This is the side-by-side view in Adobe Lightroom of a photo I took on September 6, 2003.

Auburn (No. 19 ESPN/USA Today, No. 17 AP) has quickly established itself as the nation’s most disappointing team, losing its second in a row Saturday when Georgia Tech pulled off a 17-3 upset behind freshman quarterback Reggie Ball and a ferocious defense.

ESPN

Here is the photo as I delivered it to my client in 2003:

I was still pretty new, not even one year shooting digital when I took this photo. I would shoot only JPEGs and treat the process just like I had been shooting transparencies in the past.

Had I shot RAW I could have improved the photo even more. Here is what I ended up with after some editing in Adobe Lightroom.

Frankly, I was surprised by how nice the image was with my Nikon D100, which was a CCD sensor camera. Today my Nikon D5 and Nikon Z6 cameras both have CMOS sensors. While the ISO range was 200 – 1600, almost no one would shoot much above ISO 1600.

Here I zoomed in a little for you. Not bad for technical quality. Since this was one of my first games with the NIKON D100, I started shooting at a shutter speed of 1/500. I quickly realized I needed to be higher and in this photo shoot at 1/1250.

Today I am shooting football games inside at ISO 25600 with shutter speeds of 1/4000. There have been major improvements from my first Nikon D100 to my Nikon D5 and my Nikon Z6.

Here is that photo a little closer.

Here is another before and after image.

This is how I turned this photo in back in 2003.

Here the photo has been run through Adobe Lightroom and due to a few improvements in the software since 2003 I can give a client a better image with the same camera.

Summary

1. SOFTWARE – If you have photos from many years ago, with today’s software like Adobe PhotoShop and Adobe Lightroom you can most likely get much better images than you did way back when you first shot it by just editing it with the newer software.
2. RAW vs JPEG – I cannot recommend enough that shooting RAW will give you more flexibility in editing. The biggest difference I know that I see is in the color. In RAW you can still change the color temperature after you shot the image with everything that the camera sensor was seeing. With JPEG a lot of that color information is lost.
3. CAMERA – upgrading more often than every two years seems extreme to me. I mean, these are not cheap $100 P+S models here; we are talking about $2,000+ cameras. We may be professionals, but even for someone making their living from photography, that is a lot of money to be spending every other year.

When to upgrade your camera

1. If you have a 16+ megapixel camera the only reason to upgrade beyond this is if you like to crop a great deal or you are going to make HUGE prints bigger than 30″.
2. ISO – This has been one of my biggest reasons in the past to upgrade. Going from my Nikon D2Xs to Nikon D3 was huge. I went from ISO 100 – 800 to ISO 200 – 6400. That was the single biggest jump in significant game changer in my career with a camera. I had never shot any useable color images above ISO 800. I was getting awesome images at ISO 6400.
3. Motor Drive – With fast-moving things like sports a 11 fps can make a big difference in getting that image.
4. Shutter Lag – Early on with digital pushing the shutter didn’t give you instantaneous results. Cameras in the last few years are incredible.
5. Auto Focus – Through the years this has been a major jump.

There are other new functions you might consider. Video settings are vastly better today. You can always order a camera and test it for 30 days and send it back. You pay a stocking fee, but you get to test it to see if it is worth the upgrade.

Defense attorney Robert McGlasson, left, talks with his client Brian Nichols during a pretrial hearing Thursday, March 6, 2008 in Atlanta. Nichols is accused of killing a judge, a deputy sheriff and two other after escaping from the Fulton County Courthouse in 2005.

In 2005, Pastor Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life made national headlines when a man named Brian Nichols escaped an Atlanta courthouse and, after murdering four people, including a judge, forced his way into single mother Ashley Smith’s home and held her hostage for seven hours.

Ashley asked Nichols if he wanted her to read to him the book she was reading? That was Rick Warren’s book.

Years ago Rick Warren wrote the book “The Purpose Driven Life”. The question that he was asking was, “What on earth am I here for?”

Self-help books often suggest that you try to discover the meaning and purpose of your life by looking within yourself, but Rick Warren says that is the wrong place to start. You must begin with God, your Creator, and his reasons for creating you.

Journalists are trained to ask 5 w’s:

• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why

These are questions whose answers are considered basic in information gathering or problem-solving. These are the very tactical questions that are great in guiding the journalist to uncover the truth.

I have written many times here about how important the WHY is for giving direction.

While thinking about his idea of purpose I started to think of ways to explain this to the audience and you. One of the coolest apps on my phone is Waze. Waze is a GPS navigation software app owned by Google. It works on smartphones and tablet computers that have GPS support.

One of the coolest things about the Waze App is real-time traffic and police reminders. You put in your destination and it gives you turn-by-turn directions and redirects you around accidents, construction, and heavy traffic. I have discovered parts of Metro Atlanta I have never seen before and using the app saved hours of my time.

Not only does it tell you to turn by turn it tells you the approximate time you will arrive. How does it do it? Well as more and more people use it the app can gather all this information on driving patterns and calculate the fastest routes.

Now in life, there is not a Waze app for your life. You see the Waze app is based on roads that exist. In life, you need more of a compass. Unlike the “Wizard of Oz,” there is no yellow brick road.

You do need to ask where you want to end up.

One of the best things about education is you get to learn from others. When we are young we learn to not do something usually from doing it and getting hurt. You only touch something hot on the stove once before you learn that lesson.

While in school you learn about those 5 w’s when you study communication. That was my master’s degree and so of course I learned about that method and many others. What was cool about where I got my degree was a seminary. I had to take three tracks which made my time twice as long as the average master’s degree.

I had to take a theological track that helped a great deal with those big questions like Rick Warren ask in his book. By the way, he went to the same seminary as I did and we had him speak in one of my communication classes. That was my main track–communications. This was in the school of education and that was the third track.

All three disciplines taught you that your best answers to everything are rooted in the best questions.

In education, they teach you lesson planning. One of my professors changed how I saw almost everything when it came to not just teaching but communications as well. She taught me to start at the end of the lesson plan. What did you want your students to know at the end of the lesson?

Up until I had her as a teacher I had always worked on preparing my bullet list of points and being sure they were all covered. You know the teacher then plows through everything. She taught me that once you know where you are going and know the content well, then when a student asks a question or just contributes you know how to keep that interaction going which entail engaging the entire class to ask more questions and get excited about learning.

Before I would want to cut off these comments that I thought were taking me down a rabbit hole. If you know where you are going you are like the Waze app and can redirect back to your purpose for the lesson.

Bigger than the “WHY?” is the question of “PURPOSE?”.

In theology, I learned what is taught in Ephesians 2:10 that “… we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

In education, I learned to ask myself what is the takeaway from the lesson.

In communications, I learned that you start with the audience and ask what are you trying to tell them and why should they care.

Be sure to ask yourself today, “What is my purpose?” Once you have that your answers to the 5 w’s will be better and your “Why?” is much clearer.

Representative John Lewis with Chick-fil-A Founder S. Truett Cathy during the coin toss for the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in 2009. [NIKON D3, Nikon 24-120mm ƒ/3.5-5.6, Mode = Manual, ISO 6400, 1/500, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 90)]

I have been looking through my work using Photo Mechanic Plus trying to find some images for proposals and other things when I came across this image of John Lewis and S. Truett Cathy.

Here is a video I did on using the software for cataloging your photos:

One thing that almost everyone makes a mistake about is metadata with your photos. While I found the images, they were not tagged with John Lewis or S. Truett Cathy’s names in the captions or keywords.

Most of the time I put a general caption with a project when I am ingesting them into my computer using Photo Mechanic Plus.

When ingesting I fill out the metadata fields here in Photo Mechanic Plus.

For this event, I had “Chick-fil-A Bowl Game Day” in the caption field. Not so helpful in finding images.

I probably shot 3,500+ images for that day. I kept 1338. Then I went through and rated the photos from 0 to 5 stars. I only rate 226 photos with 1 ★ or more.

This software lets me keep track of images and even if I don’t put all the information in the metadata I can later add that as I did here with these photos.

What I love about digital photography is I am going through over 395,000 images that I have put into the database. There are many more than are not in the database that is also on my hard drives. Those would be all the RAW files before I did any editing.

I take lots of photos when working. Sometimes I enjoy just taking photos of our family.

Finding these photos of the family is even more rewarding to me.

Digital photography lets me store so many images in such a small space. I remember when photographer Jay Maisel came to town and had his first digital camera. I was talking to him and he pulled out of his pocket a memory card case and was thrilled all this is what he needed rather than a few cases of the film when he traveled.

Going through images by looking through prints, slides and negatives take infinitely more time than today we can do with software like Photo Mechanic Plus.

Two things I am talking about here. 1) the Quality of the image sure does make a difference & 2) the narrative makes it rememberable.

I have shared this photo in the past, but not like this one. I continue to do searches trying to find the best copy of this photo.

Caption for the photo above –– ON THE BEACH: On June 15, 1944, during the Pacific Campaign of World War II (1939-45), U.S. Marines stormed the beaches of the strategically significant Japanese island of Saipan, to gain a crucial air base from which the U.S. could launch its new long-range B-29 bombers directly at Japan’s home islands. The first wave of Marines takes cover behind the dunes on Saipan beach, during the World War II invasion of the Marianas Islands. The soldier kneeling in the sand at the far right is Carl Matthews of Texas; second from right is Wendal Nightingale of Skowhegan, Maine; standing is Lt. James Stanley Leary of North Carolina. Neither Nightingale nor Leary made it home from Saipan; both are still listed as missing in action. [Time Life photo by U.S. Marine Sgt. James Burns]

If you have a photo and want to see if it exists in other places on the web you can upload it to TinEye and find all the copies.

So I uploaded the copy of the photo I had of my Uncle Stanley Leary from WWII and found it was on the web some 142 times.

By the way, we are both named after my grandfather James Stanley Leary. He was always known at Stan Jr.

I was surprised to find this one that had been colorized.

I found this one many years ago and what looks like the copy of a print. I can also see the lab guy who printed it was pretty lazy and just exposed for the face and didn’t bring out the detail around the people.

The colorized photo came from this version I also found online.

When you zoomed in you could see the faces were not clear and there was a bad dodge done for the print.

Now I continued to search and finally found a few that were good, but none perfect. So I copied the people in one photo and merged them with another to give me a better overall photo.

So as you can see in this photo, you can see my uncle’s face.

The problem is I still don’t have a good scan of the original negative to work with, rather me just piecing these photos together to get something I think is the best for now.

My cousin recently was visiting the National Archives when he saw this photo for sale as a poster. I had more information about who was in the photo from my research. Carl Matthews who was in the photo would become close to my grandmother and tell the family the story.

The photo was actually on many of the front pages of the newspapers in the United States. It was for a while at USMC Quantico up on the wall in the foyer.

Why was this photo used over and over through the years and so many others from this time are not shared?

Maybe the rest of the story of Saipan will help you know why it was used so much:

Every day I am seeing some awesome photos on my social media feed. Beautiful photos of scenery, people, and so on.

When I would have my portfolio of photos reviewed it was amazing how often the editors would flip so fast through my work.

Think about just those people mentioned in the Bible and how few people are actually in the Bible as compared to those who lived during those times. Made-up people in Jesus’ parables cut whereas others who lived didn’t make it.

For photos to live on in the future, either they are truly iconic like Ansel Adams’s photo of Moonrise over Hernandez or they have a narrative.

I think one of the reasons for that photo becoming famous was the story of making it that he told.

Ansel Adams said, “I could not find my Weston exposure meter! The situation was desperate: the low sun was trailing the edge of clouds in the west, and shadow would soon dim the white crosses … I suddenly realized that I knew the luminance of the Moon – 250 cd/ft2. Using the Exposure Formula, I placed this value on Zone VII … Realizing as I released the shutter that I had an unusual photograph that deserved a duplicate negative, I quickly reversed the film holder, but as I pulled the darkslide, the sunlight passed from the white crosses; I was a few seconds too late! The lone negative suddenly became precious.”

“Humans of New York began as a photography project in 2010.  The initial goal was to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers on the street, and create an exhaustive catalog of the city’s inhabitants.”

Humans of NY photographer – Brandon Stanton

When he started photographing people on the streets of New York he was first drawn to those who visually stood out. That isn’t what made his photos viral. It was when he sat down with the people he was photographing and just listened to their stories is when Stanton’s epiphany happened. It was the narrative.

“Somewhere along the way, I began to interview my subjects in addition to photographing them. And alongside their portraits, I’d include quotes and short stories from their lives.”

Brandon Stanton

When photos are paired with text and more specifically their story the power of the image has the potential to become one for the ages. Without the narrative – well it is just a cool composition and even might be well done, but it doesn’t move the heart.

“We can’t dwell on the negative and get discouraged, but you can’t be around Philip very long and maintain that because he changes that. He lifts us up.”

Randy Newberry

The photo is much more powerful than the narrative, don’t you think?

How I wish for a button like this today more than ever in my life. I am writing this blog so that others who are also feeling this uncertainty will find solace in another who is on that same path with you.

I have gone through many disappointing times and trials through my life.

In 1971 my year started off with me having to be placed in traction for a month for a broken neck. Four weeks of traction and then another eight weeks as I recall in a body cast.

So 1971 I was out of commission for more than 12 weeks.

2020 has surpassed this and created an even more difficult emotion of so much uncertainty. It has created a sort of Battle Fatigue, which is an acute reaction to the stress of battle commonly involving fatigue, slowed reaction time, indecision, and other symptoms.

Friday, June 26th was a difficult day for me. It was the 2nd worst day for number of new coronavirus cases in the US and then the following day it went even higher.

The health crisis is the crisis. Addressing this will address the financial crisis. But in the US we put getting back to work over health. I understand it fully. I need to get back to work as much as every other person.

I don’t know how closely this resembles the Battle of the Bulge where American forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties of any operation during the war. However that is what it feels like we are in the middle of right now.

I am marketing all my talents to an audience who doesn’t know when they will return to work. They don’t want to spend money now and have to change their messaging again.

I feel like the Grasshopper in “The Ant and the Grasshopper”, is one of Aesop’s Fables. The fable describes how a hungry grasshopper begs for food from an ant when winter comes and is refused.

The ants are looking out and see winter and there is no spring in sight.

Don’t worry about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart. And God’s peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

My Plan

While I do not know when this will end, I do know that some day it will. If I wait until then to start my messaging then I will have wasted the crisis.

“Never waste a crisis.”

Rahm Emanuel

While this is during the 2008 crisis that the White House was dealing with, the quote can be traced back at least as far as 1976, when M. F. Weiner wrote an article in the journal Medical Economics entitled “Don’t Waste a Crisis — Your Patient’s or Your Own.” Weiner meant by this that a medical crisis can be used to improve aspects of personality, mental health, or lifestyle.

Dr. Saj-nicole Joni, chief executive of Cambridge International Group, wrote an artical for Forbes Magazine titled “Never Waste a Crisis” and gave these tips:

• First, figure out how to survive.
• Second, ask yourself what you can do now that you couldn’t do before.
• Finally, no whining.

Those are great tips today. The Small Business Administration is handling the PAYCHECK PROTECTION PROGRAM which is a great place to help you survive.

I would change that second tip to “Ask yourself what your customers will let you do now that you couldn’t do before.”

Most of your customers have had their plate cleared of all those projects they were working on before the crisis. They also are grasping for the next big idea. They are more open now to listening to you than ever before.

Remember you are solving their problem and not your own. To do this effectively you need to know their problem as best you can.

Tap the power of purpose in your desire to help others. This is the time to brand yourself as the business there to help their business thrive. If you do this then sooner or later you will thrive as well.

Looking at some of the analytics for my video channels I thought I should share these, because the content hasn’t really changed and may help you with your photography.

Here are 8 videos through the years for you. Maybe this will inspire you today to work on something with your photography.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

Roman philosopher Seneca

And while many people agree that luck does create some level of opportunity – a chance meeting that leads to a job interview or a boss quitting unexpectedly, opening a path to a fast-tracked promotion – nothing enables greater career success than working harder and caring more.

I relate career success to success in sports careers, and it is the same recipe for success: the harder you train, the more hours you put in, and the more you care about winning, the better you will become.

Getting these photos of Hawks means I must have a camera ready when the opportunity presents itself. You can make a photo with your phone, but the hawks would have been just specs within the frame. I had to use long lenses to capture these photos.

As I write this I am looking out my sliding glass door in my basement office. I see the Red-tailed juvenile hawks flying by and occasionally landing to hunt.

My Nikon Z6 with a 28-300mm lens is beside me. I went outside and already got a custom white balance. I am prepared and just need the opportunity.

What things are you doing today to be sure that if Lady Luck presents herself will you be ready? Are you prepared?

What can I work on today to be even more ready for finding customers?

Ocean Isle Beach Pier, North Carolina. [NIKON Z 6, Sigma 24-105mm F4 DG OS HSM, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 100, 30, ƒ/8, (35mm = 52)]

wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.

Jude 1:13

“Stanley don’t post any photos of me like this,” is what I hear each year when I am at the beach with my family. No one wants to have the world see them when they don’t look their best.

People take a lot of time in front of mirrors getting ready each day and now we have tons of videos on how you can look even better with some tips from the poster.

I have noticed that everything has times of the day when they don’t look their best. Just the middle of the night there isn’t enough light to see much, but the middle of the day doesn’t give you the best light either.

I find there isn’t a guaranteed best time of day to photograph everything. My suggestion for nature is to visit the same spot over time, with different seasons, different weather, and time of day.

Change the lens choice as well for the subject. Get close and then step back. Get low like a worm and high like a bird.

C.K. Williams said that his poem, The Hearth (in The Singing), took twenty-five years to complete. I can see someone returning to a location for years trying to find the right moment that captures what continually pulls them back to that place.

The concept of previsualization in photography is where the photographer can see the final print before the image has been captured. Ansel Adams dedicates the beginning of his first book to previsualization, and is often quoted as saying “Visualization is the single most important factor in photography”.

I believe even before previsualization a photographer is just emotionally moved by a scene. It takes time to connect the head to the heart.

Some places we return to are places where our earliest times are not even clear memories. The North Carolina beach is that place for me. My family has been coming long before I was born.

My grandmother rented a house for all of her 7 children and their families long ago. This is where I would first go and experience the beach.

So the beach for me is connected to family and the memories of my childhood.

When I see a man fishing in the surf it brings up memories of my day and my mother’s dad fishing along the beach.

I have always been fascinated by an image being able to conjure the past. Nostalgia is much more than mere reminiscing; it’s a feeling. “Nostalgia is the warm, fuzzy emotion that we feel when we think about fond memories from our past,” explains Erica Hepper, Ph. D., a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Surrey in England. … A lot can be said for nostalgia’s benefits.

So last night I ventured out at sunset and photographed the Ocean Isle Beach pier. By using a tripod and low ISO I was taking long-exposure photos. When we are creating a long exposure shot, the camera averages what it sees over time. And if we are standing at sea level with unrest water, the camera sees the waves. … In the end, it creates a foggy effect – the water doesn’t look like water anymore, it looks like fog.

You rule the swelling of the sea;

When its waves rise, You still them.

Psalm 89:9

By the way, for these nighttime photos, people were walking through. If they stayed a while in a spot then they showed up as you see here.

This is a closeup of the photo above of the people staying somewhat still.

Leary Family Photo 2020 at Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. [NIKON Z 6, Sigma 24-105mm F4 DG OS HSM, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 100, 1/1000, ƒ/8, (35mm = 24)]

Every year when my family gets together for our family reunion at the beach we do a family photo.

I always go out a few minutes early and setup my strobes. This year I am using the Flashpoint XPlor 600 HSS TTL with Nikon Z6.

While this isn’t my favorite time of day to shoot photos you quickly learn through the years that you are needing to pick the friction free time of the day.

Up till now i was always trying to do late afternoon near sunset. That tended to complicate dinner time.

This year 1:00 pm. Probably the worst time as far as lighting to shoot the photo.

I usually get my wife to stand in for some test shots before I have everyone show up.

Not a flattering photo, but works to balance the TTL flash to the sunlight. Here I have them set at 0 and the camera -0.3 underexposed for the photos.

We figured the far left and far right and a line in the sand for them to stand on. We were done in 20 minutes. I tried to keep it short for my mother and a couple others who had some difficulty with the sand and the heat.

It was easy to just switch folks out. Again we were celebrating my mother’s birthday today as well.

Had I been planning a photo shoot with a couple and just their children I would have done a completely different approach.

Hope these tips help you with your “family photo”.

Fledgling Red-Tailed Hawk in our Backyard. Every year we get a new nest. [NIKON D5, Sigma 120-300mm F2.8 DG OS HSM Sports + Sigma 2.0x Teleconverter TC-2001, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 2500, 1/4000, ƒ/5.6, (35mm = 600)]

This past week I have been reminded that there are many things beyond our control when it comes to posting photos on social media and if they get a few likes or even thousands.

First of all, I am fully aware that the content you publish has to be strong or it will not take off.

Just compare the first photo to the second one. While both show a red-tailed juvenile hawk in our backyard, seeing the wings spread is more interesting. So for the most part when these were shared on social media the one with the wings spread got much more likes. It is a stronger photo.

The key is to create great content using the “5 W’s & the H”.

• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why
• How

These will impact how the audience responds. So this photo of the young lady protestor isn’t all that different than this one here:

Tapping into Social Media Influencers

Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people, and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field.

Some of my followers have their own network that if they choose to do more than just like my post, but re-share it then this is where “Opportunity is Knocking”.

The difference was who my audience is on social media. Many of my followers knew people in the event with the young lady protesting in June 2nd photo, but not the same for the June 3rd photo.

The first event also was on the first night we were seeing protestors in Roswell, GA. After posting many people were commenting and sending me emails to know where the next protest was happening.

So once a few of my followers posted me on their social media my photos they took off. WSB-TV the local ABC-affiliated television station for Atlanta asked to use them as well as many other news outlets.

The Roswell Police Department also asked to use the photo since it was a Peaceful Protest and they wanted to show they supported the community.

That one photo of all the protestors laying down on their stomachs and hands behind their backs like George Floyd was shared so many times I cannot even begin to count. On my Instagram Page alone 385+ likes. Just my Facebook Page 100+. But then when you start adding up all the shares and their likes the photo has thousands of likes.

f/8 and be there is an expression popularly used by photographers as representing the importance of taking the opportunity for a picture rather than concern for the technologies with which one does so.

WeeGee
Ascher (Usher) Fellig

Being at the right place, at the right time, and having your camera settings so that you will get a well-exposed, in-focus photo is part of the equation. You must know in your head the “5 W’s & the H” so that you have the right lens, position, and composition to make a photo that connects with the audience.

when opportunity knocks

Clean Plate – You cannot take on new work if you have too much on your plate already. Make it a priority to always get your projects done in a timely matter.

“Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”

― Benjamin Franklin

Observe what’s happening around you – You have to know what is happening in your community, state and world. Nextdoor.com is the best way to stay in the know about what’s going on in your neighborhood—whether it’s finding a last-minute babysitter, learning about an upcoming block party, or hearing about a rash of car break-ins.

Give people a reason to follow you – You should look to strategically use each social media channel based on its strengths and demographics, and give your target audience a good reason to connect with you on that specific network. What value are you providing? What are you offering that will entice them to stay tuned in? Think about the reasons people use each network, then formulate a plan to consistently post and share content that will resonate with your specific audience, wherever they congregate online.

Never, ever buy followers and fans – Some people assume that purchasing fans and followers is a shortcut to building a huge online community. This is not only bad practice, but it will largely end up being more of a problem than it’s worth.

Authenticity – At the end of the day, authenticity is what makes influencers influential to the public. Therefore, authenticity needs to be a top priority.

Here is a video from the first protest and the second. Which one do you think got more views & why?

Ever since we started to experience the pandemic of 2020, I have been reminded of the Serenity Prayer.

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can, and

The wisdom to know the difference.

One of the ways we have taken action these past few months was to 1) Wash your hands frequently, 2) Practice social distancing & 3) Wear a mask when you do go out into public.

While many have been practicing these CDC guidelines we still have the COVID-19 virus.

Then in the midst of all this, we have been reminded that this virus is affecting some in our community more than others. This is especially true of the African American community.

In the midst of this George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, & Breonna Taylor were all brutally murdered. Finally, enough is enough was being said by not just the African American community but my Roswell Community.

Gwendolyn Dukes, Richard Bonito, and their friends organized a peaceful protest on behalf of George Floyd at the corner of King Road and Hwy 92 in Roswell, Georgia on June 2, 2020. Dukes said, “Action speaks louder than words” as to why she and her friends wanted to get out and protest. Richard Bonito added, “We are not mad at the police, we are mad at the system.” They want to see changes for better policing, fixing systemic racism in our society, and encouraging their friends to get out and vote. While Richard Bonito voted in the last presidential election most in the crowd are closer to Gwendolyn’s age and this will be their first election.

My daughter’s generation is tired of seeing their friends mistreated. They want change.

I believe the timing of these deaths amid this pandemic might just be the perfect storm for bringing about change to fix systemic racism in our society.

Roswell young people in the protest realize that protesting alone isn’t enough. They know that this is part of the process to get their communities to make changes to the policies that allow for racism.

They are asking people to become informed about who is running in our elections and vote for those people who will enact change the changes tide of Systemic Racism.

Rather than being fearful of the rioting that has taken place, Peaceful Protestors are taking back the streets of their communities. They don’t want the rioters and looters to take over the conversation.

All over social media groups are forming to have peaceful protests. Go online and find a protest near you.

Plan to protest? Here are tips to reduce the risk of spreading #COVID19:

Wear a face covering

Wear eye protection to prevent injury

Stay hydrated

Use hand sanitizer

Don’t yell; use signs & noise makers instead

Stick to a small group

Keep 6 feet from other groups

Update. On January 4, 2022 Steve Hixon passed away. I did some minor updates.

This past week has brought back some of the words that Steve Hixon, my roommate from freshman year at East Carolina University, had challenged me. He had grown up in the racism of the deep south. By just being white I had no idea of all the privileges I had due to skin color alone.

I have never been pulled over just because of the color of my skin. I haven’t had people avoid me walking down the street.

I had not experienced not being looked at as a human being as Steve had been treated.

“Iceman” is what Steve Hixon’s nickname was on the basketball court. While we were put together as roommates at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, I saw “Iceman” more on the basketball court than in our room.

We were both Social Work majors. We both did our concentrations in Alcohol and Drug Abuse. However, while I went in the direction of using photojournalism as my way of helping people, Steve went on to work as a Social Worker in Richmond, Virginia.

Now Steve wasn’t my first African American friend, but Steve was the first one that I would live with and get to have lots of conversations with during our college years.

Steve said I would never have him in my home. Sadly that never happened. My home at the time was in Englishtown, NJ and I had just come home during the semester breaks.

This past week watching George Floyd being killed by white police officers while other police officers stood by and condoned his actions was sickening. What is sad is this has been played out over and over throughout my life.

I see people constantly treating people of color unjustly. The lady in Central Park treats a man based on the color of his skin alone with such disdain.

I think the response of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in his op-ed piece in the LATimes is good.

Too many people are not realizing how not just the George Floyd case isn’t fueling this civil unrest. The COVID-19 Pandemic has opened up many wounds in the African American community. Do you remember the Brown vs Board of Education?

Children were not equal when it came to staying home and going online to do school work. Many don’t have computers or internet connections.

Without the schools, many of our children go hungry because they no longer get the meals through the school they desperately need. Why? Not because their parents don’t work, but because their employers pay them so little that no one can feed their family and put a roof over their head with these wages.

Then think of all the people who are working from home. Sadly there are many whose work cannot be done from home. This is hitting the minority communities the most.

This is where those of privilege have blinders. They fail to see how they got into a college not based on their grades alone, but because of legacy. A study of thirty elite colleges found that primary legacy students are an astonishing 45% more likely to get into a highly selective college or university than a non-legacy. Secondary legacies receive a lesser pick-me-up of 13%. [Article]

How do we fix this?

I do not hold the silver bullet that will answer this question. I can only say I can see some things we can do that could help.

• Open your homes – the eleven o’clock hour on Sunday morning in America has been called the most segregated time in America. We cannot just learn to work with people of different races. We need to truly create all-inclusive communities. This means we need to invite our co-workers and neighbors into our homes and build friendships.
• Get out of your comfort zone – Say yes to opportunities in your community. Volunteer for a Habitat for Humanity Build. Be intentional that you are looking for ways to move beyond your homogeneous circle.
• Challenge your Faith Community – See if your faith community could find another different faith community and do activities together to get to know each other. My church Roswell Presbyterian Church did a Race Reconciliation project where we were paired up with another socio-economic similar church that was African American. So we were mainly just different in skin tone and not economically. That was eye-opening for so many.

Steve Hixon and I talked a lot through college and this past year before he died, we talked by phone for a couple of hours. We were catching up, but the conversation went to our passions–helping people and our society. Steve didn’t have all the same opportunities that I had growing up. He was treated differently due to his skin color. I was also treated differently. If you don’t remember being refused anything due to your skin color, good chance you were experiencing privilege.

Steve realized we all needed to work together to overcome our past.

I believe tolerance and understanding are intertwined in the path toward human progress.

Let’s not let all the rioting make all of the white community uppity. Not much has changed since Steve Hixon, my college roommate, challenged me that I wouldn’t be welcomed into my home.

We must do as Keisha Lance Bottoms and Police Chief Erika Shields did on Sunday. They realized they cannot let justice be handled in the same way when it came to the night before when officers pulled two college students from their car on live TV and tased the male and roughed up the female student. They put everything else aside and reviewed all the body cameras from that event and moved swiftly and fired two of the officers. They put the others involved on desk duty for the time being.

Atlanta mayor: Two police officers fired over excessive use of force during George Floyd protest

It is time for action not more research on racism. I think Michael Jackson’s video Man in the Mirror hits perfectly.

“I am starting with the man in the mirror.”

– Michael Jacson