Portrait photography - for palliative care clients and families

We are looking for a professional photographer to join our SmileMakers program, visiting dying people for a one-off photography session with the people they love.

This is a free service offered to people in palliative care across Melbourne's east, and captures memories of people at a very vulnerable and precious time. Our team of 200+ volunteers make a real, lasting impact on the community.

Our SmileMakers program commenced last year and is so popular that we need to recruit more volunteer photographers to help out.

Volunteers in this program work roughly once per fortnight, visiting a person for one session in their own home, or other special place such as a favourite local park, to take and produce three portraits, usually in the person's home or garden. The images are then sent in digital form to the person or their family.

Each visit involves a few hours at the person's location, followed by postproduction of the images.

The SmileMakers program not only captures memories for families at a special and difficult time, but also reinforces the dying person's sense of self, and their importance to those they love and their community. It tells people that they matter, at a time when a lot of their life is about being a care recipient, caught up in medical appointments and emotional upheaval of a diagnosis of a terminal or life-limiting illness.

EPC has a very strong team of over 230 volunteers working in different roles to help people living in Boroondara, Manningham, Whitehorse, Knox, Whitehorse, Maroondah and Yarra Ranges. If you live in or can travel easily to any of these areas, have a little free time  - especially on the weekend - and are a great photographer, we would love to hear from you. We have lots of training and support for our volunteers and have a very high volunteer retention rate (independently benchmarked). Our volunteers all tell us that they love what they do and we make sure they are well supported.

Volunteering in community palliative care can be challenging, but working in such a beautiful and honest space gives a real sense of privilege and meaning.

If this sounds like you, please give our Volunteer Services team a call on 1300 130 813 to chat about the role. We make sure our volunteer roles are the right fit and we are honest and open in everything we do.

Please note: you must have your own car, a driver licence and be an Australian citizen or resident. We would also love to see your portfolio!