Archives: 2009 August

Archive for August, 2009

Beautiful Run for Africa!

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Several years ago, our church sent a group of people to a tiny country inside the borders of South Africa called Lesotho. I had never heard of Lesotho. It turns out that it’s one of the poorest countries in Africa. If you’re born there, you can expect to live a measly 42 years. Our little church group went there to visit an orphanage called Beautiful Gate, and we haven’t looked back since.

Since that first trip, we’ve sent more groups to Africa, and raised a lot of money for Beautiful Gate. It’s a ministry that God has given us to grow, and it has made its way into the hearts of just about everyone in our community. You may recall my portrait session with Brenda. She spent almost a year living at Beautiful Gate. Now Brenda is part of a team of people organizing the Beautiful Run in Redlands on Saturday, Sept. 12.

The Beautiful Run is part of a larger Beautiful Africa campaign designed to raise money to pay for food and supplies for the Beautiful Gate orphanage. Mark Leonard Imaging is proud to be the official photographer for the event. If you have an itch to walk or run for children in Africa, check out the Beautiful Run in Redlands.

Tags: Africa, Beautiful Africa, Beautiful Gate, Beautiful Run, Lesotho, mark, Mark Leonard, Mark Leonard Imaging, orphanage, Orphans
Posted in Miscelleneous, business, events | No Comments »

Madalyn and Hannah

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

On our trip to Minnesota last month, I was reminded about just how much I love working with people through photography. These beautiful girls are the daughters of a high school classmate of mine. I remember spending summer days hanging out with her brother fishing at the lake, riding our bikes, and skateboarding (ok, I watched him skateboard because baby giraffes are better on a skateboard than I ever was).

She found out about our trip back to East Grand Forks through Facebook and we scheduled a time to photograph her two gorgeous daughters. We did the shoot in her mom’s unbelievable garden. Hummingbirds fall asleep dreaming about gardens like this; it is awesome.

Tags: child, children's photography, children's portraits, East Grand Forks, mark, Mark Leonard, Mark Leonard Imaging, Mark Leonard photography, redla, redland, Redlands photographer, Redlands photographers
Posted in children | 2 Comments »

Anna and Maria

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

It’s cliche, I know. Family and friends, God’s greatest blessing. But I know people who are not close to their family, and do not have deep relationships with friends. So I don’t like to take that blessing for granted. Jill and I are truly blessed with families that we love and friends that love us deeply and unconditionally. We have a long list of people who have done things for us that we’ll never be able to repay. This family is on our list. We hang out with them whenever we go back to Minnesota, and on this last trip we were able to give them something in return for everything they’ve given us – a portrait session of their two daughters.

After spending much of their married life without kids, they decided to adopt two girls from Latin America. They came from different towns, from different families, and different situations. Now they are sisters. These two are hilarious. It was fun to catch them at their quirkiest.