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“Life at Shutter Speed” is a culmination of human interest stories of life… seen through a lens of memory and the speed of time.
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When I was 13 years old my 8th grade, Middletown, Rhode Island, English teacher, Mrs. Dorothy Fisch, encouraged me to go into journalism or advertising.  She saw in me, something for which I had not seen myself, but came to realize much later, that story telling was my true calling in life. 

When I was a sophomore at York College, in York, Nebraska, I had a work-study job working in the media center checking in-and-out the AV equipment. One day a call came in from the president of the college saying that he needed somebody to come to his office and get a photo of a donor giving the college a check.  I had never used a high-end 35 mm film camera before, but was given a quick tutorial by my supervisor, Bruce Tandy, and sent on my way with his camera. When I returned he said, "Let’s go process the negatives and make some prints!"

Since then, the camera has a been a ubiquitous part of my life. I’m not sure I have ever been without one close at hand. In fact, my first professional job out of college was as a news photographer for the ABC television network affiliate, KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas.

A few years later my then church minister, Leon Barnes, wanted me to help him start a new Toastmasters club in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and I became the president of the Crack ’O Dawn Toastmasters club, learning and mentoring others on how to become better public speakers.

Through it all I have become a professional story teller. As a professional storyteller and communicator I have always been intrigued by how stories can transform ideas and bring people together.

As a culture, that is designed to be family-centric, we pass on our family legacies by repeating stories of our youth, and events that used-to-be. It’s an age old method of bonding families.  As far back as the old testament days God told the Israelites
“These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” Deut. 6:6-9
Please send me your memories that we may have experienced together through the years. Let’s see if we can pass along stories of finding life in this amazing world God has created for us.
To read the first of the many stories of this blog click here... Stories from Home.