The Grys family's home in Pekin, Illinois has been extremely made over. We teamed up with ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to unveil a new home for the Grys family and made a donation of approximately 40 photography pieces in efforts to help make the new house a home and capture the Grys family.  This episode will air in January on ABC.  

This opportunity was so exciting - seeing the Grys' receive something incredible for a change, which will enable them to give back even more.  We were honored to be a part of this amazing experience.

ABC chose the Grys family because of their ability to do more than just help children in need survive, but rather thrive, against the odds that result from disabilities.  The Grys parents have four children of their own, all of whom have continued on in social service of some type.  Over the years, the Grys' have fostered more than 250 children - three of which they adopted.  Two of the adopted children are twin girls born with fetal alcohol syndrome, thus resulting in mental disabilities.  The third is Jake, who is eight years old and suffers from dwarfism and brittle bone disease.  

Jake is an amazing little guy and was truly the hero of the show.  He recently spoke at an Easter Seals event in front of thousands of people and helped to raise money for the organization.  He is such a bright child and impacts everyone he meets.  Jake brings people hope, and inspired both Julia and I during our time with the family.

Their inspiration is what drove us to capture and create images in what turned out to be one of the most difficult shooting conditions we have ever faced.  

The process was so different than what we imagined - seeing what goes into making a TV show is really mind blowing.  We waited for approximately six hours before we were given 5 minutes with the entire family.  During those six hours, we had small increments of time with various family members.  The lighting conditions were less than ideal and continued to change as the day progressed, while the actual backdrop was not the location we would have chosen for a once in a lifetime opportunity. It was the most challenging situation to photograph in, and thankfully, due to our years of experience shooting weddings with less than desirable lighting and backdrops, we have learned to find the opportunities. We were also told to bring only camera and lenses. No external lighting. All we had was one scrim and a reflector.

This was such a wonderful experience for Julia and I.  First, to be given the opportunity to give back to a family that has done so much for children in need, and second to be so challenged as artists to pull from deep within our creativity and try to produce something special in the shooting and lighting conditions we were given - we are just so grateful to ABC.  We hope the Grys family enjoys the art created from their incredible family for years to come. We have already been contacted by ABC again to help out another family in Rhode Island. We offered our service to either shoot for them or help them find a photographer.

Here is a show of the images. Enjoy.  We will keep you up to date to when the show will air. We also want to think our Lab Burrell Color Imaging and our personal framer Barb Milacco (Exhibit A art gallery in Peoria,IL) they not only worked around the clock they donated all their products as well.

About Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," which has won previous back-to-back Emmy Awards as Best Reality Program (non-competitive), is in its 5th season on ABC.  The program is produced by Endemol USA, a division of Endemol Holding.  Denise Cramsey is the executive producer; and David Goldberg is the president of Endemol USA.