Photos courtesy of Paul Lester

Being in the right place at the right time (along with considerable talent) has given an Evans photographer the good fortune of building a successful career on the links and behind the lens.

There’s nothing that Evans resident Paul Lester enjoys more than making a good golf shot. Sure, it’s nice to do it with a club in hand. But with a camera? Even better.

For 50 years, Lester has photographed the world’s best golfers at tournaments, pro-ams, charity events and after-hours parties. He always has been happy to share his work with the subjects of his photographs. He also has compiled some of his favorite shots from years past in a book, Beyond the Fairway, so the rest of us can get a glimpse inside his world as well.

“I wanted it to be a book of older photos. I didn’t want any from nowadays,” Lester says. “The old photos are the ones I like. I could never get those pictures again. The access I had then, nobody has now.”

With a little help from some of his longtime friends, he put the book together in about four months. CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz, who has anchored the network’s Masters Tournament coverage since 1989, wrote the forward for the book.

“He has a gift to make every member of his universe feel important, to bring kindness and joy to everyone he touches. . .. He was born with an enormous talent,” Nantz writes. “Through his prism, he has captured many of the most candid and glorious snapshots you’ll ever see.”

Barbara Nicklaus wrote the introduction. “Paul’s approach is a mixture of art and documentary. Every time he picks up a camera, he discovers something new,” she writes.

In fact, a comment she made about one of his pictures was the motivating force behind the book.

In 1988, Lester snapped a photo of Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan together as Nicklaus was coming off the course at the Centennial of Golf Pro-Am in New York City. “I took that picture, and I kept it for quite a while,” Lester says.

About 30 years later, he sent two 8×10 prints to the Nicklauses, and Barbara Nicklaus commented that she never had seen the photo – a rare shot of the two golf icons together.

“I thought, ‘If they really like this photo, I have a lot of these kinds of photos,’” Lester says.

Inside the Ropes
His career started in 1970 when, three years out of high school, he went to a prep football game on a November Friday night in Woodland Hills, California. The football coach needed someone to take film footage and asked him to cover the game.

There was just one catch – and it wasn’t on the football field. It was above it. Lester had to climb up a 50-foot pole at midfield to get footage of the entire game. Perched in a metal basket at the top of the pole, he got to work for the sum of $75.

He must have done a good job because he became the go-to cameraman for the high school team, shooting 8-milimeter film. This was how he honed his craft, learning to shoot and frame a shot and compose a picture.

His father, Buddy Lester, a standup comedian and actor whose film credits included the original Ocean’s 11, helped him make connections. An avid golfer, the elder Lester played in many celebrity charity events and encouraged his son to photograph the outings.

At that time Lester was focused on the camera. As a 20-year-old with big dreams, his ambition was to work as a cameraman in the entertainment industry. Instead, though, his first job in “show business” was as a construction worker at Universal Studios. Not exactly what he had in mind.

Taking photos at charity golf events, Lester thought there might be a better way to make a living. At the fundraisers, he photographed foursomes, which included a celebrity and his playing partners, on the tee. He charged each golfer $5 for a 5×7 print and mailed it to them.

“I always liked golf. My dad liked golf a lot,” says Lester. “He told me to bring my camera to tournaments. I was lucky to know people who needed helpers and took over when people couldn’t do it anymore. I just learned as I went.”

He soon found himself photographing many events in Southern California. He also got a referral to work for Golf Illustrated magazine to take pictures of pro players at the events, earning $10 a roll.

Al Geiberger, the first professional to shoot a 59 in competition, befriended and encouraged Lester when the magazine sent him on assignment to do a story about the golfer.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lester started photographing PGA Tour events for Stan Wood, the former University of Southern California golf coach who had started his own public relations firm for the pro tour. He also started shooting for the LPGA, and he has fond memories of photographing the likes of Nancy Lopez, Patty Sheehan and Pat Bradley.

“The LPGA is where most of us got our start,” says Lester, who still shoots LPGA events. “It was the best tour in the 1970s. The LPGA players will give you a lot more emotion. They were fantastic. They looked fantastic. They dressed fantastic.”

However, when he started shooting the made-for-television Skins Game events in the mid-1980s, he met many key people and sponsors in the industry. An unofficial money event on the PGA Tour from 1983 to 2008, the Skins Game took place in November or December each year after the official PGA Tour season ended.

“The top players in the world were there, and they were at the best places with the best competition,” says Lester.

He started spending a lot of time inside the ropes, and often he was the only golf photographer at banquets for the top pros and celebrities. At the nighttime events, he met the golfers’ wives and children, and he often sent them photos.

“I tried to be friends with them first,” says Lester. “I approached it as a friendly thing rather than as a journalistic photographer. I was part of the show. We were part of the circus that came to town for that week.”

Secret to Success
That friendly approach has been fruitful, and Lester says people have told him he has the right personality to be a photographer.

“You need to know when to talk and when not to talk. You need to know when to listen,” Lester says. “I always laid back a little. I have to shoot what I see. I became more than just a photographer to these guys. I would talk about personal things to develop a personal relationship.”

He enjoys being in the thick of the tournament action in the daytime, and he loves working at pro-ams and charity events because he can set up shots and yell out to players to “give me something.”

“I like it when they’re laughing,” says Lester. “It shows that they’re good human beings.”

Hall of Fame golfer Amy Alcott and Johnny Bench, Hall of Fame baseball catcher, struck a pose for him – hats on backward, of course – during a break at a Dinah Shore Winners Circle Tournament. Bench got down in his catcher’s crouch, and Alcott stood behind him like a home plate umpire.

At a Skins Game, Fred Funk needed no prompting. Lester got a shot of him paying up on a bet that Annika Sorenstam couldn’t outdrive him. After she drove her ball past his on the fifth hole, Funk unzipped his golf bag and slipped into a pink-flowered skirt.

A photo of John Daly, with cigarette and beer in hand at the opening party of his first Skins Game in 1991, is one of his favorites. “It’s a classic,” Lester says. “It’s vintage John Daly.”

In another shot, Nicklaus is resting his head on Lee Trevino’s shoulder. “I knew that they knew that I was there,” says Lester.

Riviera Country Club is one of his favorite places to shoot because he knows the venue so well, and he also enjoys photographing the Ryder Cup.

“The emotion is just nonstop,” Lester says. “It’s a whole different deal because it’s not an individual thing. The thing is huge – the press, the parties. It is very special.”

He tries to take photos quickly, and oftentimes he knows the shot he wants beforehand.

“I could get the pictures that no one else can do,” he says. “Anyone in that book would do anything I asked them to do. I knew I could shoot it and light it very well, but I had the relationships.”

From the daytime golf to the nighttime events, it’s not unusual for him to work 10-hour days.

“I do a lot of corporate, charity and celebrity events. I enjoy them all. I’d better be pumped up and excited for every job,” says Lester, who divides his time between Evans and Los Angeles. “The people that you’re doing it for, that might be the only event they do a year.”

He shot his first Masters in 1995. He missed the following tournament, but he has been a regular since 1997. During the Masters, Lester typically shoots private parties, where tour players and celebrities often make appearances, in the evenings. “I probably do four houses a night,” he says.

Being in position helps him get the image he wants.

“The secret is being ready. In golf, it’s all luck,” says Lester. “Are you at the right spot? Can you get the right angle? When you’re a still photographer, all you can hope for is that you’re there. The challenge is getting in the correct spot without getting in trouble.”

It’s also tricky to get a shot that’s different from everyone else’s.

“When looking through the lens and the shot is over, a lot of people pull the camera down,” says the 71-year-old Lester. “I try and leave it up as much as I can because you never know what the reaction will be. Don’t take your eyes off of the lens thinking that it’s over because you’re going to miss the shot.”

50 Years and Counting
Even though Lester got his start filming high school football games and occasionally shoots other sports, he has specialized in golf.

“The people that I know are in golf,” he says. “If I shot everything, I wouldn’t have the relationships that I have with the golf community.”

In his half-century career, he has traveled the world recording key moments and images in golf. His work has been featured in Golf Digest, Sports Illustrated and ESPN, the Magazine.

“I’ve been so lucky to cover golf for 50 years,” Lester says.

We’re lucky he has covered golf so well for so long, too. The book is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and beyondthefairway.square.site. To purchase any of Lester’s photos, visit paullester.zenfolio.com and click on Portfolio.

By Betsy Gilliland

From performing comedy sketches to opining on the latest news, an Evans podcaster ranks No. 17 in Sweden, No. 24 in Italy and No. 81 in the U.K.

Six months ago, Evans resident Finnish Warren knew nothing about podcasting. Minor detail. In October he launched his aptly named podcast, “You’re Not From Around Here With Finnish Warren.”

Finnish moved to Evans from the mountains of his native Southern California in February 2020 with his wife, Jodie, and their 13-year-old son because of her job. (Irony lives. Her employer wanted his wife to spend more time in the office. You can guess how that has turned out so far.)

“My wife said I needed to do a podcast,” says Finnish, who formerly worked in television post-production. “I had never listened to a podcast.”

She must have been on to something. Available on Apple, Spotify, Buzzsprout and Google, the comedy variety podcast with more than 30,000 downloads has been compared to “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” “Kids in the Hall” and “Little Britain.”

A Taste of Home
The comedy sketches feature goofy, recurring characters that appeal to a worldwide audience, and Finnish believes the podcast is popular in Europe because of its dry British humor. This season he is focusing on Scandinavian-centric and Canadian themes.

“There’s a whole lot of countries in the world that are picking up the show now. I get messages from homesick people,” says Finnish, a stage name he adopted to honor his Finnish relatives. “A lot of ex-pats listen to the show. During the pandemic, they can get a little taste of home.”

He also interviews recording artists such as Nick Camryn, the Moore Brothers, Scott Collins, Scott Milligan, Grammy nominee Angela McCluskey and classical violinist Jennifer Frautchi.

The podcast has a cast of seven people that includes his sister, Tina Hammarström, aka Swedish Nora, and his childhood friend, Darren Reagan, a Realtor in Chicago.

At the beginning of the year, his former co-worker, Bridget G., a political Instagram influencer, started writing and co-producing the show with him. “We went from zero sketches to six sketches a show,” Finnish says.

He does a podcast, which lasts 40 minutes to an hour, every Friday at noon. Typically, it includes sketches, a monologue, a guest interview and music. “Nothing that we do is complex,” says Finnish.

Calling All Nerds
Despite the podcast’s popularity in Europe, 87% of the audience lives in the United States. “We went from 100 listeners to more than 5,000 an episode overnight,” Finnish says. “The thing about podcasts is you don’t have to listen to them live.”

He enjoys the freedom and creativity of producing podcasts and the connection he makes with his listeners. “I’m a nerd, and every person who listens to the show is a nerd,” he says.

And of course, Finnish, who did some standup comedy as well, loves to make people laugh. First, though, he seeks the approval of his toughest critic.

“I get my son to listen, and if he calls it funny, it’s good to go,” he says.

Wise man, that Finnish, who listens to his wife and son. And he would love for people, nerds or not, to lend him an ear, too. “When people who don’t know about the show give it chance, they like it,” he says.

It’s hard to imagine how anyone would look on their 250th birthday, but German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven will sound exquisite as Augusta Symphony celebrates the 250th anniversary of his birth with its concert, Beethoven @ 250, on Saturday, January 9 at Miller Theater.

As one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music, Beethoven composed pieces that rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire.

The Augusta Symphony performance will feature Beethoven’s The Creatures of Prometheus Overture, Piano Concerto No. 1 and Symphony No. 3, “Eroica.”

Under the baton of Dirk Meyer, musical director, the concert will include Gilles Vonsattel on the piano. The event will feature a smaller orchestra, limited audience capacity, physical distancing and no intermission.

Symphony Series subscribers will have three opportunities to hear the concert. They can attend the dress rehearsal at 2 p.m., the concert at 7:30 p.m. or livestream the event.

The cost to livestream is $10 per household, and the link to watch the concert will be emailed three days before the performance.

For more information, visit augustasymphony.com.

Augusta Symphony’s Holiday Pops! concert will take a different form from holidays past.
The holidays certainly may look out of the ordinary this year. However, if Augusta Symphony has anything to say – or play – about it, the holidays won’t sound any different.

This season the annual Holiday Pops! concert will be digital.

The first concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, December 3. The performances will be available until Sunday, December 27, and the video production can be watched on demand.

The symphony will play perennial favorites such as Winter Wonderland, Let It Snow, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Nutcracker Suite, Sounds of Hanukkah and Sleigh Ride.

Tickets are $10 per household, and they will be emailed three days before the concert. Subscribers to the 2020-21 season will have access to the performance as part of their subscription.

So dress up, or dress down. Just don’t miss the chance to enjoy these classic holiday songs.

Photos courtesy of Mike Carter and Kirstyn Harris

Two Martinez neighbors collaborate to create a Christmas light show and synchronize it to music, and the display gets bigger every year.
Santa’s elves don’t have anything on Martinez resident Mike Carter. The man likes to stay busy – and to spread Christmas cheer. Only he doesn’t spend all year making toys for good little girls and boys.

When he isn’t working, renovating houses or running bowling leagues, he spends time building an outdoor Christmas lights display at his house and setting it to music.

In fact, his enthusiasm is so infectious that his friend, Kirstyn Harris, wanted to get in on the act. They originally met in a bowling league, and now they live across the street from each other on Whisperwood Drive in Shadowmoor.

The lights display at their houses in the neighborhood, located at the corner of Columbia and Belair roads, runs from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve. The hours are 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Between their two homes, they have put up 82,050 lights with 384 channels and 816 extension cords totaling 10,906 feet this year. A channel is a unit of lights that can be controlled individually, and all of the lights in a channel work as a single unit. For example, a single bush with one set of lights draped over it can be a channel. Each channel controls one color of one element in the light show.

This year will mark Mike’s fifth show and the fourth show that he and Kirstyn have done together. He started out in 2016 with 6,600 lights, 32 channels and 64 extension cords totaling 834 feet.

Getting With the Program
Mike first got interested in creating a lights show from one of his favorite movies, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. He also was inspired to synchronize Christmas lights to music by “The Osborne Family Spectacle Of Dancing Lights,” a display of Christmas lights and decorations at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. He went to the Disney display during the holidays every year from 2003 until 2015. (It was discontinued in early January of 2016.)

On the day after New Year’s Day in 2016, Mike was walking through a big box store when he saw that Christmas lights were on sale for 40 cents a box.

“I decided to buy $50 worth of lights, and I put them in my garage,” he says.

Mike, a former computer programmer, bought Light-O-Rama software and controllers in August 2016 so he could synchronize a lights show to Christmas music. He had four songs for the initial display, and it took him four weeks to program the first song. He got faster as he went along, however, dropping a week from the programming time with each successive song.

To put up the 6,600 lights, he worked from 8 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day until 2 a.m. the following morning.

“I turned it on, and it worked flawlessly,” says Mike. “We have expanded the show every year since.”

They use red, green, blue and purple lights, and they zip-tie the various colors together so they don’t have to put up separate strands of lights. That technique not only makes their work easier.

“The display looks cleaner when the lights are zip-tied together,” says Kirstyn, a graduate student in the medical illustration master’s program at the Medical College of Georgia.

This year, Mike and Kirstyn have added 18,050 lights to the display. “We added lights to two sides of the houses because of the spots where people stop to view the show. We want them to have something to see,” he says.

They have constructed 5-foot and 10-foot Christmas trees out of tomato cages and wrapped them with strands of lights, and they crafted wooden stars for the tops of the trees. Wooden snowflakes go on the roof, and arches are lined up in the yards. They also made a wreath out of wire mesh.

“The lights display helps me with the medical illustration program,” says Kirstyn. “It helps me learn about color and design and how lighting is different.”

Each extension cord is labeled with a channel ID. A transmitter on each side of the street sends and receives data, and the light show is transmitted across the street wirelessly. Mike has one control box in his garage, and they have 24 control boxes in various places in their yards.

Feeling the Beat
Mike has created a map of each house in the computer program, and he identifies every channel with lights and analyzes the music. “It doesn’t have to be perfect,” he says. “You just have to be able to see what’s going on.”

The software tells how much power to send to each channel and controls the intensity of the lights. The program can set the intensity at 100%, 50%, etc., and increase the intensity by going from dim to 100%.

Every second is divided into 20 segments, so the program tells each channel what to do every 1/20 of a second.

“You can break the songs down into different parts,” says Mike. “Each part of the song can be represented by a different element like a trumpet or a drumbeat sound in the background.”

Flashing along to the beat of the music, the lights build up the show visually with the addition of more lights as the song continues. The lights can turn on or off, fade in or out, twinkle or shimmer.

“I don’t match colors to the songs, but I try to represent each part of the music,” Mike says. “I match the beat in the background. I represent each part of the song with an element on the house.”

The music is broadcast over an FM frequency, and a transmitter sends the signal across the FM channel for a quarter-mile. “That’s as far as it can go without a Federal Communications Commission license,” says Mike.

A sign posted in Mike’s yard tells people viewing the lights to tune into FM radio 90.5 to hear the music.

“You have to choose a frequency you can hear that won’t get overrun by a powerful radio station,” says Mike. “You don’t coordinate with a particular station. I scan the radio and pick the frequency that has the least amount of noise.”

This year they will play seven songs for the 21-minute show. The songs include the 45-second “THX Intro” for movies; “A Mad Russian’s Christmas,” “Christmas Eve,” “Wizards In Winter” and “Christmas Canon” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra; “Carol of the Bells” by David Foster and Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

“We try to add songs to the show every year,” says Mike. “This year we added so many lights that we didn’t have to add songs.”

One thing that doesn’t increase with the show – not by much, anyway – is their electric bills.

“For each house, it adds about $50 to $75 to the power bill,” says Mike. “The lights aren’t on all the time, and the show only runs four hours per day.”

Timing is Everything
In 2018, Mike timed their efforts to put up the display. With the two of them working together almost the entire time, it took them 26 1/2 hours to put everything in place over several nights and two full days.

It took them 16 hours to take everything down and carefully pack it away in labeled storage boxes that they keep in Mike’s garage.

After all, timing is everything. Their well-synched collaboration began when Mike was working on his lights program at the bowling alley when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Any free time I had, I worked on the program,” Mike says. “Kirstyn came up to me and said, ‘What are you doing? I want to learn how to do it.’”

The next day he got a text from a number he didn’t recognize, but he quickly figured out it was from Kirstyn. They have been working together ever since.

And yes, they’re already plotting how to add to next year’s display. They plan to include songs from Frozen and add white lights to complement the music.

“We will probably double the songs for next year, but we don’t have to build anything new,” says Kirstyn. “I like learning the art that is involved in creating the show.”

As much as they love putting the lights display together, however, they get just as much joy from seeing families appreciate their efforts.

“I think it helps increase people’s ability to do family things together,” says Kirstyn. “Families are trying to find holiday traditions, and driving around to see Christmas lights is a good tradition. It’s also a good way for people to get in the holiday mood.”

Mike agrees.

“People can come out with their families and enjoy the show,” he says. “Children love it. They’re fascinated by the flashes of light. It will be especially good this year because people can be six feet apart.”

By Leigh Howard

Evans and Augusta each win national accolades for being great places to live
As you, no doubt, know by now, Money magazine has discovered something we knew all along. Evans is a great place to live. In its October issue, Money ranked Evans No. 1 on its annual list of 50 Best Places to Live in the nation.

To create its list, the magazine looked at cities and towns with a population of at least 25,000. It eliminated any place that had more than double the national crime risk, a median income level lower than 85% of its state’s median, or little to no ethnic diversity.

However, the magazine primarily emphasized cost of living. Of all the U.S. towns and cities Money looked at this year, Evans had the lowest cost of living of any place with similarly high income levels.

In addition, despite the pandemic, unemployment in the area was just 5.2% in June, which was below the 7.6% average for Georgia and less than half the national average of 11.1%.

The county Parks, Recreation and Events Department has scored an accolade as well. The National Alliance for Youth Sports has designated it as a Better Sports for Kids Quality Program Provider.

Augusta also has been designated as the “Most Neighborly City in America” by Neighbor.com.

To determine the top neighborly cities, the website created a scorecard based on criteria such as charitable giving, volunteering and whether or not residents feel happy, safe and proud of their communities.

www.neighbor.com/storage-blog/most-neighborly-cities-america/

Matt Jameson recently was named general venue manager for Columbia County’s new Performing Arts Center.

In addition to working with iNNOVATiON Arts & Entertainment, the booking consultant and theatrical series presenter for the center, he will oversee all administrative, marketing, financial and back-of-house functions.

Jameson, an Aiken, South Carolina native, previously spent more than 10 years with Clearwing Productions in Phoenix, Arizona in management and operation roles.

The PAC, which anchors the new Plaza development, is scheduled to open early 2021.

Augusta Symphony is making new arrangements for its 2020-21 concerts.

Musicians are creative by nature, and the Augusta Symphony will use its imagination this fall to launch the 2020-21 season. The first half of the season, Fall Reimagined, will reflect the signs of the times while still entertaining audiences with the orchestra members’ talents and professionalism.

“Our fall season, though very different than anticipated, will be thrilling,” says Dirk Meyer, music director. “The works we have chosen to perform are fantastic, and I’m excited that we can feature some of our very own musicians as soloists for these concerts. In addition, we came up with a very creative solution to get our patrons involved.”

For Fall Reimagined, the concerts will be limited to current subscribers and will allow for physical distancing. Because fewer patrons will be allowed in Miller Theater at one time, subscribers have three options to enjoy the symphony performances. They can attend the evening concert; they can attend the afternoon dress rehearsal; or they can watch via livestream.

In addition, smaller orchestras will perform in shorter, intermission-free programs.

“We have created a system and programs though which we can limit the amount of people on stage, as well as in the hall,” Meyer says. “This way we are able to perform safely, with social distancing in place throughout the performance. Additional safety measures such as masks are in place throughout the Miller,”. “The key was to create programs that use a smaller orchestra, so that we can ensure enough space between each musician while performing. Thankfully, the chamber orchestra repertoire is vast and filled with fantastic compositions.”

The fall concerts include two performances next month – Smaller Mahler at 7:30 p.m. Friday, October 2 and A Little Night Music at 7:30 p.m. Friday, October 30.

Smaller Mahler will feature Jessye Norman-mentored soprano Laquita Mitchell, and the performance will include Montgomery’s Strum, Barber’s Knoxville Summer 1915 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4.

Musicians for A Little Night Music will include Anastasia Petrunina on violin, Brian Lyons on oboe and Brian Winegardner on trumpet. The concert will include Assad’s Impressions, Bach’s Concerto for Violin and Oboe, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Albinoni’s Trumpet Concerto and Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

In-person Pops! concerts will resume in February, and the next performance in the Family Concerts performance will take place in May. However, patrons who had purchased subscriptions to these series will have access to two exclusive digital concerts – Movie Music Pops! and Holiday Pops! – in their own homes this fall. These concerts will be recorded in October.

“The past few months certainly have tested all of us like never before,” says Meyer. “For performing artists, this is especially true. It has been very difficult to see all our performance opportunities vanish, one after another. For many, that has created enormous financial hardships. Additionally, it is a strange feeling to not be performing – like losing a very important part of yourself.” Once it became clear that we would not be able to start our season like we anticipated, we immediately got to work on a backup plan. And I think we came up with some very exciting ideas.”

The Passion concert from the 2019-20 season, which was rescheduled from March 28 to September 17, has been postponed again to Thursday, May 20. The recording project of Miguel del Aguila’s music will continue at that time.

Ticketholders for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial Film with Live Orchestra and Brass Transit: The Music of Chicago should expect to see those performances reprogrammed to the 2021-22 season.

Single tickets will not be available for purchase for the fall concerts. However, single tickets for the winter/spring 2021 concerts will go on sale November 2.

A 3D model of Evans Towne Center created by Columbia County’s Geographic Information Systems team has been selected as the recipient of the GMIS International award for outstanding service and dedication to the citizens of Columbia County.

The project was submitted to GMIS International after winning the Georgia GMIS Government to Citizen Award earlier this summer.

Team members (pictured) include (left to right, front row): Larry Hobbs, Ernie Phelps, Lindsey Stokes and Julianne Hartman and (back row) Samuel Ball, Grace Jansen and Mark Swain.

Although the department team had no experience in 3D modeling, it was asked by the county administrator to create the model to showcase the county’s new Performing Arts Center, Meybohm Building, future parking deck and other future retail/professional developments.

The team had only two weeks to put the project together to present to the Board of Commissioners and county administration.

A former photojournalist, who now works in the corporate world, is having his first show since his recent return to photography.

For some people, the commute to and from work is a daily grind to be completed as quickly as possible. Then there is photographer Patrick Krohn. He manages to turn his 5-mile commute into a 30-minute trek every morning and afternoon.

“My commute takes longer because I stop and take pictures all the time,” he says. “I’m always looking around and seeing how I could make a photo from a scene.”

Krohn, who spent more than 10 years as a photojournalist and now works as a price analyst in the corporate world, recently returned to his first love of photography after almost 15 years. He primarily photographs landscapes and nature.

“It’s easier to do on my schedule,” he says. “The landscape is always there. It’s on its own time. It doesn’t require planning.”

Krohn will share his work with a photographic show, “Some Eclectic Musings of a One-Eyed Dog,” at 4P Studios in Martinez from March 31 – May 2. The photographs will include landscapes that he passes going to and from work each day as well as scenes from recent trips to the Pacific Northwest and to the Lake District in England. All his original works will be available for purchase.

With his journalistic background, Krohn takes a documentary approach to his photography. Resisting preconceived notions before he ventures out into the world with his camera, he just gets excited about photographing what is presented in front of him.

“I’m not changing anything around me,” Krohn says. “I find things and explore them as I would as a journalist. I find nature as it is and see it the way it is. I enjoy discovering something and then composing it in a nice way. I have always been fairly creative, but photography just clicked with me. I enjoy the creativity of being out and about – even in the pouring rain.”

Carolina Bay Nature Preserve in Aiken is one of his favorite places to take photographs. Unlike typical bays, Carolina Bays are oval or roughly circular depressions that are common in the lower elevations of the Carolinas. They tend to collect water and often develop communities of plants and animals that are unusual in the surrounding area.

“There are no vistas in this area, but there’s a lot of great nature if you just look at it,” Krohn says. “There’s nature all around us. I keep going back to the same places at different times of the day.”

Krohn, whose photography business is called One-Eyed Dog Studios after his one-eyed rescue terrier, Rogue, also teaches photography workshops at 4P Studios and at Art & Soul in Aiken.

“I enjoy putting classes together,” he says. “I like letting people know there’s so much you can do with photography. There’s no failure, just figuring out if you’re doing things right or not.”

If You Go:
What: “Some Eclectic Musings of a One-Eyed Dog,” a photography exhibition by Patrick Krohn

When: Tuesday-Friday 1-5 p.m. and Saturday 1-4 p.m. March 31 through May 2, or by appointment; free artist reception 4-6 p.m. Sunday, April 19

Where: 4P Studios, 3927 Roberts Road, Martinez

How Much: Free

More Info: (706) 267-6724

A Q&A with the chief medical officer of Augusta University Health System.

By now, all of us have heard more than we ever wanted to hear about COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. In early April, however, Dr. Phillip Coule, vice president and chief medical officer of Augusta University Health System, shared valuable information about the disease. At that time, the Martinez resident, who graduated from the Medical College of Georgia in 1996, said the area could pass its peak load of cases by late April. The Q&A has been edited slightly for clarity and space considerations.

Q: What is it like working in the hospital on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic?

A: The team and our ICU staff are working incredibly hard, and they’re doing a fantastic job. There are lots of cases in the community as well as patients transferred from Albany. The patients in the ICU are very sick. We have two designated COVID-19 ICUs, but morale is high in the COVID-19 medical ward.

Q: How was AU Health able to develop a test so quickly?

A: If there’s a hospital version of “Doomsday Preppers,” we’re it. We have a leadership team that’s forward thinking. We have people who are constantly monitoring the latest trends in healthcare and what’s emerging. We were closely following the coronavirus developments in China and knew we needed to be ready. Everybody realized what could happen here and started preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. We started pursuing multiple testing platforms early on.

We knew the world was coming to town for Masters Week. Our goal was to have testing available by late March. We were pursuing different test platforms with different supply chains. We realize that Augusta is an international city and travel-associated cases were occurring early on in this. We realized Augusta needed to be prepared for a pandemic.

We didn’t make any changes after the Masters was postponed. This was widespread, and it accelerated our response.

Q: Which departments at the hospital have been affected by staff reductions?

A: These are unusual times. The shelter-in-place order is causing some people to defer some of their healthcare needs. That has decreased the need for surgeries that can be postponed, but we’re looking at ways to get patients back in the system.

Q: Can you tell if social distancing and sheltering in place are working?

A: We certainly do not want to let up now, but there is some reason for optimism, cautiously so. The combination of business closures, identifying and testing cases, and other measures have helped. There’s some evidence that we’re bending the curve. We need to keep doing what we’re doing.

Q: When do you think things might return to normal, and what will that look like?

A: My hope is that by the end of May or the beginning of June, we start to see things return to normal. We might see a loosening of mandatory closures. Restaurants might reopen with caution. We have to wait and see what happens before we get back to completely normal, but we don’t want to loosen up and then have things get out of control again.

We’ll feel a little better about the relaxation of the measures going into the summer. If we can get the ability to do antibody testing, it would allow us a better opportunity to know what’s really happening with this disease. Since some people only have mild symptoms, we haven’t been able to identify the true denominator. We hope to see signs of herd immunity where a lot of people don’t get the disease in the short term, making it harder for it to be transmitted.

Q: When do you think you will be able to start testing for antibodies?

A: Hopefully, by summertime. We are pursuing different options to test for antibodies, but we don’t have funding yet.

Q: How does this pandemic compare to anything else you’ve seen during your career?

A: This is unprecedented. I was involved in the response to 9/11, and I thought that was the only time I would see a disaster of that magnitude. Then I responded to Hurricane Katrina, and I thought that was the only time I would see another disaster of that magnitude. Then COVID-19 happened, and I’ve never seen anything like it.

It’s also remarkable to me how quickly people have adjusted to social distancing. We went from handshakes to fist bumps to elbow bumps to waving from six feet away. I’m hoping we go back to hugs. I’m hoping we go back to normal.

Q: What do you think things will look like in May?

A: I think we’ll know by then how we’ve weathered the storm.

Q: Is there a silver lining in any of this?

A: I’ve never seen a team pull together like the AU team has pulled together. We’ve done a world-class job in responding to this pandemic. That includes our pastoral staff, volunteer services and patient family services.

There are so many bright spots in this, I can’t count them all. Companies large and small have offered to donate masks. We can’t accept hand-sewn masks because there is so much variability in them, but we have accepted hand-made caps. My wife helped organize a sewing brigade to make the caps. They have been wildly popular. Everyone has loved them. People have fired up 3-D printers to print face shields.

We’ve had an incredible outpouring from the community. The support from the community has been great and very much appreciated. The parking lot prayers* were especially inspirational, and the food donations have helped to lift the morale of the staff.

Q: If there is one thing you would want people in the community to know, what would that be?

A: The importance of social distancing. It’s incredibly important for us to remember. Houses of worship and funerals will present the greatest risk to our most vulnerable populations. It may be necessary to modify things like that in the short-term so we can get back to normal in the long-term. And I’ve never been prouder of our entire team and the com

Appling resident Cole Phail must be feeling good after the Greater Augusta Arts Council announced that he won its James Brown Mural competition in an online voting contest.

His mural, “The Spirit of Funk,” will be painted on the side of the building located at 879 Broad Street in Augusta. Phail used a variety of art styles such as realism, graphic style and impressionism in his submission.

Phail’s painting also included lyrics of Brown’s greatest hits as well as the singer’s various nicknames and titles. Brown’s catchphrase, “I Feel Good,” is the theme of the mural.

“My hope is that the viewer will get the full impact of the life of James Brown with a casual viewing, but will be enticed to spend more time studying the details layered throughout,” Phail says in his artist statement.