Affordable Housing Awareness Week 2012

This week long event not only works to raise awareness about the need for safe affordable housing, but also provides volunteer opportunities for people to help out one of the many non-profit housing organizations in Richmond.  For the last several years, I have been lucky enough to go around and document the participation of the many student, corporate and community leaders who involve themselves in AHAW.  Part of the event is Walking in Their Shoes were community leaders spend a day on the streets of Richmond navigating the challenges faced by the homeless in the area.  A few of the images from the week are below.

Capitol One employees helping clean out a unit at one of Virginia Supportive Housing's SRO facilities.

Kit Simmons, DJ with Lite 98 with one of the thankful residents of Virginia Supportive Housing's SRO

VCU students painting a fence at a Fan Distract building owned by Better Housing Coalition

Volunteers from Franklin Federal Savings Bank and the Richmond Realtors Assoc. replanting and repairing a garden at BHC's Winchester Green apartment complex.

The best example of using the Tom Sawyer approach of painting a fence to good advantage, at Winchester Green

Wells Fargo employees helping paint an apartment for Virginia Supportive Housing.

Two of the community leaders taking part in Walking in Their Shoes, on the street.

Several of the Walking in Their Shoes participants talking with others waiting for lunch at St. Paul's Church.

World Refugee Day Project

It has been awhile since I posted something, but I have to share some of the portraits I recently did for a bigger project.  The project organized through Commonwealth Catholic Charities by  two wonderful Vista Volunteers, Alma Ortman and Lindsey Harris involved a series of photography workshops with local refugee teenagers.  The goal was to create an exhibit for World Refugee Day on June 20.  Along with a group of other photographers, I worked with the teens teaching them photography and helping to document their lives for the upcoming exhibit.  I also as part of the project setup a studio in the church where we held our classes and did a series of portraits of the refugee teenagers to go along with the exhibit of their photographs.  Below  are a sample of some of my portraits.

Allan Rosenbaum / New Work

It had been awhile since I photographed work for Allan Rosenbaum, but this Fall I twice shot new work for him. Below I have included some recent pieces from this Fall. While Allan is known for his ceramic work, these two works are cast glass. This medium is always a challenge to photograph and to get a good representation of the piece. I love these two sculptures and the images turned out well.

Susan Adams / Western Design Conference

As the New Year begins, it is time to catch up on my blog. I am going back to the beginning of the Fall for my first entry. I have long photographed the wonderful jewelry and metalwork of Susan Adams, which is pictured below. As in the past, Susan won an award at the Western Design Conference, this time for her cocktail shaker with cup and tray. I have also included some images of her recent jewelry pieces, she had at the show.