During downtime and in-between client projects, it’s important to keep motivated and keep shooting.  Thus, personal projects.  For me, it’s developing my documentary skills.  FocusedOut.com came about because I wanted to document a place that I think is being forgotten…Chinatown.  Sure, it’s filled with tourist every weekend but aside from the Chinatown that tourists see, I wanted to document the real Chinatown, the zero generation that call this place their home, the history that’s currently being lost.

This will be an ongoing series for I don’t know how long.  I also want to practice being more intimate with my documentary subjects…so check that site often.  You can also signup to be emailed of any updates.  Feel free to leave me any feedback and comments.

http://www.focusedout.com

Popularity: 22% [?]

The redesign of my logo…DONE!
The redesign of my business cards…DONE!
The redesign of my site…DONE!

Thanks Jen for all your help!  Go check out the website if you haven’t yet:

MarvinYan.com Website

Up next…

• marketing.
• portfolio building.
• networking.
• accounting software.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Instructions to add your location for Help-Portrait:

1. First you need a Google Account.
2. Click on “Save to My Maps” link (login to your google account)
3. Search for the location you held for Help-Portrait in the Search bar
4. Click on “Save to …” link
5. Choose “Help-Portrait” as the map.
6. Click on “Save Button”

~ OR ~

Put your location in the comment box and I’ll add it to the map for you.

Help-Portrait Map

Questions? Add comment to this post and I’ll answer it.

Popularity: 74% [?]

Help-Portrait was an amazing event to say the least.  Among meeting wonderful families and individuals, I also met amazing photographers volunteering their time, skills, and equipment to give a little something back to the community.  This is just a start of something big and I want to thank Jeremy Cowart (the brainchild behind Help-Portrait) for planting the seed not only in my mind but in photographers minds all over the globe.

Although the rain was pouring down on Saturday, we still had a great turnout, better than what I was expecting given the weather situation.  Here’s a little behind the scenes video of what happened that day:

help portrait LA 12.12.09 from Paul Huynh on Vimeo.

Some numbers as of this posting for you folks:  30,000+ portraits taken in 40+ Countries.  How awesome is that?!  In Los Angeles we had 85 volunteers with 6 photo stations, makeup area, greeting area,  and art & crafts area.

Thanks to Kodak for sponsoring us and providing a printing kiosk so we could get the prints to the families on the spot.

Thanks to Global Cafe for letting us use their facilities.

Thanks to Torn Up Tees for providing your services.  You guys made incredible shirts out of old shirts…that was amazing!

Thanks to JenMay for exceptionally organizing everything.

Thanks to all the volunteers.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Here’s a flyer you can print out, use, and forward to anyone and everyone.  Remember, this event is for this Saturday December 12th, 2009 from 9:30am to 2:30pm.  Come out and volunteer or come out and have your portrait taken…either way, come out to the event!

You can download the flyer here.

Popularity: 25% [?]