2nd Annual Black Swan Academy Youth Civic Leadership Summit
The Youth Civic Leadership Summit is half day experience provided by The Black Swan Academy for middle and high school students to regain a sense of pride, purpose, and power. The students learn from local leaders, explore careers from all sectors through hands on workshops, aid in a school-based service project, and ultimately discover the leader within them. Here are a few images from this year's summit:
Left: Andre McCain, keynote speaker and Founder/Owner of Half Smoke DC. Center: Samantha Davis, Founder/Director of The Black Swan Academy. Right: Wanda Lockridge, Chief of Staff for Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White.
You know how you meet one of those people who has so much talent, it's not fair? You're looking at one. Meet OnRae LaTeal, Artist with Aflocentric, workshop facilitator, guest performer, dope human being, yada yada yada. See her work at OnRaeLaTeal.com.
Staff and students of Sousa Middle School.
[REWIND: INAUGURAL YOUTH CIVIC LEADERSHIP SUMMIT]
The following series of images is from a workshop on entrepreneurship led by Kezia Williams of The Black Upstart. The students were tasked with producing an iced tea line and marketing it to produce a profit. Judges taste tested the products and a winning team was selected based on flavor, profitability, and other metrics.
Maurice Bland teaching a workshop on how to organize and demonstrate for or against an issue. This man is a videographer par excellence. See his work at ReeseBland.com.
Just like at the inaugural summit last year, I had to end the day with a quick headshot session. This is Jessica Fulton, the Board President for The Black Swan Academy. This shot of Jessica was done with my iPhone 7 Plus, just to see if I could duplicate my studio headshots using only a cell phone. I really wish I had a picture of me making this image. I had on my SpiderHolster with a Canon 5D Mark III with a 70-200mm lens on one hip and a Fuji X-T2 with a 16-55mm lens on the other. That's a lot of camera horsepower hanging on my belt while I made this image with my cell phone to make the point that it's not about the camera, it's about learning the fundamentals of photography and mastering whatever equipment you have. It also doesn't hurt to choose a drop dead gorgeous model!
The Black Swan Academy cannot do what it does without your financial support. Please visit www.blackswanacademy.org/donate and support the great work they're doing.
If you enjoyed this post, please like it and share it and explore the blog. There's lots more to see! I get asked regularly what camera I shoot with and what I recommend for beginning photographers, so I wrote a blog post about it. I shot these images with the Fuji X-T2.
