Amongst my family and friends, it’s no big secret that my political views are liberal. Here my blog, I do try to stay neutral. However I am a big advocate that healthcare is a basic right for everyone. No matter what medical conditions that you have now and not, eventually as we all age, we will have Pre-Existing Conditions.  This is just a fact of life.

Since Trump became the person to be in our White House, I’ve been part of groups to bring about awareness. I may not be able to be able to go to every meeting, but I do my best to spread the word, make phone calls and not just stand in the sidelines. I was part of a small press conference,  UniteWomen.org allowed me to document the Women’s March in Washington D.C. on their behalf, and more.

One of the many projects in our small town is to send out postcards to representatives both local and nationally.

My idea is to take portraits of the very people that the votes affect directly, by putting them on a postcard that gets sent out to local and national government representatives. A face to the causes that they vote on, to make our voices heard visually. 

Because this is a personal project that I needed volunteers for, I asked that everyone I photographed to purchase at least 25 cards and postage on their own. I decided to go with Moo because I can order batches with different images on the front. This is who I order my business cards from and I am always happy with the results. The Dorothea Dix Unitarian Universalist Community in our town is where our groups hold meetings, and they generously allowed me to photograph the portraits there.

I asked for volunteers via our Bordentown Neighbors Acting Together(BNAT) Facebook Group and I had about 10 or more respond. But because everyone has different schedules, who you see here is who I was able to photograph on that particular day.

My goal is to continue this project, get more people so that it creates more of an impact.

Some of the pre-existing conditions that I was told about the people for this project are:

• Myeloproliferative Neoplasm
• Anemia
• Migraines
• Pregnancy
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Fibromyalgia
• Psoriasis
• Crohn’s Disease
• Diabetes
• Allergies
• Depression
• Hemiplegic Migraines

My friend’s mother in-law is a gymnast.

My husband took this one of me.

This is a behind the scenes for I Am A Pre-Existing Portrait personal photo project.  The oval of light coming through the muslin is the window of the front door. I shot tethered with my Canon Mark 5D III. I tried a few different setups, and decided on one light with a Phototek and a reflector. I’ve had this brown-is muslin for a long time and knew that this was the project that would lend itself nicely for it. I had everyone sit on an applebox or stand. I kept the light up on the boom, but ended up not using it. I have these images in b/w and a sepia tone to them. I wasn’t sure how I liked them that way or not. But in the end, I stayed with full colour.

Below is a behind the scenes video that is straight out of my Olympus mirrorless camera shot by my husband, David. It’s just video clips slapped together in iMovie, because I’m not an editor like he is. Eventually he’ll make something better for me when he gets some time in his busy schedule. You’ll see us having a good time, me being silly and how I like to make everyone feel good about themselves, there’s a swear word in there too.

I Am A Pre-Existing from Deirdre Ryan on Vimeo.

Thanks everyone! And if you want to be a part of this project, please contact me.

UPDATE!

You can tell that I’m tired, I had just volunteered all day at my daughter’s school for the Scholastic Book Fair, I’ve been trying to get these out in the mail for the past week and I kept running into obstacles. Plus I had to copy and paste all of the names and multiple addresses of the Congressmen, Women and those in the Senate. Yes, I sent some out to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump. But you better believe that Senators Mitch McConnell, Cassidy and Graham and my continuant, Congressman Tom MacArthur got theirs among others.

There were quite a few that I couldn’t send out to,  I ran out of postcards, time and something happened to the printouts of the labels. So quite a few I had to hand print the addresses. But overall I’m happy, I’ve done my part and I want to do more.

I managed to finish them and take these to my town’s post office. But I didn’t realize that they close at 4:30! So I was still able to buy stamps and adhere them to each and every one. The video above I did when I had a moment today, shot and edited on my iPhone SE using iMovie. I made a mistake with my website, but rest assured, it’s still www.deirdreryanphotography.com LOL I was just too tired to do it all over again. I’m sure you can all relate to days like that, right?

Hey everyone, I need to put this on my blog posts. I’ve been burned horribly, but understand it’s a legal thing I have to do to protect myself. Thanks for your support, here it is: All photographs appearing on this site are the property of Deirdre Ryan Photography. They are protected by U.S. Copyright Laws, and are not to be downloaded or reproduced in any way without the written permission of Deirdre Ryan Photography. Copyright ©2017 Deirdre Ryan All Rights Reserved.