PICTURE PERFECT
Creative Isle offers free portrait to low-income families as holiday gesture
Creative Isle offers free portrait to low-income families as part of holiday gesture.
Chrissie Green remembers looking through Facebook and seeing the sadness of those who lost valuable items during the Thanksgiving Day flood last year.
Scrolling through a page, she noticed a lady who had posted that she had lost all her photo albums in the flood – memories gone.
Being a photographer, the post immediately tugged the heartstrings of Green, who knew she would be able to help in a small way.
Green, who runs the familyowned Creative Isle Graphic Design and Photography, came up with the idea of offering a free portrait to those who couldn’t afford one, knowing how much a family picture would mean to many people.
After last year’s success, Green decided to once again offer the free portrait event, this year to low-income families.
The weeklong event — titled Free Week of Portraits — will take place this week at the Creative Isle studio on Commercial Street in North Sydney.
“We have been overwhelmed with the amount of bookings we’ve had for it,” said Green. “When I posted it on Facebook, the first three days I couldn’t get any work done, my account was going crazy with the number of messages – it was a good thing.”
In order to be eligible for the event, families must identify as low income. Those registered will receive a free 8x10 traditional portrait, printed in time for Christmas, and the digital copy as well.
“I’ve had a couple of people that doubted it was free and I’ve tried to convince them that this is literally just a genuine present from us,” said Green. “I’m not taking more pictures, you can’t buy the picture even if you tried, it’s not a gimmick in any way.
“We’ve always had so much success during the month of November with our Christmas specials, it just made sense that in December for one week, for this event, we can take the focus off of money and do what we love to do because we love to do it.”
As of last week, 80 families had registered for the free portrait and Green hopes to register 20 more families by the end of the week for a Saturday booking.
“I’ve been hearing stories from people when they send me their messages, some people haven’t had a family portrait in 20 years,” said Green. “These aren’t people who just didn’t get a portrait this year, these are people that needed one for a long time, so it makes me feel like this was a good thing for us to do.”
Anyone wanting to participate in the event is asked contact Creative Isle Graphic Design and Photography on Facebook at www.facebook.com/creativeisle.