Women's March - Portland, Oregon, January 21, 2017

*Disclaimer: this is not a political post, this is merely a documentary of an event in Portland*

My buddy Scott (http://www.scottaticephoto.com/) invited me to join him at the Women's March here in Portland. I thought it would be enjoyable to go for a variety of reasons: I have never attended an event of this nature, it was a good opportunity to do some photo journalism and it would be an educational experience to understand why people are protesting.

There's one thing I can take away from this event, and I already shared it on Facebook, but I will share it here as well:

If there's one thing I can take away from today, it's that we have truly lost the ability to communicate as a society.

People with protest signs to express their beliefs, yet they spent their time on their phones ignoring the likeminded people standing right next to them.

I saw a guy wearing a Trump hat and shirt have his hat pulled off his head and tossed in the street. The person who threw the hat can be upset, but did he bother asking the other guy why he voted for Trump?

If we can't talk to one another about our views, our ideas or our fears, how do we expect change? Talking is more than updating your Facebook status or walking around with a cardboard sign, it's sitting down and talking to real people to talk about real problems.

Change won't come from the media, it won't come from the government and it won't come from the corporations. The change needs to come from us, the people, and we outnumber those people and are far more capable of progress than they will ever be.