(dramatic music) - [Narrator] The art of seeing is such an extraordinary sense.

Through the lens, we re-envisage our world.

(dramatic music) Painting it with light and shadow.

(dramatic music) Each frame becomes a portal, revealing a story waiting to be told.

(dramatic music) "Colors," the story behind the picture.

(upbeat music) - I live in Macon, but Atlanta's where I apply my trade and I'm usually here three or four times a week.

(upbeat music) Atlanta's in all aspects, become my second home.

So I'm here all the time.

I love the vibrancy.

I love the, how the city's always moving.

It's something going on.

Something's popping up, something's being built.

I call it a place of energy.

Great food.

Sports is always popping, and you can always find a friend.

And photography is always banging here.

- I really like that there's a lot more inclusivity in Atlanta.

Diversity, just a lot more people to connect with.

(upbeat music) And kind of like how I like all the different facets of life.

I feel like Atlanta offers that.

There's diversity in all walks of life here.

Culture, food, you never get bored.

Like, I don't know if everyone realizes how green and lush this city is.

And that's something I very much appreciate.

Like even when I was looking out of the windows here, out of the like midtown high rise, there's still trees everywhere and I think that's really special.

Like, not like I feel like we have more trees and inner city nature than most big cities.

- In Atlanta we have a melting pot that's not very common, even within cities in the United States.

(upbeat music) A lot of it has to do with the history.

And thanks to Dr. King and Atlanta being, you know, the center of the south for African Americans in times where it wasn't always welcome during segregation, it created a really beautiful thing that's really unique, not only in the south, but also across the whole country.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Well, I got into photography.

I'd always wanted to be a photographer when I was in high school, but the industry was changing.

It was going from film to digital.

And at the time, my grandmother, she couldn't afford to buy me a camera and all that kind of gear at that time.

So I just kind of took the easy route and said, you know what, I'll just go to school for business.

And so a couple years later, I had a cousin that passed away and so I had to find some way to kind of cope with the grief.

And so I ended up buying a camera, and I just kind of just started shooting.

And a fun fact is I started out as a club photographer.

I used to shoot, you know, Fridays and Saturday nights at a club.

And so I did that for a while.

And then from there, it went to weddings.

And then from weddings, it went to commercial to where I am today.

I shoot a little bit of everything.

I shoot portraits, I shoot industrial, I shoot agriculture, architecture.

I'm kind of a jack of all trades, but my heart lies with portraiture.

(upbeat music) - Well, I've always felt like I was an artist and loved painting and drawing.

Growing up it was just a favorite hobby.

And then when I got in high school, we would like put the artwork up in the halls, and then some teachers started buying some pieces from me.

And my art teacher then taught me about copyright because I was painting and drawing from other people's pictures that I would find in magazines and stuff.

She told me I should learn to take my own photos and then paint and draw and create my own art from that.

You know, I learned photography and got really immersed in it.

I fell in love with it, and felt like it was its own art form that I wanted to just continue pursuing.

And so I just kind of went on from there.

(upbeat music) - When I first discovered photography, it was for dealing with things within myself.

And over the years, I have fell in love with everything from photojournalism to architectural photography, to street photography, to anything and everything.

I don't approach photography as a career, but more as a way of life.

And so I like to show people and share all the different aspects of things that I enjoy in the world and hopefully raise some awareness and make people more aware of things happening around them in the process.

Like a lot of people that learned about the Standing Rock movement for the first time, I saw "Democracy Now" covering a story about Native Americans being attacked by security dogs.

For me, that had a haunting resemblance to the civil rights era and what was taking place in the sixties.

I halfway jokingly made a comment on Facebook where I said, "Would anybody be interested in buying me a plane ticket?"

Somebody who I had never met contacted me and they said, "I'll buy you a ticket."

And then it was that, well man, I gotta go now.

Like, you know, you say it and then somebody goes, okay.

And then you go, well, I gotta go.

And I was there for about one week, and I could feel that something important was happening.

I didn't know what it was, but you could feel something in the air.

And as a white guy from the south from Georgia and we know the whole history of, you know, native tribes in the south with the Trail of Tears, I didn't really understand what was happening, but I wanted to learn more, and I was completely outside my element.

And so I came home to Atlanta, and I put in my notice at work.

I put all my stuff in storage and made a 30 day intention to return.

In October I returned, but only with the intention of being there, intention of being there for about a month.

And then on October 27th is when I took arguably the most recognized photo of my career.

It brought a lot of attention and helped raise a lot of awareness about what was happening out there.

And I ended up staying there and living in camp and documenting the Standing Rock movement for six months until it was raided at the end of February, 2017.

(upbeat music) - When I first started, this is a funny one.

When I first started, I had always placed "National Geographic" as the totem, highest totem pole.

I've always wanted to shoot for "National Geographic."

Well, that happened really quick.

So I shot for them probably my third or fourth year being a commercial photographer.

So I was in shock.

So I had to go back and figure out, okay, well alright, well I've done that, so what else could I do?

So that's kind of how I learned how to pick up different facets of photography because I started wanting to shoot for different people.

So I've shot for "The Wall Street Journal," I shot for "The New York Times," I've shot for "Bloomberg," "BBC," I've shot for pretty much every one you can name.

It's a long list of who's who in the media world, in the advertising world.

One of my most iconic photos would have to be a photo of a young lady.

I coached her brother in soccer.

I was a soccer coach at one time.

And so she ended up getting cancer.

I think at the time she was about 11 or 12.

And so her mom came to me and told me that she was doing swimming, which I thought was like, wow, you know, this is amazing.

Someone who has gone through something that traumatic and still has the courage to go and swim.

So I went out and said, I'll take some photos, you know, if y'all don't mind.

So we went out and took some photos, and the photo is my most iconic photo and my favorite one.

And it's a picture of her as she is at the pool.

And it's just a, it's a beautiful shot.

It's a beautiful shot.

- I shoot primarily commercial photography with a focus on energy, whether that's with people, food, lifestyle, entertainment, nature, travel.

I don't have a specific, but right now, I'm really drawn to the queer community because that's a new part of myself that I'm stepping into.

So I'm really wanting to connect more with that community and uplift and help promote the visibility and be as engaged as I can.

And so that right now is something I've been focused on and really wanting to create a lot more fun and exciting content.

And most of that, I haven't, I've been capturing it, but I haven't put it out there yet.

So I'm excited to roll that out in the next year.

One of the central, I think, elements to the fashion, and maybe a lot of my work is there's always a lot of movement.

Like I love capturing that precise moment of energy or movement, and I kind of shoot like rapid fire crazy when I can.

So that was mostly like natural light, which allows me to do that.

In the studio, I have to wait on the lights to recycle.

I love shooting motion and then capturing that decisive moment where it all just comes together in a big way.

- For me and my work with Atlanta as a photographer, it's important to highlight who we are as a community.

We often celebrate our leadership of the past, Dr. King and John Lewis, but there are people today that are doing good work in the community as well.

And for my photograph of what Atlanta is, it is to highlight somebody that I believe is doing amazing work on many levels and hopefully be able to contribute in a small part.

A photograph that carries Atlanta into the next chapter of these leaders.

And that's what I'm hoping to accomplish with my image.

The person I intend to photograph is a gentleman by the name of Gerald Griggs.

He is an attorney, he is a civil rights activist, and he is the leader of the NAACP in Georgia.

And I first met Gerald in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protests in Atlanta, Georgia.

And then I met him during the murder trial of the three men that murdered Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia.

And to see how tirelessly he works both in the courtroom, but also showing up on the ground, I want to honor him and to create an image that he and his family and his newborn child and his wife can be proud of and to create something that continues the story of Atlanta.

My intention on where to create this photograph is on Auburn Avenue, which is a historical black community street in Atlanta.

It carries a lot of historical significance between the Royal Peacock, Ebenezer Baptist Church, the home of Martin Luther King.

And it's a small way to connect the past of Atlanta with the present and hopefully the future.

(upbeat music) - What I want to get from Atlanta is normally when we see Atlanta, it's usually portrayed two or three different ways.

It's usually something that's loud or it's urban.

And so I wanted to get away from that.

I wanted to go back to my roots.

Like I said, I started out as a weather photographer, so I wanted to apply a little bit of elegance to Atlanta.

There's a lot of photogeni c places here in Atlanta, but for my place, I chose the Oakland Cemetery.

And I would like to have that backdrop that provides a different look than what most people would normally see.

You know, you think about a cemetery, you're thinking about the, you know, doom and gloom.

But the architecture itself lends itself to being able to provide a beautiful photo and a backdrop for such a subject that I'll be working with.

I'll be working with Lyrika Holmes.

She's a world class harpist, but she also does a lot for the community here as well.

I worked with her for a photo shoot for "Georgia Trend Magazine" some years ago, and we had a lot of fun.

So when I got reached out to about a subject, she immediately popped in my mind, and I said, you know what?

We combine what we wanted to do on that shoot with the backdrop with the Oakland Cemetery, and I think we can make some magic.

- My name is Lyrika Holmes.

Well, I started off playing piano.

So I play piano, I play a little saxophone, flute, all of the Orff instruments, but I went to school for music.

So they made us learn everything in order to be able to teach it.

I think I create a mesh of styles.

It's usually a little bit of jazz, a little bit of hip hop with a splash of classical in it.

Of course, the harp is usually known as a classical instrument.

And I would say even growing up, when I tried to play other styles, one of my teachers was like, no, you know, you're not supposed to play that on the harp.

And it wasn't until I got to high school and my teacher heard me, you know, accompany myself on a piano playing Stevie Wonder.

And she was like, why don't you do that on a harp?

And I was like, okay.

And you know, her first introduction to me was playing "Beat It" on a harp.

And so I was like, well, if she can do "Beat It," then it just opened my eyes up to the possibilities of what I could do on the harp.

I'm excited about the shoot that we're getting ready to do.

It's gonna be more of a dark theme, kind of something that pulls from the dreariness of the cemetery, but also coming through the light.

So the harp, of course, when you think about it, you think of an angelic instrument.

It's also considering it ushering instrument, ushering, you know, spirits and things like that.

So being able to pull all that together with the imagery that he's able to portray, I think is gonna be an amazing collaboration.

(upbeat music) - My thought process behind coming up with an idea for one photograph to encapsulate the city of Atlanta, for me, one of the most special things right now in my life is the vibrant, outward facing presence of the LGBTQAI+ community here.

It's one of the biggest in the south.

And I chose the Fox as a background because it is such an iconic form of entertainment.

I have really fond memories of from childhood, and I thought that would be a great pairing.

The entertainment with the big performers of the queer community, I thought would go really well together.

And then the process right now is to capture the background scenes first, so coordinate that, get them captured when it's a beautiful, non rainy day outside.

The Fox Theater lit up at night, the Centennial Olympic fountain lit up at night with the skyline behind it.

And that way, I'll know exactly what the lighting is too on those, how it looks.

And then I'll match studio lighting for the human subjects that are gonna be the front and center of the photo.

I'll shoot each person individually, and have some one-on-one time with them, so that we can bring out their fullest expression of self and hopefully have a lot of fun together and get to celebrate them and their authentic personalities and life experiences and how they want to bring their own uniqueness to each character and to each role for it to come together cohesively.

You know, within this photo shoot, I also hope to give each participant a collection of images that they can feel really celebrated within and help empower themselves with whatever messages they wanna get out within their individual empowerment.

(upbeat music) - So we're at the historic Oakland Cemetery here in Atlanta, and one of the reasons why I chose it was because the old architecture, the brick roads, the mausoleums, just the way everything was laid out.

And I just wanted to take Lyrika and place her in a situation to where we could bring out that elegance and then just kind of bring the two together and mesh it well.

So when we got here this morning, the weather forecast yesterday stayed at no rain.

So we, on the way here, it decided it wants to rain.

And so we, you know, we got here initially and everything was fine and then it just kept raining and it just kept going, it kept going, it kept going.

But the rain actually helped out.

The set was cool.

The cloud cover was excellent.

It lended to the first shot beautifully and I was able to kind of just, we didn't have to worry about dealing with a lot of sun at that particular time.

So we were able to get a really good shot, a hero shot per se, with Lyrika.

And once the light came through, it came out so well, that it kind of added a little extra kick to her.

So it just, everything just worked out well and blend it for us.

So the next step is to basically just sit down, see what I have, go from there, see what captures the emotions, what captures the look, what captures the feel, the ambiance.

We know the colors are there, but it's just a matter of how it's all put together.

So I really won't know that until I'm able to sit down in front of the computer and then from there, I'll be able to kind of go, okay, this is it.

This is it.

I think we've got a couple of winners in there.

(harp music) (upbeat music) - We're at Chill Studios in downtown Atlanta, and we're 1.2 miles from Wussy Fest, which is where a lot of our talent here is coming from and participating today.

So it's a really big weekend here in Atlanta for our community.

And so I'm really glad to get to capture the performers who are participating.

Some are participating, some aren't today, but I had a lot of amazing volunteers to sign up and participate today.

Everyone's been amazing.

I'm so grateful for each performer that's volunteered their time to participate in this really exciting project to celebrate our community.

The theme is Peter Pan.

Allows you to the freedom to be yourself, express yourself.

So we have Peter Pan, we do have a Tinkerbell, but then we're gonna have a lot of people just being their authentic celebration of their individuality, uniqueness, self-expression.

So that's a big theme, kind of thinking of Atlanta as our Neverland, where you can do whatever you wanna be and have the freedom to express yourself as colorfully and vibrantly as you desire.

This is my dream subject.

This is my dream shoot.

Like I'm great at capturing big energy and vibrancy and personality, and everybody has exceeded any expectations I've had.

They've came up with their own looks and we've collaborated and gotten a collection of images everybody feels really happy about and overjoyed with.

And to me, that's great.

This is mutually beneficial for everybody who's participating.

So they're getting a deck of images for themselves, but then we're gonna utilize this to be representation for Atlanta.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - So where we are is Auburn Avenue, which is a historic black community in Atlanta.

The best way to describe it would be Atlanta's version of Black Wall Street that was originally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

James Brown used to play yearly events underneath the Auburn Avenue Bridge.

The Royal Peacock was a historic jazz club, and this has always just been a really important part of the history of Atlanta.

And so I wanted to tie the present into the past where Ebenezer Baptist Church is right down the street where Dr. King taught in his house as well.

So I thought it was really important to tie in the past along with the present and the future of who we are as a community.

- So the building behind me is the Butler Street YMCA.

And the reason why it's important is because during segregation, it was one of the few places that black people could actually stay when they were visiting from any other cities or they were thinking of moving here.

And it's also important because the building is named after the first African-American judge since reconstruction.

His name was A.T. Walden.

He actually worked with the NAACP to desegregate schools and hotels in Atlanta.

Of course, it's in disrepair right now, but it is one of the preeminent buildings in Atlanta.

It's just an honor to be here in front of the Walden building, which is adjacent to Butler Street YMCA, which is one of the places that black people would congregate off of Auburn Avenue during segregation.

- This is a little bit different than what I traditionally shoot.

My background, at least in documentary work, is with photo journalism, where you kind of just go with the flow of a story, not really an editorial photographer.

And so when I first got into it, I was pretty nervous, but it's the way it works with anything is that once you get one or two photos down, you find your groove, you're able to kind of relax with each other.

You can kind of play around with the different concepts.

Yeah, we made some great photos today.

I'm very proud of what we were able to accomplish together.

♪ I said no more empty glasses or even half full ♪ ♪ When the world sees that we blessed more than a handful ♪ - The creative scene in Atlanta keeps me on my toes.

It allows me to open up my creativity and do what I like to do.

♪ Open the curtains ♪ We get the real like beyond the scenes ♪ - It's very unique to the south.

It's a place where everybody belongs and everybody can connect with a lot of different people and experiences and walks of life.

(hip hop music) - Atlanta inspires my work because of its history, in both the good and the bad.

It's important to highlight who we are as a community.

Atlanta's past has always been turbulent, but we've always shown a way forward.

(hip hop music) (upbeat music)