talk? and how many have never been to read emma's? cool!if you like we are seeing, please check us out in the back at that table also we have a location on north avenue. and we are a radical bookstore we also have a vegan and vegetarian restaurant. we also have a copy house and dedicated ourselves for a few years creating a community space. one that is supportive of new ideas in term of business structures, relationships, cultural ideas and resisting the status quo. some of our greatest events have happened over the past two years with one of the people that will be speaking today. d. watkins, someone who -- after one of the book festivals he was at the time just beginning his journey into writing and he sent me an essay about pop culture and it was the first time they sent it to me and i kind of glanced at it and did not really look at it. and then he said did you check that out? and he was very serious about this or is it a better check it out. and i looked at it and i was completely ford. i was blown away. and i was impressed immediately by his work. the description of black life in baltimore, and also about his humor and just, he really just made such an impression on me and i said we had to do something together. and so we put together a digital book that contains several -- it's all about. we did another one called true baltimore and again, what exist between black and right baltimore but also the poor baltimore. and this has evolved to become a platform for a lot of the emerging creativity in the city and it has been really exciting to be seen as a place where you can present yourself through us and we have been so excited once the announcement came out that devin allen had a book coming out with one of our friends who i also want you to check this out. thereabout they are in they have given such a wonderful physical manifestation of the works that devin allen has done. maybe you saw him on instagram, the cover of time magazine, but really to hold this in your hand -- it has been especially excited to see people come into the store, go through the book and c street that they know, people that they know, events that they know. and to know that the pictures are being captured by a black man from baltimore. someone who shares many of those experiences, that shares the connection in a way that is not just this kind of occupying gaze. maybe it shows some sort of sympathy but not, does not really necessarily come from a place where you can feel that true solidarity and connection. so this has meant so much for baltimore.i'm really excited to have both of them here to speak today. please welcome devin allen and d. watkins. [applause] >> wait! it was me. i was on a little late but very good reason. my uber driver had a bad day. i had to use live. >> he was having girl trouble and i said do you know what? do you know what? tough times do not last but tough people do. and he thought it was good advice and i thought it was good advice. so can we get a round of applause? [applause] >> so i want to have a conversation about his amazing book and you know i would hope that everyone, by this book. you should get this it is beautiful. he went to war with his publishing company to make sure it was an affordable price so people can get a chance to share in his work. just a little bit about devin allen. everyone knows that he is an amazing photographer. i think he has proven that, right? we know this, right? [applause] >> y'all have to be louder than that! come on! [applause] >> but i will take a secret. he is one of the funniest people i know. what's funny about him is that he says he -- he says funny things he is not even trying to. he is i am sure you engage everyone at the end of this. i want to take some time to talk about "a beautiful ghetto". let's start with the title give people the ghetto and they have these negative feelings about the word. they think about negative things. and most of these people are people that never got a chance to really spend time in these places. the people who spend time in these places like devin allen and myself, we know that there is nothing but beauty but outside the only see with the media portrays or you don't will get a feeling and a sense of the people in the energy we just drive by. and you are in your lyft. you're just driving by in your lyft and you feel that beauty. so when you talk about the title and some of the energy behind it. >> i never thought this was going to be about. allotment images date back from 2014 to 2016. i got my first -- when i start off i was doing poetry. my boy in the back, we had a poetry night and he said is going to be amazing. and it turned out to be amazing. that is how i got to do this. but even just growing up, we go through those hard times but there is a certain type of resilience, a certain type of beauty that a lot of people do not know. if you are not there every day. if you are not sitting on the street and then you turn on the news you'll see those negative moments. you see a little bit but you do not see nearly enough. so when i put this book together wanted to tell the story not what was already raised but what do you see every day was baltimore and in my eyes and perspective of a community that i did hate growing up because i lost so much. but i have learned to love the right art form. >> so -- let's talk about your journey into photography. people don't really know. they see the images and i have been on tour for the past three years. so i've been like d. watkins not talking about the california and i'm not talking about texas. i'm talking about i've been to arkansas in three times. [laughter] i know! it's real life. i've been to ohio, places where a lot of people, you don't go is a wonder what they're doing in overland? you don't say that. i've been places where they don't have lyft or uber! so when i say i go to places one thing they do know, they used to say you're from baltimore, what is up with the wire? but over the past two years people say, you're from baltimore, what's up with? a dude really came to me in ohio and said, the reason he picked up a camera was because of devin allen. some of the image of the horrible! [laughter] but the fact that he picked up a camera, the message and what he does with his work was transformative, so people know him all of the country. art has done that and a lot of them think that instead of hearing the story, the front of the he is a self-made photographer, they think that you know he studied with all these different universities and they moved to london and then from london he came back and he went to brown for another six years and he went on to -- but no! he started. i will let him tell you. [laughter] he is the only person in my favorites and my phone from was baltimore! this is a big moment. >> i don't even have his number in my phone. so -- [laughter] photography, people come in photographer and i still do not accept that it is fairly new to me. i said i was meant to put my boy on the spot because i had to show love but you know me and him went to the same high school. and we are total opposites. he was like a real a basketball player, straight a's. he was running around school with this bookbag. and it had some built-in thing and he said i'm going to the army! and i said why are you going to the army? he went to the army. i barely went to class, let alone school. i got put on the two different schools. i got a diploma from one school in the my senior portraits came from another school. [laughter] so -- i will real short so when i was really young i had a napoleon complex and i had to fight everyone. i had to prove something. but then as we got older i tried everything. i tried to be a drug dealer. i was good at it but it wasn't for me so i stopped. i was a party promoter, i tried it all! i wanted to be like -- but then josh approached me and said let's do a poetry night. and i said i am not going to do know poetry spot! but it was at this place in the first and we did it literally, this girl i dated was there with two of her friends. and he said you have to give it some time. and i did and it turned out to be really successful. we did this every other tuesday. so we would make sure that the girls were good and have everything they need. so one day he said let's put this morning 50-50.you have to write a palm or something. sarver my first farm. as it was 2011. he could just get up and make something up. i had to my mind on. it just wasn't for me. and i was like what if we say i make pictures and put them on instagram? and he said let's do it. so i would take pictures and put them on t-shirts. so i would sell them and then we would do a poetry and mix tape. we did that and it was dope but i expected interaction between the photography and i said okay i'm going to be a photographer. but i don't anything about it! he said you can be a photographer but he wants his camera back. so i had to go get my own camera. so i got my camera but the funny thing, i never knew how expensive photography was the author to go and get me a camera and start shooting. so i went to best buy and is the one that and i want that and wrap it up and let's go. so we went to the counter i got to the front and they said that is $2000. and i said what? where am i going to do? so me, being you know, the oldest grandson, the first grandchild. i called my grandmother. and i said grandma what are you doing? and she said you don't never call me! i know you want something! and i said i need to best buy credit card. and she said don't charge too much i just bought a refrigerator. and i said i got you! >> if she was here she would make her presence known. she would have come down the aisle in all songs of stuff. but i first got my camera in 2013. i bought a nikon but it was real small. and i started looking photographer's goodness and why they have all of this? so i went and got a bigger one. so you know you are a man you have to have a big camera. so i got my big camera and i started shooting. but i was going through a change where when i was doing a night, like i said i was in the street. my best friends that i grew up with, you know we used to push but when i start hanging out with him he introduced me to different things. we were doing poetry. you know, a whole different type of woman. so i just love that. i was smitten by that. so we moved into another party and we were doing different things. we're still wearing boot cut jeans i think that he was wearing skinny jeans and liking and everything! >> and then he went back to big t-shirts again. >> but he was always different! so i was just like, this is dope! a different type of love and energy that i felt. and i really did not understand the change i was going through. but if put a wedge between us. i went from sitting on the stoop smoking and drinking all day, children. not really aspiring to do anything. into wanting to just create! and then my daughter laid a major part in that because i wanted to be an amazing father. i didn't want to be regular father i go he just takes care of me, that's my dad. no!my daughter, i wanted to say that your daughter just told another child her father wasn't anything and you are better! and i said okay. i will talk to her. and when she gets in the car i'm going to say you are real, i love you. keep it up! [laughter] but she pays my articles and stuff to school. so when i pick her up she is like -- and i say yeah. and from then, stop hanging with them. and then i got my camera and i got -- and is crazy because at one point in time nine times out of 10 i would been there and i would've taken pictures and i remember going to his mother's house down and hugging her and hugging his little brother. and mother best friend chris, i told him i love him. so i had another photo shoot and like a said, i was on another thing so i succumbs my photo shoot, we can chill and talk about this. and i noticed he had a gun on him. nicely put the gun up and meet me. and he said okay cool. but he never made up your hand up getting shot in the head by the same guy on the corner. and the only reason why i was in with him is because i wanted to go take pictures. so that really woke me up. it was a god, the universe and the powers that be saying this is your thing. take it and run with it. and that is what i did.i've been doing it ever since. [applause] >> if i can put that in some type of historical context, slavery went on for over 100 years. the account all of the different things, that contract is you can say it is still going on now.but if you want to say it was for over hundred 50 years people have to understand where the first generation of people where we are from doing the stuff that we do. he did not have anyone come to him and say come all the time like this.this is aptitude, this is how you do this. and whatever the photography stuff means. he didn't have that. when i first, the first time a rate about the change my life i was already past 20! like i was in reading of books in high school and my first got to college. because there was nothing for me. so it's like, the stuff that we are doing right now is, it is different because people don't normally get the shots. and then what makes us special is that look, i have a lot of job offers a lot of different places and a lot of different universities. i know he got them also and more! we could easily go to san francisco and white people cannot wait to pay us for telling our stories! in san francisco and over cocktails! but we do not leave baltimore because it is not about, what we do, yes. we do things for himself but it is about other people.is about how can i utilize what i do? how can he utilize what he does and take these skills and share them with other people? so some of his students are here, clap it up! >> if you don't stand up -- [applause] >> stand up! stand up! [applause] who do you know with a platform that big it will take his personal platform to share and keep this story going? the way he does it with photography is when i tried to do with writing. and this is why think that devin allen is one of the most important figures. in the so i think we have to take time to celebrate. we have to celebrate people when they are doing things because it doesn't get done! you never knew anybody that graduated from anything ever! ever! like when i graduated from high school it was a big deal! what do you want? i just want to put the little one on. because you know -- we don't have these, we do not have these experiences. so the fact that we are lucky enough to get the opportunity to share these other things for you people and for y'all to bless us, at the same time we are just two people. we need the city, it is so easy to make a difference. no one person is -- there is a proverb -- when -- unite they can tie down a line. that is real! together we can do these things. anytime you have a chance to support anybody doing something like this, you have got to get behind it. so, you know the event is definitely about the book. let's talk about how you shut the images for the book and how you selected images, the poetry. i want all of it. and when he told me they hated me to write something for it, i was -- right now i haven't 14 jobs right now. so i have also a big project due because i don't care but at the end of the day, this is what we are here for! this is why we stay here. we are here to connect with other artists and do what we do to elevate other artists to the next level. i wrote a forward that i thought devin allen would like and be proud of. and i was laughing because one of my friends in new york, he has been talking about my writing for two years. but i am like you know what you never read my stuff before. but anyway -- i think the book is amazing. i am honored i got a chance to contribute but it would be great to hear about some of the process that you went through and how you organize this. request you know just this in general, my career was so fast. it cannot be so fast. at the time i didn't think nothing of it. i thought no one could tell the story of freddie gray. but right around the corner, -- you will see in the book about the protesters. i see images, i was literally shooting and i was uploading it in real time. i literally uploaded it right then and there. i didn't think nothing of it. but i took the image and my mom succumbed that your daughter. and i called back and she said you are on the way right? she said i see you on cnn! bring your butt home now! but you know i just wanted to tell the whole story because of the book, the next thing that came from it. trying to control -- i knew i got the freddie gray video. there was a group text because we had mutual friends. that is how small baltimore is. we are not going to go there today but you know just alone in baltimore in general everyone maneuvers.you're always interacting with different people. and you have people that will maneuver and move in this small system but they're part of a bigger ecosystem.and i remember you know we were resigning and knew we were taking to the streets because of the history already here. a lot of people, if you look at how when heroin head, -- how they left us for dead and we still did not stop. so i knew that the energy transferred for my grandparents and my mother growing up here was going to be released to us. talking about crack, lead paint poisoning, aids, funding cuts. all of that energy was in that protest. and i knew we were going to do that but i wanted to make sure i could be there. when i shot the mike brown protest in baltimore i remember -- i would never get a reply back when i submit this. and i said i can't even get a note to let me know or something. so this time i said i'm just going to use wn media and that is what i did. so it just so happened that the images which have gone viral, the next thing i know i am starting to get messages from celebrities. before it was a time cover, i remember they called me and it was an odd number so it was either a bill collector a girl that was mad at me!i wasn't going to answer. but eventually i answered and i thought it was one of my homeboys play because he had a weird accent. he said this is -- from time. and i was like what? some guy named olivier from time calling. and back then remind you i was going on my third year photography so i didn't know anything about copyrights. intellectual property, nothing! so i just let everything go. and i said you know i'm so glad he didn't like asked me over. but they did right. so i sent everything over, they called me back and i was literally, when they called me i was outside shooting. if you look at the book the only day i did not capture images without monday when everything happened with freddie gray. i feel is very disrespectful to document anybody -- that is just me growing up. i don't want anyone taking pictures of me when i'm trying to leave. so i just took the day off. and i didn't go until my homeboys said stuff was burning. i had homeboys on the avenue, so that i came out as a concerned citizen at that point. and i remember they called me while i was shooting at listen you got a full spread. and i said all right cool! and they said we might want to make this the cover of time. and they said don't get your hopes up because you already got one. so i sent the image over. at the time i was working at night. and i was working with people with disabilities overnight. >> so you was going to work so you didn't have to worry about the curfew. >> no, this was before the curfew! >> i got -- >> literally echoes of the image is over i did not know. they like tweeted. i started scrolling as a wire all of these notifications? and they said that it made the cover of time. and i was a -- then i dropped my mother. she dropped the phone. and she is screaming. and then i called screaming and she said i know you didn't crash the car again! so the whole process was just so quick. but even with the book.it was never the goal. once i got the cover that was the first time i actually felt like i had a voice.growing up i never, never planned my life path 21 because i didn't think i was going to make it. i just did okay cool i'm just going to wing it my whole life. and i said okay am going to make you happy but i'm not going to finish. so i went for eight months. i didn't even get general requirements. and now for the first time in my life other than my daughter i have a purpose, have meaning. and from that, you know, the first thing i wanted to do when i saw the uprising, i saw police with riot gear. i only thought about my mental state from growing up in baltimore and you know i said how is this seven-year-old going to digest all of that? police are telling you can go down to the street to the corner store. you know, humvees and tanks trying to hit you marching down the street. these are kids! so -- i was like i don't know nothing about this photography but i am to start a go fund me so i can help and they can share perspective and also gain a voice. an edges member the first was like $3000. and i was like okay this is dope! and then the guys from go fund me, they donated $1000. and then they called my phone from black lives matter. and then he was a talk about activism and all of that. and what is going on with the global climate. we were on the public two hours. and then -- and i figured on the phone for two hours and you got russell simmons for me? and he said he has money for you. and then -- i remember calling and he was like i love your work, how much do you need for your go fund me? and i said to my mother, so i ask for? it's russell simmons! and she said asking for 20! >> i would said how about 250? [laughter] >> asked for 20,000 he gave me 25,000. he delivered the check to me in july. and it's crazy, i had like this little hatchback. and i'm driving down to show my grandmother. i'm driving through the neighborhood down liberty heights. and them there is a check paying out the back of my trumpet and people are like what the heck? -- i put that in my own bank. it took a minute but i was getting calls and where did you get this morning? and i said is not drug my! it is good to go. in august, i started, and i went back to my own neighborhood. so in two years this fall and giving out 150 cameras to the youth in baltimore alone. [applause] i just saw my niece, we were working over the summer we will be working but they will be doing a show. i have done three successful art shows. we sold the work and the money goes back to the kids. the rest of the money went back to the center i was working through. but even, i was just did with that.but the time i first came up with this it started as a #. he taught me the finale and he doesn't the and i did with a bunch of different stylist talking about not just the black ghetto but the first gay ghetto and i got to learn so much and soak it all in. when i did the show in philadelphia, black life matter for liberation book she gnawed i literally took the walls of my show and put it into a book and when i was putting the book together i wanted to collaborate with people that actually know and have gained something from i met d watkins in louisiana this is for i was a photographer i was a struggling fake poet [i think he was a professor at johns hopkins. you know, i don't know how we start talking and he beat drinking cheap vodka and i was drinking whiskey and we were talking and we ended on the subject and [bleep] these baltimore's and they are dirty. we've been friends ever since. i wanted friends who were near me and i reached out to aaron brown taught me the history of black photographers and i remember that the only black photographer i found and i wanted to be that guy and now i'm the first fellowship of, fellow of this organization. [applause] it's been a major job putting the book together and i wanted to put a book together that can set the tone for the uprising because no one knew anyone beyond the baltimore being the heroin capital and it's so much more to what baltimore in general they wanted to show the true ability and positivity in those moments that i see on a regular day basis we had those moments where we get arrested and have please brutality. my friend was killed by police officers at a nightclub but i've also had those moments where i'm sitting on the stoop and there is nothing but love and i wanted to show that you see images of mothers of kids eating a chicken box on the corner in these kids riding their dirt bikes and they see it as a negative with one of the only things that bring the whole city together. east, west, south baltimore and they all congregate which is a part of our culture and they try to make it and demonize it and the need to realize that they been doing it so long they know how to get but the police officers want to run them down and run them off the street. i had been killed on a dirt bike at the police wanted to run them over. we look at everything that we do and positive and we turn it and they demonize it. i wanted to take that narrative back in show you the positive side of my community. every image in the book, i took it but it was never deliberate but it was in the moment at that time. you will see people like my friend sally that we have mutual friends and i got to photograph him in 2015 and is a recipe of him who was shot in the stomach early this year so i never got to show him the book but you could talk about rico who had his hand up and fist up and we became friends with the uprising was murdered in 2016 but he made a big impact and wanted to make sure that every person i came in contact with can live through this book and i can tell their story in every single image. i make sure they are connected. i wanted you to come to your own which is when you look at the images that's why you have and wanted to make sure it was well-rounded because you have my mother who grew up here in all she knows is west baltimore and wanted to give her a chance and plus i wanted to commemorate my mother. how many people get to collaborate with their mother? him as being from west baltimore and i always thought he was weird so i didn't like him at first i thought he was different but then i got to know him i thought he was a cool dude. we connected i wanted him to be a black muslim and, you know, what's going on with that culture i wanted to give him a chance to tell his side of baltimore. [inaudible] was the african-american woman and i wanted to get her perspective -- that's the basis of the book but i don't want to keep going on and on. one thing about me is i like the q and a part and i love interacting with you in hearing from you and even if you heard the book the state of baltimore and everything. >> two quick things. what, baltimore isn't dirty so let's just get that out of the way. >> the westside is just cleaner than the east side [. >> two, one thing i want everyone to take away when you understand is that you can get in a car with me and you can get the car with devon and you can get in a car with [inaudible] or josh or wallace and you can drive around with us two different neighborhoods and will get out of the car and no people in these neighborhoods but we just don't pop up when it's a crisis we don't pop up when the pricing out checks, we don't pop up with cnn is down. go to the hill and the avenue in the projects and -- you go to any of these places you're not just talking to a person you're talking to people that work with these people and love these people that are a part of these people and that is what it is about. the third thing we are first generation artists doing the type of work so keep that in mind. we learning the stuff as we go. we will open it up. >> everyone, give it up. [applause] [inaudible] want them to be questions, not statements. so, if you have a question, please raise your hand and we will call on people to pass around the microphones. wait to speak until you get your microphone lined up. please raise your hand if you have a question. >> don't be scared, we don't bite. >> thanks so much for that powerful presentation. i'm a muslim man, i lived in the 1940s in the people spoke in terms of the beauty of the black community and i remember as a child living in gilmore projects in the sense of people of community and could you say more about that side of gilmore hom homes. >> i'm not from gilmore homes. my boys are from down there but gilmore homes is where it's chairs and you know if you belong. you've got it know somebody because you don't walk into gilmore homes. even in west baltimore i got home boys in different places but when you enter the communities that you grew up with these people in is a certain sense of family that you realize that if you can't get into your house you can go to your neighbor type of community that a lot of us grew up in. it's stuff like if you do something on the corner and her neighbor sees you there they'll tell your grandma so by the time you get to the house you'll get a beating but even for me i've been going up and i've moved into so many different at some point to block it out and sit down and write. you have to write like i go through that there are so many people to get mad at me when i get into the project when i pop out with the book it's like oprah said this and "the new york times" said that and sometimes you've got to make them and you got to make them understand how important it is just by putting your phone on do not disturb and taking it and putting it under your couch and locking the door. you got to sit down and write. that's the only advice i can give you because anyone can write a book but nobody can because they can't commit to finishing it. that is what separate you from everyone else [inaudible] >> you describe yourself as first-generation artist and i'm one of those people who went to college in new england and i was in san francisco and had lots of education. >> you got a good bio. >> i just want to hear you talk more about what you are saying about kids these days in baltimore are like rising and i've been here three years now and i seen the use of baltimore and i think people my age so you mentioned that you were sticking around here and not collecting tax over cocktails so i wanted to hear you talk more about what you are doing and what your message is to baltimore use and what you do. >> the youth in baltimore, like for me growing up i didn't plan my life passed 21 and now the kids now are not planning their life 17 so you got to look up 29 now and when i taught the youth a lot of my homeboys little brothers are like yo, the deep end gone in before and it's grown-up for me that he's and not a lot of us refer to generation and he means that and for me like my mother and my grandmother who are popular influences and all i saw were drug dealers and my cousins and one of my favorite cousins was a [inaudible] kid and that's why looked up to and that's what i wanted to be and i went down that path and it's about giving them this new energy and something that you can do because they don't have no faith. when i tell kids i'm a full-time photographer they can't believe that i'm making a living off of it. you can't make money off being a photographer so it's about educating them and those are not in the schools so we feel like we're operated to get those orbits writing utensils or books they need hope. baltimore is one of the cities where they put a big umbrella over it and it's treated like that place when fosse was telling them but you don't go over there and that's how they treat and that's the best i can think of but that's how they treat us. until the uprising i was publicly one of those places where don't worry about it and the ignore us. people come here and when i first tried photography i couldn't even get models to come to baltimore because they were so scared. that's when people were like i.e. coming up there. the only new one aspect of it and that's another thing of teaching kids how to tell their story and give them a voice because right now they don't have one and you constantly being told that you can't be something growing up in the eye said i would be [inaudible] and eventually request that long enough they will believe it. my friends are doing it and that's why we have to pull up by your own bootstraps because they are rare. we are rare. >> he's not lying about that. when i am out of town and when women hail from baltimore they think like you and as i give my speech they be like you're not like the rest of them is what they say but if young people had the ability for critical and even when i was learning the skills i didn't know what i was doing so when i learned and became a reader and i learned how powerful it was for me to be able to analyze and strategically pick out anything i put on from the sox to the eggs i put my plate i realized i could change the whole direction of my life and that challenged me to share that skill with other people [inaudible] all of these different places and help me get the funds to donate books to schools. i've been to like over 200 schools but this book has been donated at least over 5000 copies to schools are of baltimore city and my deal with them is if i can get the books in the schools that i go over there and i teach workshops so the students are learning to read something they can relate to and have fun with it but they get the opportunity to interact with the author. that's best work i do. to walk into a school and see a kid that your story is so good and i feel like my story is just as good and i'm going to write mine and that's amazing and i get them and i read them and i've been to a bunch of jails in group homes any centers and i've been a lot of different places with some of these and it's simple but it works and like i said, i'm one person and whatever you are passionate about it whenever you love and care about it's so easy to take that skill and do whatever it means to achieve mastery and share that skill with one person. i was fortunate enough to share it with thousands of people but to share it and i was speaking at like some college and that the person was talking about photography and they were saying that, you know, how they want to help and they don't know what to help and i think i was at columbia or like somewhere and i was like how did you get into columbia. how do you mean you want to help somebody but your at columbia. how did you get in here for anything you want you can have an instead of like devon to take pictures but instead of taking pictures of people when they're at their most vulnerable he takes the camera off and he shows other people how he does what he does and that is the difference. if you want to be about nutrition, teach the kids some food [bleep] and if you have 2000 situps a day and have muscles, he's giving free clinics [inaudible] you got grandmothers doing pull-ups and [bleep] and he's putting the work in. he cares for you don't know what to do and you don't care but when you care then you'll figure out what you can do and you make that difference but he does it, i do it, we all do it and this is not the most difficult thing in the world. [applause] >> i just want to add something. we work with a lot of kids but i'll tell you one particular scenario that affected me that i can't give up. me and he clambered it on workshop with red bull and we were running late so it was the second day and he was teaching them and we told him the basis of what we do and how the story tell and i was going to see my kids out to shoot around 1030 or 11:00 a.m. and we were teaching at a jubilee art center and i remember gunshots rang out so you know shots fired on [inaudible] but this is a long stretch so i thought whenever but when i get there you can see the street blocked off a few blocks up from where we was teaching at and we were on time, we would have been right there because we literally what the direction to take pictures of the crazy thing about how small baltimore is my kid wasn't scared at all but will go documented. we went there and documented it and we shot the detective and when i looked on instagram it was a personal friend of mine from my neighborhood and that's how small baltimore is. be out here teaching and literally to box up someone was killed. that's the reality that these kids face up every day. when you engage these kids sometimes it's not teaching them better to listen because [inaudible] >> any last words. >> i am on instagram, twitter and social media at the watkins world. >> it's [inaudible]. before we leave, every time i go somewhere people always give me cameras so this tiger kurt gave me an amazing -- it was like at this into the right hands so if there is any 15 or 16 -year-old kids that are as fine photographer i need you to get this camera right now. the first one up here if you're 16, 15, 14, first one up here on to give you this camera. come on down. [inaudible] [applause] [applause] >> we have books over here and go grab one from our table and next up we have [inaudible]. thanks so much for coming. will be here tomorrow as well. >> you're watching the tv on c-span2, television for serious readers. here's a prime time lineup: that all happens tonight on the fence to the tv. >> i was trying to figure out my life as an astronaut, life as a administer for education, all these 24 years working with nasa and the identity was gone because i have been retired from it and i moved from dc and moved back home and the reason i moved home was to be with my dad. i had and he was gone and i had a moment of really trying to dig deep and understand the purpose of why i am here and i've been told that mark twain has always said the two most important days of your life are the day you are born in the day you figure out why. you know, why reborn what is our purpose and then i was told by my editor that when i had mark twain that mark twain didn't really say that so. [laughter] if you look in the book there is no mark twain referenced their but i still use mark twain because it sounds cool, i think. [laughter] figuring that why out and as a society in this day and age with all the things that are going on and all of us collectively figuring out why we are here to help impact and the people that are here and the explorers and help change our planet for the positive. that is why i wrote this book. it's the -- you will share your story and it's the family community, not giving up, believing what i didn't believe in myself and it's a journey of steam, education, engineering, arts and mathematics. i grew up not even knowing what steve was but i was living it every day with panel lessons and building bicycles and all these different things and i think that one of the things that will help us in the civilization is when we realize that we are really on this small blue marble together technically working together as one playstation granted that we don't always see this happening every day but from the vantage point of the international space station when i look out over virginia and i see my hometown from the space is only 230 miles from dc to new york and not that far but going around the planet every 90 minutes seeing the sunrise and sunset every 45 minutes in doing this with people we used to fight against and i was there with the russians in the german and having these moments where i'm fine over virginia and five minutes later were over paris and one of my crewmates is looking down and thanks my mom is eating down there and then russia shows you how connected we are as people and then flying over afghanistan in looking down and seeing how beautiful it is but knowing what is happening down there, aleppo and all these pieces of unrest and fighting in the things going on but from that vantage point it is simply stunning. so, i'm going to try to get you all signed up for space x mission. [laughter] i got some coupons up here and i'm signing your book so you might be the lucky one that gets the space x ride but if you get an opportunity, whether it's through vr or whatever the experience, you have to get to see this. it fundamentally, cognitively changes you as a person, to make you want to do better when you see our planet from that vantage point. >> you can watch this and other programs online at tv .org. >> is a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. for more information click the book fairs tab on our website, booktv.org.

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