Christina's Blog

I was recently asked to photograph a Beads of Courage training event at NC Children’s Hospital for Striving for More, Inc (one of my favorite non-profits to help!)   For those of you not familiar with Striving for More, they are a local non-profit organization founded by Cary resident Diane Moore after losing her daughter to cancer in 2008.  Witnessing first-hand the true lack of emotional support services in place for most families dealing with childhood cancer, Diane established this organization to encourage and fund services such as the Beads of Courage program.  Beads of Courage is a non-profit organization that encourages children to use colorful beads to document their own personal journey with cancer including their treatments, procedures, and hospital stays.  There are only 3 other hospitals in North Carolina that currently have this program in place, so it is very exciting that Striving for More has helped bring it to the NC Children’s Hospital in Chapel Hill!  I am sharing a few of my favorite images from the training sessions held in February.

Approximately 12,500 children are diagnosed with cancer annually in the United States.  Please take a moment to visit Striving for More online and read more about Diane’s story at her blog.  You can learn more about the Beads of Courage program online as well – please share these valuable resources with family and friends who may be in need of such support.

Striving for More – Beads of Courage – NC Children’s Hospital

Living in the same house for over 8 years means you accumulate lots of stuff – clothes you’ve outgrown get boxed in the attic, old toys get stashed in the garage, DVDs your kids no longer watch sit stacked on a shelf.  In the beginning stages of moving we grabbed a few boxes and started with the easy things we knew we’d be bringing with us, but probably wouldn’t need over the next month.  Then the reality crept in that we were going to need much more than “a few” boxes and that we really needed to get organized to determine what things we should give away (or throw away) and what we wanted to keep.  If you haven’t done this kind of de-cluttering in a while, it might be surprising just how hard it is.  There is of course the initial layer of junk that’s obvious and it’s fairly easy to fill a few boxes of items to donate, but mostly it’s pretty tough to separate out our needs from our emotional attachment to things.

I actually thought this would be harder for the kids, but I was totally off-base.  A perfect example was the day Zander and I tackled his bookshelf.  I let him start by just looking through his stack of books and grabbing any he really loved, but he only grabbed 2 (out of like 40!)  Clearly he would be sad not to take more of them, I thought, so I started taking them off the shelf one at a time and asking him “keep or donate?”  He breezed right through this part, and mostly said “donate” in a very sure voice – I, on the other hand, kept sneaking my favorites into the keep pile.  I had perfectly logical reasons – this one I gave him for Valentine’s Day when he was 2 and I even wrote a little note inside, this one was his favorite bedtime story for almost 4 months, this one was the first book he “read” to me.  As I sat in the pile of books that day I realized that I was going to have the toughest time with this moving thing… because truthfully I probably had accumulated the most memories in this house.  It’s not the “stuff” we want to keep, but the memories they carry, the moments they represent.

We eventually finished our packing, threw away most of our junk, donated a lot great items, and moved in to our new house.  But I’m not going to feel bad at all about the yellow toy bunny stashed away in my new closet – it was the first toy that ever made Jillian laugh and I’m not ever going to want to let go of that memory, even if it takes an extra box to keep it around.

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Copperlight Art is participating in the International Charity Model Search to select North America’s Cutest Kid and to raise funds for the non-profit Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation. (NILMDTS.org)  Many of you know that this is a favorite charity of mine and that I hope to be joining on as a volunteer later this year.  The gift these photographers are able to provide is immeasurable and I am happy to be able to support this Foundation in any way I can.  Read on for more details about how this works.  Important note: Images must be submitted to the gallery by the end of March, so if you’re interested in participating, please call the studio or shoot me an email today!

Is your child North America’s Cutest Kid?  We’ll give you the opportunity to prove it!  The grand prize winner will win a $2500 savings bond, a $2500 travel package, and a $100 Target gift card.  The second and third place runners-up each will win a $500 savings bond and a $100 Target gift card.

Model Search Special:

$30 entry fee includes a 30-minute model mini-session and one image submitted to the international gallery.  If you are currently a client of mine and have had a session this year (2011), please let me know if you would like to choose an image from your session to submit (at no additional charge!)

Finalists will be determined by online votes.  Here is where you’ll need to get friends and family involved!  Each vote is $1 (no limit on the amount of votes you can cast), and all proceeds from votes benefit Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS.org).   Every family member/friend who registers their information on the Charity Model Search website will also receive 5 complimentary votes to cast as they please. The top 5 paid votes and the top 5 complimentary votes in each region will move on to the final judging round for a total of 50 finalists.

Grand prize international winner and runners up will be determined from the 50 regional finalists. The winner and runners up are selected by photography experts.

Call 919-597-0259 now to enter your “Cutest Kid” in this exciting contest – images must be submitted by March 31, 2011!