more. I wasn’t physically capable of helping with the labor, which maybe I could have, but I guess I just didn’t feel led to do that, so I offered my time for anything else at the church. They needed some people to go and deliver snacks and water bottles every day to the neighborhoods, just drive down, and offer a cold drink and some snack. So while doing this, and visiting with these sweet precious families I became attached to them. It is funny, but I really did. I started to care about them even more and it hurt me to see what they were going through. Some I couldn’t even bring my self to photograph, the devastation was too horrible. I felt it would just be insulting to do so.  So I just listened to them pour out their hearts and stories, some cried on my shoulders….I cried with them…. I cry now…. It was so sad, and I didn’t know what I could do. I wanted to give them all the food and shelter that I have in my own house. We offered our home up but no one took us up on that gesture. We brought some food to some families, and just continued to drive the roads, walk the roads, go door to door offering a cold drink and a snack.  Finally one day I was walking this one neighborhood, which I honestly can’t even find now, but I was walking past this one home, and saw a beautiful large portrait leaned up against the garage wall, just a mess, dirty, and all ruined. It hurt to see it, not just because it was a portrait, but because I knew it was dated, and since I have children, I knew they wouldn’t be able to recreate that moment.  I spoke to the gentleman who’s home it was, and about the picture, he said the man who took it, was going to offer them a new portrait sitting, and I thought HOW AWESOME that was, thats what this country is supposed to be about, helping other in times of need. I was so happy to hear that but sad that it was a old picture and that couldn’t be replaced. We talked about how he could bag it up and still keep it to look back on, but couldn’t hang it on his walls.

This led me to the idea of the 2009 Flood Family portrait event.  I really felt that God led me to this man to come to where I am at today.  I wanted to offer portraits to any family effected by the floods. So I talked to a few families that we were seeing and asked if they’d be interested in doing it, and they all loved the idea. Next I posed the question to the church to see if we could possibly use the church as a location to photograph at, since it was nearby the flood and most people new where that was at, since it was in the cutest little town of powder springs.  So from there the blessings just poured in from God!! I had so many photographers volunteer their time and talents to help families as well. Kim Davidson, Kelly LaBruyere and Aleeya Hargrove all ended up shooting on the day of the event. Thank you girls for your awesome love, compassion and heart to serve others! I’m so awed by the beautiful portraits you all made that day.  Also so many thanks goes out to the AMAZING sponsors we had for the event. PWD Labs first of all was the first to offer their services for the prints. They came out beautiful, thank you so much!  Rick Thompson, from Thompson framing donated the most beautiful frames I’ve seen! They were stunning! Thank you for that and for also picking them out, that was a very sweet personal touch!

Next was Canvas on Demand, they donated one canvas to be raffled off to one family. This was the hard part, not being able to give each family one canvas, but I gave it to God and prayed the right family would receive it, and I went to randomizer.org and had the number selected and it came to the Evans Family, the canvas was breathtaking! The mom who received it, well she cried, you’ll see for your self shortly.(relatively, I know I talk alot ;))

Thank you to KISS Wedding Books for donating some of the coolest little mini books out there. They donated one 4×4 little kiss to each family, which was a HUGE hit!

Then we gave them each a DVD with a Animoto slideshow put to music, and a CD of all the images in High Res.  My husband came with me on Christmas Eve to deliver the packages. This part was my favorite. It was really the best christmas present I could ever have asked for, a day early!! To see your smiles, tears and joy these brought you, will bless my heart for years and years to come!   One family in particular really had my heart, and God just kept putting them on my heart, with her permission we did some video footage of her receiving her package, please watch and enjoy…..

Well, through this, God has really shown me that he wants me to do more of this sort of ministry. Giving back to bless others. I really am not one that has to be the #1 photographer on google(although i am for hiram , whoohoo:)) But I really just get my joy out of seeing the faces of those families when they see their pictures for the first time. I don’t get to have that when I photograph my clients, unless I show them the back of the camera when I’m actually photographing, which I normally do.  So, expect to see more of this sort of ministry photography in the future. Please pray for me that God will guide my steps and send people of Gods heart to me to help out with all the ways that we need help.  You are an awesome God and I’m excited to serve you!

God Bless you all, thanks for reading! 🙂 Please if you have any comments, or if you have a moment send me a little comment letting me know you read this 😉 It blesses me to see your thoughts.

XOXO- Katrina