Starlight Foundation Project - "A bright light in dull days."

I apologize for the long post...But this one is important!!!

A good friend of mine, Mina Spremulli, asked me to participate in a project for the "Starlight Foundation".  She described what the foundation set out to achieve and I instantly became a gigantic fan of Starlight.

If you've never heard of Starlight, they are a foundation assembled to bring hope and happiness into the lives of children with illnesses.  Their goal is not to find a cure, but rather to forget about life with an illness, or disability, even if only for a day. 

Starlight is all about living for today and for the moment, and if you know me, that is exactly how I CHOOSE to live.  I say "choose" purposely because life is so important to me and we all have our circumstances that make our lives difficult at times but at the end of the day you can't let anything stop you from enjoying every moment you have here.  You choose to be happy or sad and life is just way too short to dwell on all the negativity we surround ourselves with.  So be happy today, don't concern yourself with the past and don't worry too much about the future.  Enjoy right now and take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves.  Just LIVE!

So back to the project, Mina was asked to assemble 10 artists, all students of hers or somehow affiliated with her.  She asked Grafic, an elite mens clothing company located in Woodbridge to be a part of the project and they jumped at the opportunity. The artists were asked to create a piece that creatively included Starlights image/objective as well as incorporate an athlete that was assigned to us.  All NHL hall of famers!!!  I was assigned "Steve Shutt" who played for the Montreal Canadian team that won 5 Stanley cups from 1973 to 1979.  These original art pieces would then be signed by our athlete and auctioned off at the annual Starlight charity gala on Saturday February 20.  All of the money raised would be donated to the foundation.  How could I say no???

Well, here is what I came up with... I am the only photographer in the bunch and I wanted to stay true to my style.  I didn't want to create a bunch of images and piece them together in photoshop (which I did think of doing).  I am a real life, real moment artistic photojournalist.  I artistically document emotions hoping to evoke a feeling in whomever views my work.  I think a photograph should be powerful enough to do so.

The description of my Final piece:

"A Bright light in dull days" (the quote from the Starlight Booklet that inspired me)  The purpose of this piece is to illustrate joy in the darkest of situations.  I did not want the message to be directly obvious.  I want the viewer to connect to the art piece, to look deeper into the meaning because I believe art should evoke an emotion.  Starlight aspires to bring happiness into the lives of these children no matter what their situations.  To live for today and not let anything stop you from smiling.  The child in this photo (my stepmothers niece, Emma who was a trooper out in the freezing cold weather.  Thanks EM) is simply happy!!! The image and location was dark and distressed but yet she still manages to find happiness in the simplest of circumstances.  

So here is the final photo...It has to be framed by my custom framer which is going to make it look incredible!!!  When it's finished I will take a picture of it to show everyone.  So you might need to follow me on Facebook or Twitter to get updates :)

I am honoured to be a part of this project and I really did learn a lot about myself as a photographer through this entire process.  I ran into a few failed attempts but it all came together in the end and I want to thank anyone who helped me out or even attempted to.  I look forward to participating again next year.  

Thanks for reading, 

Julian