HELP PORTRAIT THIS SATURDAY DECEMBER 12! PARTICIPATE!
SPECIAL THANK YOU UPDATE: Thank you SOOO much to Adorama Pix for stepping up here! Adorama has graciously offered to donate 15 8×10 to every photographer in Help Portrait to be able to fulfill the mission that has been set out – to give back to those less fortunate. I for one applaud Adorama for being there for the photographic community. You guys rock!

I’m very honored to be able to help out during our Local Help Portrait project this year. If you haven’t heard about it already. The brainchild of photographer Jeremy Cowart, December 12 is a day for you to get out into the world and take a picture of a person that would normally not be able to afford a portrait. It’s a photographic way of giving back and I am so excited to see how many people have gotten on board with this.

I encourage all of you.. log into the Help Portrait website. From being a photographer, to just being an extra set of hands to be able to help, i’m sure your local chapter would be more than happy to have you. If there is no local chapter – remember that this can be as big or as small as you want. You can just pick someone.. take their picture.. and get it back to them.

Go to the Help Portrait website to see more information, and see how you can help.

WIN A WESTCOTT TD5 KIT
I am soooo jealous about this one. If you haven’t seen already we’ve relaunched the new Photoshop User TV podcast. Personally, I think that the show format is a really nice mix. You’d be crazy not to check it out. There was one part that made me feel like I was back in school and made me giggle..

The other thing that I think is great about the redesign is the inclusion of Social Media into it. Right now, you can Follow Dave Cross on Twitter or use the #psutv hastag to email your Photoshop questions to the Photoshop guys!

As if that weren’t enough, with a big THANK YOU to our folks from Westcott, they have created an awesome giveaway! If you go to http://www.fjwestcott.com/napp you can fill out a form and be entered to win a TD5 Spiderlite Kit! . The winner is going to be announced December 15 on Westcott’s blog The Lighting Lowdown. Make sure you check them out!

Click here to join the Giveaway!

Contest Time
Go to the Contact page, select the Layers Blog drop-down, then fill in your name, email address and answer to this week’s following question. Remember, the contest will end Thursday 5PM,. and the winner will be announced Friday morning.

The Contest Question:
I believe in what Help Portrait and Adorama are doing.. so this is what I am going to do. Watch the video above. In it, someone narrates “They were the Football Player, They were the musician, They were..”

What was the last one there? You watch and tell me that and I’ll make it worth your while.

The Prizes:
To motivate you to inspire you to watch and find a way to participate, i’m going to give away a copy of Video with Adobe Flash CS4 Professional, a copy of
Illustrator CS4 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide , a copy of David Duchemin’s Within The Frame (Great Read).