Good News Fridays: Picture Birmingham From Rachel Callahan

By Nathan Young on March 7, 2014 • ( 2 Comments )

Rachel Callahan from the Birmingham Metro runs the popular blog Grasping for Objectivity in my Subjective Life. She also runs the Alabama Bloggers site for all people in Alabama who runs blogs to connect. Now, Rachel has created another website called Picture Birmingham, and it features some great pictures!

Last Summer, she felt compelled to get involved with a local ministry, The WellHouse. God kept bringing them to her mind and putting articles in front of her about the stunning things they were doing. She resisted at first, because she does not handle tragedy well – and their ministry is the rescue of women, men, and children from sex slavery. They were seeing and dealing with tragedy every day – tragedy that most of us don’t think happens in the United States. But it does. And one of the interstates running through Birmingham is the number one avenue for sex trafficking in the nation. Side note, if you have not seen this video from The WellHouse talking about the sex trafficking problem along Interstate 20, please watch below!

She emailed them and offered to serve. She met with Alexa, their Director of Development and listened, mouth agape, at her tales of the horrific things happening in her city, near her house, and around the nation. How they had recently saved a girl who had been trafficked for 20 years from one of the most affluent suburbs of Birmingham. How they had flown as far as Washington State to rescue someone – because they were one of the only groups who would. She explained to her the intricacies of trafficking – how our laws are set up to punish the prostitutes, and that’s how pimps enslave these girls – by manipulating them with fear of police and promises of protection. The WellHouse is also involved in training police and talking to legislators, but it’s an uphill battle.

After talking to The WellHouse, and recovering from illness, Rachel began to take pictures and sunset pictures in around the Birmingham Metro. Rushing to take the perfect sunset shot became therapy for Rachel. It made her forget her fears about what was wrong with her, gave her an adrenaline rush, and put a smile on her face. Rachel was taking some awesome pictures, especially the sunset pictures! And some people wanted to know how they could buy a print of Rachel’s pictures. Then in Rachel’s words, “God put the pieces together in my mind.”

Rachel created Picture Birmingham to sell her pictures to anyone who wants them. All of the profits from Picture Birmingham will go to The WellHouse. The pictures will come in prints (100% cotton art archival paper), canvases (gallery wrapped), and luxuriously printed notecards. All of the products are locally printed and distributed by the amazing team at Alabama Graphics, and 100% of the profits will go to The WellHouse. The site also has a PhotoBlog, where she has archived her near-daily photo journey since June, and will continue to add photos as she takes them. Pictures are not all from Birmingham, there are pictures from the Smoky Mountains, Lake Eufaula, Nashville, North Alabama, Georgia, Orlando, and the Alabama Gulf Coast.

Learn more about the journey to create Picture Birmingham at: http://www.graspingforobjectivity.com/2014/03/introducing-picture-birmingham

To see the pictures taken from Rachel Callahan, and to order your favorite prints to support The WellHouse, go to: http://www.picturebirmingham.com/