Last year, he was named the most influential photographer on the internet.

Jeremy Cowart’s bio and portfolio will blow your mind (he’s a freakin’ awesome dude), but these accomplishments are not where he finds his value. During Yellow, he shared how growing up he seemed to fail at everything he tried. School, sports…life in general. Despite his repeated failure, his Dad kept reminding him of Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Outside his professional work, he started Help-Portrait. The concept is simple; find people in need who otherwise couldn’t afford a portrait and, for a lack of better word, have become “invisible” to society. Take their portrait. Give them a copy. Show them that they are not invisible, that they are valued, they are beautiful, they are loved. For many, this is the first photo they’ve ever seen of themselves…

Help-Portrait’s mission is “to empower photographers, hairstylists and makeup artists to use their skills, tools and expertise to give back to their local community.”

Photographer, Sasha Leahovcenco: “Finally I had a chance to give a print to Reggie. He looked at it for a while and said: That’s a face of a warrior.”

Join Jeremy and photographers, hairstylists and makeup artists around the world for the International Help-Portrait Day on December 5, 2015 here.

Also, I’m not one to get ga-ga over the Pope, but he WILL be making a historical visit to my very own Philadelphia next weekend (I actually plan to run for the hills to avoid the chaos. Literally – I’m going camping.) and so I wanted to share this announcement that Jeremy made last night on Instagram..

jeremycowart: “So…. I have an announcement to make. Next week I am headed out to document Pope St. Francis’s first visit to the United States. I had planned on making a more formal announcement on my blog or do something special but my schedule is crazy at the moment so I’m announcing it from a plane. Why not? I’m super excited about this journey. I really think this Pope is special. I’ve resonated with everything he’s been preaching when it comes to caring for the poor. Our mission with Help-Portrait lines right up with the message he’s been spreading. So, to say it’s an “honor” is a massive understatement. Honestly, I don’t even know how to sum this one up. I’ll be documenting history. It doesn’t get any more meaningful than that. I’ll be sharing photos here to my Instagram account as well as documenting a lot of the journey on Periscope live. So be sure to follow me in both places. I’ll be using some special gear for this trip as well. (More on that later.) But I can’t wait to document the Pope and the whole #GoodisWinning campaign that they’re doing. We have enough bad news hitting our screens every day and I’m excited to focus on the amazing people out there that are changing the world. So there ya have it. I’m headed out with the Pope next week. Keep in mind, I have no idea how close or how far I’ll be from him but my plan is to simply tell the story as creatively as I can. Can’t wait!”

“Preach the gospel. When necessary, use words.”

-Francis of Assisi as quoted by Jeremy Cowart at Yellow 2015

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