My home town of Woodstock Ontario is small, and the people of colour community is smaller, but their voice was/is loud, along with the communities voice, were definitely heard!
While walking to Victoria Park, ( Where the silent protest was held) people from all directions were walking up the streets, signs in hand, in good spirits, and ready to support and stand tall for people of colour, not just in Woodstock but everywhere. Change needs to be made, it should have been changed decades ago.
As everyone came together in the park you could feel the positive energy, people kept coming and coming.. I was honestly very blown away at the amount of people that showed up, so proud of our community. To see so many people come together in harmony for such and important cause, to see everyone in solidarity, all one voice no matter what your background is, it was incredibly up-lifting.
It’s very comforting to see that Woodstock is a place where everyone can come together, there is a lot of support, does that mean racism doesn’t happen here? I wish that were the case. This protest was calm, as I knew it would be.. the message was heard, and heard loud.. not only heard but also very visible. Signs held high, Chants of change, Speeches, taking a knee for a moment of silence, A song sang, and a March around the park to make presence known and get the word out.. it was moving. One of the biggest impacts, for me anyways.. eye opening, was when one of the event organizers, Jessica, had everyone raise their hand, all 5 fingers out. She then said “ Put a finger down if you…… “ and read off a list of the negative experiences people of colour endure on a regular basis .. example: put a finger down if you have been picked on or bullied for the colour of your skin …. by the time she read off 5 things on that list, she then asked everyone to look around at everyones hands… then asked if anyone still thought we were all treated equally …. it was very apparent that we are NOT!
Another great part of this protest, was Woodstock police department. Woodstock Police were there in numbers and they stood with everyone, not against, there was only one person that needed to be delt with, and for good reason… but we’re not going to focus on him.. he needs help.. a lot of help and was deflected quickly by the crowd then by the police in a peaceful way.
Walking around through the crowd, taking pictures of people, seeing how moved everyone was, how passionate everyone was about this.. hearing the speeches.. it was all so positive.. very “one heart, one mind” and I sincerely hope that these protests bring change!
Jessica and Hannah, you put together something amazing. You called out, and people answered the call, the call for change.. this was historic for change and for the our home town of Woodstock.
Meaning
Photography. Travel. Time
It's amazing from year to year how much things change when you put your time into something you love and strive to always get better.
A few years ago I was asked, last minute, to get in a Ford F-150 with a buddy of mine who was going back out west to British Columbia after being home, here in Ontario visiting with friends and family. I had just taken vacation from work but had zero plans, so I figured why not? There is another blog on here called " The Great Canadian West " which covers that whole adventure.. you can think of this one as kind of a second part to that entry.
Long story short.... today I went back through some of the images I took from that trip, images which I thought were garbage but I had kept the RAW files as I normally do. Since that trip, I have spent a lot of time shooting, a lot of time studying, doing editing tutorials, paying for tutorials and teaching video's.. really learning whatever I could. Turns out, a lot of the images from that trip are still very usable.. it just took time for me to develop more skills, editing techniques.. even a new eye (way of looking at things).
Moral of the story here.. the message I'm trying to convey is, even though you don't see it now, you may in the future. Do not give up, constantly learn, if you love it keep trying, keep building.. strive to be better every day and you will see improvements!
Here are some of the images from that trip that I had discarded thinking they "were no good", "unusable", " There's no picture here " ........
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