Help - Portrait 2010

On Saturday Dec 4th, 2010, photographers world wide came together to volunteer their time & expertise to give back to their community and help underpriviledged families, by taking & giving them free portraits.  I volunteered at two locations this year.  Each location had its own organizer, which I must say did an outstanding job, & each location had dedicated photographers & make-up artists to glam up all the ladies.  Both locations were filled with donated food for the families as well as stuffed toys that my friends & neighbors donated to the children.  I collected over 108 stuffed toys and every child received one.  A huge thank you to everyone who donated their gently used stuffed toys; you helped make a difference this year in a child's eye. The holiday season is not about receiving, but about giving.




Your donated toys.

 

The kids rushing in for the gold after their picture was taken.

 


Make Up Galore!

 




The set up from our morning location. The organizer went beyond.



Boys Will Be Boys

Like my post title says, boys will be boys. I had an adventurous time with these two cute little boys, as you will see in these pictures. This family has been a huge support for my family. I can always count on them for anything. Sadly, like all military familes, we get moved around. They soon will leave & I will miss them greatly. Thank you for allowing me to photograph your family.

Gotta love little boys with such big personalities.

Thanksgiving 2010

I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving last week. My family spent Thanksgiving with another USMC family and we had lots of delicious food. In being a ''military family'' your friends that you meet become your family, since your immediate & extended family are always almost in another state. During Thanksgiving week, I had the opportunity to help photograph the Armed Services YMCA San Diego as they helped other military families through Maria Shrivers Million Meals Giveaway and Jackson and Blanc Turkey Giveaway. Lots of wonderful people showed up to help including Chopper the biker dog. Chopper is well known all over San Diego and loves to help others. He is so cute and always has his motorcycle with him. The ASYMCA served 1160 military families with Thanksgiving Food Assistance. They are awesome & a wonderful organization that genuinely cares for others. I love volunteering for them!

Two of the San Diego Chargers came out to help pass out turkeys & take pictures with the families.

Our Family Portraits

This past weekend my family & I had a wonderful opportunity to be photographed by my friend, photographer Lauren Nygard. Lauren is a wedding & portrait photographer, using only natural light. She is based in Oceanside, CA, which is not too far from San Diego, CA. She is a sweetheart. My girls took right to her & they continue to talk about how nice she was to them. She is very kid friendly.


It had been years since our last professional family portrait. Hard to believe huh? Well, it's kind of hard to take pictures of myself with my family. = )

I'm really glad we finally took family pictures that turned out beautifully. I couldn't have picked a better photographer. "Thank You Lauren." They will be hanging up in my living room proudly on display.
Here are just a few of my favorite images. Click on the pictures & you will be redirected to her
website. I highly recommend her.

Play Time with the Galvan Girls

Here are two adorable little girls who took their photo shoot and made it "play time" instead. They both had lots of fun running around in the park and talking to me. My one year old client made me work to find her smile but we got a couple smiles at the end.

What is Help Portrait?

Take a look at last years Help Portrait event.  Click on the link to see how last year's event impacted families. Help Portrait 2009


Don't forget that this year I am collecting teddy bears/stuffed animals or stuffed toys for Help-Portrait. These children will spend their Holidays in a shelter. If you have any that you would like to donate please contact me. Any little bit helps. Thank you in advance.
chriselda_turcios@yahoo.com  or
chriseldas_images@yahoo.com

Chrisiana's Hair

For those of you who know me and my girls, you know that we have always had extremely long hair....At the begining of this year I had my youngest daughter's hair cut above her shoulders. Now, I always get asked the same question over and over, "Why did I cut Chrisiana's hair?" Here is my answer:  My daughter was diagnosed with alopecia, an auto immune disorder which causes patchy hair loss on the scalp.  It affects about 1% of the population and occurs mostly in children.  My daughter literally had bald spots on her head overnight.  Imagine your child  going to sleep perfectly fine, then waking up with bald spots.  I was confused at the time because I had no idea what was happening to her.  I took her to the emergency room where they told me she had alopecia.  After many days of crying, because I didn't know if she would be like this for the rest of her life, if she would lose more hair or if there would be a bigger problem to the picture; I made the decision to cut her hair, so I wouldn't have to pin up, tug or pull on it, due to it being so fragile.  Now, I've shared the reason as to why I had my daughter's hair cut.  Thankfully, after about 3 months, her hair has begun to grow back & is still growing.  I am truly more appreciative and thankful that we have hair, and the ability to do what we choose to do with it, because many people lose their hair and it does not grow back.

My daughter Chrisiana with her long hair before it was cut. 

Her now with her hair cut.