Blue Earth Prize At The PhotoAlliance 2012 Our World Portfolio Review
In partnership with PhotoAlliance, we are once again offering the "Blue Earth Prize For Best Project Photography" to be awarded at the PhotoAlliance 2012 Our World Portfolio Review. This award provides recognition for photographic work best representing our mission: To raise awareness about endangered cultures, threatened environments and social concerns through photography.
This award will highlight the work of one attendee in a special Honors section of the Blue Earth website. Blue Earth will also waive the application fee for the winning photographer to submit for Blue Earth project sponsorship as well as offer free membership for one year. Up to three runners-up will also be offered free submission for Project Sponsorship and a free one-year Blue Earth membership.
Get more details in our blog.
Eberhard Riedel Speaking In Seattle & Santa Fe
Eberhard Riedel is busy these days traveling, speaking, and presenting workshops about his Blue Earth project Cameras without Borders: Photography for Healing and Peace at Blue Earth. On February 24-25, 2012 Riedel will be speaking at the C. G. Jung Institute of Santa Fe and on March 9-10 for the C. G. Jung Society of Seattle.
The goal of my photographic work is to emotionally connect and sense the breadth and magnitude of fundamentalist and tribal violence in the world and do something about it. I work with marginalized and traumatized populations in Congo, Kenya and Uganda where I help communities working to address the psychological consequences of war and tribal violence. As a psychoanalyst I know that the traumatized psyche is unable to reflect or imagine and thus experiences itself as isolated from the rest of humanity. I will explore how photography can transcend personal and cultural layers of reference and help rekindle the struggle of giving birth to one’s future. A victim of sexual violence in Eastern Congo participating in a Cameras without Borders workshop said, "The picture in the camera is like a pregnancy," and curiously imagined what might be gestating in her camera. There cannot be freedom – absence of war – without a place of mutual curiosity and respect; and without attention to the emotional injuries of survivors of war and violence humanitarian assistance does not provide sufficient context for reconciliation and lasting peace.
Photographers can pay $15 membership discounted admission for the Seattle event on March 9th. Don't miss these unique opportunities to hear about his work in the field in Riedel's own words.
Garth Lenz: Provincial Distance in a Tar Nation
Blue Earth project photographer Garth Lenz recently spoke at TEDxVictoria and his address is now online. Given the ongoing coverage of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, his message couldn’t be more timely and pressing.
Garth’s project with Blue Earth Energy and Ecology continues his work on the threat presented by unsustainable energy development, particularly unconventional fossil fuels. This work comprises both the photographic documentation of these issues, as well as the effective outreach needed to ensure that the resulting images make a positive contribution. He will be returning this fall to the Alberta Tar Sands to create new work as well as to give a tour of the area to environmental journalists. He will also be touring and photographing the shale gas region of northeastern B.C. on the same trip.
Daniel Beltrá, “Discovery of the Year”
At the Lucie Awards held recently at the Lincoln Center in New York, Seattle-based Blue Earth project photographer Daniel Beltrá was awarded “Discovery of the Year” in the Professional Category at the 2011 International Photography Awards. View a gallery of his award-winning photos from his entry Gulf Oil Spill is online at the IPA website.
Our congratulations to Daniel!
Daniel Beltrá’s project with Blue Earth is Amazon: Forest At Risk. To view a gallery of photos from this project, visit his project page.
Florian Schulz’s Polar Bears In National Geographic
As part of his travels in the Arctic this summer, Blue Earth project photographer Florian Schulz produced a stunning series of photos featuring polar bears. If you have followed the news, it’s becoming increasingly apparent the dramatic effects global warming is producing in their Arctic habitat, seriously threatening their continued survival. A small gallery of his images from the trip is highlighted in National Geographic.
In addition, National Geographic has a behind the scenes video
profiling Schulz in working in the field, including his efforts in the
Svalbard archipelago capturing a polar bear feeding at the shoreline.
Conservation Photography As Pedagogy
Blue Earth project photographer Bruce Farnsworth has just published a new article “Conservation Photography as Environmental Education: Focus on the Pedagogues” in the journal Environmental Education Research (subscription required). In the article, he explores “the genre of conservation photography” as a “legitimate and highly relevant pedagogical enterprise.”
The study orients to the educational potential of photographs, recommends visual literacy training for teachers and suggests strategies for the discursive use of photographs in environmental education. Conservation photographers offer models for increased eco-visual-scientific literacy, superb resources for student engagement and new paths for community-based ecological education and research.
Our thanks to Bruce for continuing his research highlighting the important work being done by documentary, conservation photographers and contributing to our field!
Support Blue Earth At Think Tank Photo
Need a new camera bag? The folks at Think Tank Photo have generously offered to help support Blue Earth! Using the link above, 10% of the proceeds from all purchases at their store will go to help support Blue Earth’s mission to assist documentary photographers working to educate the public about critical issues.
Think Tank Photo is a group of designers and professional photographers focused on studying how photographers work, and developing inventive new carrying solutions to meet their needs. By focusing on “speed” and “accessibility,” we prepare photographers to Be Ready “Before The Moment,” allowing them to document those historic moments that reflect their personal visions and artistic talents. For some companies, it is only about the product. For us, it is more: It is about supporting photographers doing their job. If we can design products that help photographers travel easier, take pictures faster, and organize their gear more efficiently, then we will have accomplished something beyond the bags themselves.
If you are looking for some new gear for that upcoming expedition, check out Think Tank Photo and support Blue Earth!
Letter From Eastern Congo
I recently returned from seven weeks of fieldwork in South-Kivu Province in Eastern Congo, which borders Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. Since I started my Cameras without Borders: Photography for Healing and Peace project in Africa I had looked for an opportunity to work in the eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This chance presented itself when I met Pastor Aembe, President of the Great Lakes Foundation, who invited me to Eastern Congo to contribute to their group’s peace building efforts. We met in November 2010 while I lectured at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, as part of a three-month project in Uganda and Kenya.
Since the beginning of the Rwandan genocide in the early 1990s the neighboring parts of Congo have been in constant turmoil and states of war with terrible consequences for the local population and environment. Travel and photography permits are required, and a continual monitoring of the security situation is necessary while working in rural areas of South-Kivu Province.
Read more on the Blue Earth blog...
Daniel Beltrá Named Wildlife Photographer Of The Year
Seattle-based Blue Earth project photographer Daniel Beltrá has been named the 2011 Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year for his photo Still Life In Oil. This distinguished photo competition, now running for 47 years, is sponsored by the British Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine. Photos from the competition will be on exhibit in the Natural History Museum starting tomorrow through March 11, 2012.
Our congratulations to Daniel!
Daniel Beltrá’s project with Blue Earth is Amazon: Forest At Risk. To view a gallery of photos from this project, visit his project page.
Greg Constantine In Moving Walls 19
The Open Society Foundations Documentary Photography Project
announced Blue Earth project photographer Greg Constantine will be part of it’s Moving Walls 19 exhibition. The exhibition will feature Greg’s recent work from his series on Kenya’s Nubians, from his Blue Earth project Nowhere People, which recently went on exhibit in Nairobi.
Since 1998, Moving Walls has featured over 100 photographers whose work embodies the values of the Open Society Foundations. The exhibition recognizes the brave and difficult work that photographers undertake globally in their documentation of complex social and political issues. Their images provide the world with human rights evidence, put faces onto a conflict, document the struggles and defiance of marginalized people, reframe how issues are discussed publicly, and provide opportunities for reflection and discussion. Through Moving Walls, the Foundation honors this work while visually highlighting the mission of our foundation to staff and visitors.
The exhibition opens December 1, 2011, in the Foundations’ headquarters in New York before moving to Washington, D.C. in the fall of 2012.
Our congratulations to Greg!
PS - In case you missed it earlier, Greg provided an update from the field for our blog detailing some of his recent activities working with the UN.
Shooting From The Heart: Photography That Makes A Difference
Need some help creating your own photographic project? Download a free PDF copy of Blue Earth's highly regarded handbook for photographers developing documentary projects, Shooting From The Heart: Photography That Makes A Difference. This handbook contains several articles by experienced photographers offering advice on a variety of topics from grassroots fundraising and finding an audience to creating narratives that make an impression.
Through its educational efforts and active engagement in the professional community, Blue Earth strives to move forward the agenda of all documentary photographers and photojournalists.
This book is designed to help photographers to implement a documentary photographic project. It is written by experienced members of the board of Blue Earth and other volunteers with special and relevant expertise. The contents of this book roughly parallel the sequence of steps required to successfully create and complete a documentary project.
Also included are sample applications for project sponsorship by successful Blue Earth photographers along with detailed budgets and work plans. We encourage you to download a free PDF version of Shooting From The Heart and have a copy to keep as your own!
Gary Braasch, This Is Climate Change
Many of the 50,000 passengers passing through Reagan National airport in Washington DC daily will now see a different kind of advertisement in the concourse: a new public education initiative has installed a photographic billboard of ongoing climate change today.
This Is Climate Change, an educational project of the Del Mar Global Trust, put up the first of a series of large backlighted photographs yesterday, featuring my time series view of the shrinking Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska. As part ofWorld View of Global Warming, I rephotographed an 1894 image in 2008 to show the visible effect of global warming on the glacier near Juneau.
Read more on the Blue Earth blog...
Photography Store
Blue Earth has launched our new photography store! Great photography books, software, digital storage, and much more - any product sold at Amazon - and all at great prices for our friends and supporters. Help Blue Earth and our project photographers while shopping for your everyday photography supplies.
Blue Earth Receives PhotoWings Grant
Blue Earth is proud to announce that we have just received a $10,000 grant from PhotoWings. We would like to thank Suzie Katz, President and Founder of PhotoWings – as well as a longstanding member of the Blue Earth Advisory Board – for this very generous contribution to Blue Earth in support of our mission!
Blue Earth is a community of photographers, members, and supporters
working to raise awareness about endangered cultures, threatened
environments, and social concerns through photography. Without the
support of our members and committed sponsors such as PhotoWings, we
would not be able sponsor so many amazing projects.
Like Blue Earth, PhotoWings is an organization dedicated to promoting positive change in our world through photography.
PhotoWings’ mission is to highlight and help facilitate the power of photography to influence the world. PhotoWings is a vehicle for bringing together people from divergent perspectives who share an interest in photography, whether from a need to help illustrate an important cause or for the pure passion for images.
The PhotoWings website hosts an impressive collection of resources
for photographers, including extensive directories on all aspects of
photography from finding funding and publishing to copyright guides and
lesson plans for photography classes. Visitors to PhotoWings will also
find a collection of interviews with photographers, curators, and
photography scholars discussing their work.
Once again, our thanks to PhotoWings and Suzie Katz for their ongoing commitment to Blue Earth’s mission!
Greg Constantine From The Field
It’s been awhile since I last wrote for the Blue Earth blog, but there have been some very exciting developments with my project over the past few months I wanted to share.
Read more on the Blue Earth blog...