About a month or so ago Sarah, a young lady I met at the Help Portrait event in December, contacted me and asked if I would consider joining her and Frauke, another Help Portrait person, in photographing the activities at the Down Syndrome Network’s picnic on World Down Syndrome Day on March 21st.

It was quite a picnic!  Grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, pizza, and vast amounts of salads and desserts were available for consumption. The organizers rented those big, inflatable buildings for the kids to play on. The park was rocking with the great tunes the DJ was playing.  Psy’s “Gangnam Style” got the boys and girls and even a couple of adults up and performing the “Gangnam Style” dance.  A couple of young ladies were doing face painting, and a couple of clowns were creating colorful animal balloons for the kids.  (I did yell at one clown “MAKE ME A CAR, CLOWN!” but apparently he isn’t as big a fan of Wedding Crashers as I am).  As I surveyed the scene and circulated around to take pictures, I saw that the kids had those bright and wonderful faces a child gets when it is their birthday, or it’s Christmas morning.  It was a wonderful time.

As much as I hate the use of cliches, I am going to use one now.  I want my pictures to speak for themselves.  This is just a small sample, but I think the images will speak the story better than I can write it. One more thing: when I was editing the images, the song “Shining Happy People” by REM kept running through my head.  I am linking it here.  Give it a listen while you look at the images.  You’ll leave with a smile in your heart.