A few weeks ago, while I was volunteering at a session for the United States Conference on AIDS, I snapped three shots of Dr. Eugene McCray, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of HIV/AIDS. Dr. McCray leads the CDC’s response to slow down the rate of new HIV infection while curtailing the progression of the disease to AIDS in those already infected. He hopes eventually to end the transmission of HIV by using the medication Truvada. Truvada will help some of us infected with with HIV to suppress the disease.
I had an opportunity to speak to Dr. McCray and his team at the conference. We discussed how I got my press pass. I said that the press should be allowed to attend HIV and AIDS conferences. Dr. McCray said that the pictures I submitted to obtain my press pass, especially the shot of the Sudan Embassy with Dick Gregory, George Clooney, Martin Luther King III and Ben Jealous, were great.
“How did you get the pictures at the Sudan Embassy?” Dr. McCray asked
“How? I simply asked, was a bit rude, being tardy that day, yet aggressively I headed up to the front to shoot the stars,” I said. “Then suddenly, I could not get my DSLR camera to work, so I moved back to leave the encircled group, getting to the very edge. I asked the policemen, ‘may I get outside the yellow taped area, so I can get a panoramic view of the event?’ They said ‘yes’ and I stepped out, and pulled out my point and shoot camera! Lo and behold, I got about 120 shots of the Clooney team at the Sudan Embassy! A panoramic view of the event, too!”
At the conference that day, as Dr. McCray began his presentation, I whipped out my point and shoot, and got three shots of him. He asked me how they looked.
I am proud to have photos of Eugene McCray, our HIV leader at the CDC!
