We’ve been working with a lot of great clients recently, which hasn’t left us with much time for our personal project, Facing Climate Change. However, we have some exciting news to share!

Over the summer and fall we received two generous contributions that allow us to focus exclusively on finishing a new series of stories, based in the Pacific Northwest, through this spring. One of the grants came from the Kongsgaard-Goldman Foundation for $8,000 and the other is from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for $12,000.

The other good news is that we have a new project partner, the Washington State Department of Ecology. They helped us connect with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and we plan to work with them to distribute the stories through a series of community events next summer. It turns out that our series fits perfectly with a community outreach mandate they have for their upcoming Climate Change Response Strategy.

You can learn more about Facing Climate Change on our website, and follow our progress over the coming months on this blog.

When the Institute first approached us about creating a story for their 25th anniversary, they didn’t necessarily have a workshop in mind. But the more we discussed the project – along with the organization’s expanding needs, staff interest and new website – building in-house capacity to produce videos and multimedia made the most sense.

The workshop took place over five days on Canoe Island in the San Juans. In the months leading up to our week together, three Institute staff members – Amy, Christian and Jessica – purchased a video camera and learned how to use it, conducted a dozen interviews, transcribed them into more than 60,000 words, and sorted through archival footage.

We spent Monday setting up workstations, reviewing transcripts, identifying major themes and a story outline, and sharing relevant examples. The next morning we got out our highlighters and scissors, identified relevant quotes from the transcripts and sorted them by theme: in this case, where did we come from and why does our work matter? We chose passages that most efficiently communicated this message and sequenced them into a rough paper edit. This took most of the day.

We decided to use this cut-and-sort approach because of the large amount of source material, and because it allowed multiple people to work on the transcript at one time. This is the same process that I use at home, except that rather than physically cut apart my transcripts, I usually copy and paste them into a document. We always create a paper edit before we begin to work in Final Cut.

With the paper edit complete, piecing the audio together moved relatively quickly. I should mention that this was our first time using Final Cut X, and Benj and I have since decided to integrate the program into our own workflow. Once we had what I refer to as a “radio edit,” the group gave it a listen and made a list of changes.

On Thursday, I worked with Amy to finalize the radio edit, while Christian and Benj began placing video and sequencing visuals that Jessica provided from the Institute’s extensive archive. This work continued late into the night. Friday, we watched a draft of the video and made a list of changes. We quit just in time to paddle a kayak around the island.

Amy, Christian and Jessica returned to the Institute and finished sequencing visuals and filling holes. We spent one more day together, learning about color correction, titles, compression and putting on the final touches.

We hope you’ll watch The High Ridge, and join North Cascades Institute in celebrating their next 25 years in the North Cascades.

After the last workshop we added more than 30 new conversations to the website, bringing the grand total up to 99. But that’s not all that’s new. Originally called From Decline to Rebirth, the project has a brand-new name: The Natural Histories Project. And there is now a short video to introduce it.

With all of this new stuff, the Natural History Network decided it was time for a website that would help the organization to maximize the impact of the workshops and this project. So we worked with our good friend and frequent collaborator Darin Reid to build them one.

“It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a naturalist,” says the Network’s vice-president Josh Tewksbury, “perhaps the most exciting time to be a naturalist that has ever existed on this planet.” We hope you will watch our new video to find out why, join the Network and (most importantly) get out to practice your own natural histories!

Believe it or not, the hardest part about being a documentary photography team is not finding important stories and making great photographs, it’s raising the money to do that work. Since 2007, Blue Earth has provided us with vital fundraising support for Facing Climate Change. Last week they held their seventh annual print lottery in downtown Seattle.

As our project’s fiscal sponsor, Blue Earth enables us to apply for grants that require 501(c)3 status, and to offer tax-deductible contributions to individuals. They have also provided us with a network of other photographers working on environmental and social issues. Currently, Blue Earth selectively sponsors over 20 projects.

A year ago, we were invited to join Blue Earth’s Board of Directors as the organization’s first project representatives. As Board members, our goal is to encourage project photographers to get more involved with the organization. And we’re on the right track, almost half of our project photographers attended the print lottery last week!

Our thanks goes out to everyone who helped to make the event a success. It was a fun evening, full of good food, great photography, and old and new friends. If you were unable to make it, you can still support the important work of Blue Earth by becoming a member.

Above: We donated this image from our series “The Tinder People” to the event.

The project came about through a Larson Fellowship that we received from Carleton College. This small grant allowed us to traverse the Peruvian Andes during the fall of 2001. Upon our return, we combined my writing and Benj’s photographs into a hand-bound book and multimedia presentation.

Loving each other. Loving what we do. Every moment of it.

People were giving us chicha beer, cheese, laughing at me trying Quechua words. A man asked why we didn’t bring tv’s and radios from the United States. At least, he said, buy a carrot, two carrots. Women joked, told us to take their smallest children. They gave us bread. They wanted to know about me, about money, about the World Trade Center. They taught me Quechua words for where are you staying and I love you too much. They wanted to know where we were going and when we could come back. They told us our names were beautiful.

“What I love about this project is that it is both a true celebration of natural history  – which is inspiring in itself – but it is also something that can speak to very diverse audiences. It shows the faces of natural history – young and old, male and female, diverse backgrounds. It shows that anyone can be a natural historian, and that everyone can find a reason to care about this field, whether or not it is part of their profession.”

Read Hayley’s full post.

At the end of March, the Natural History Initiative held its second and third workshops, focused on the themes of education and research. We documented the first of these workshops, which explored the topic of natural history and society, back in January – creating a series of broadsides and the interactive website, declinetorebirth.org. Well, we’ve just added more than 40 new conversations about the future of natural history. Here are quotes from a few of my favorites:

SAUL WEISBERG
“When I think of a rebirth of natural history, I’m thinking of a whole bunch more people doing it. You can always have more people doing it. I also think of people recognizing, and making the connection between, all of the branches of science and art and realizing that natural history is the root of that. I’m not trying to say we need to recognize natural history as the big umbrella, but it’s the little root tendrils of all of this, and if we get disconnected from the roots we’re going to lose something really important. If we keep connected to the roots, all those branches can keep growing and grow really strongly. When I’m thinking of a rebirth, that’s where I want to go.”
listen »

GARY MACHLIS
“He told me, rather shyly and certainly without braggadocio at all, how two years before the earthquake he had his high school students build from scratch – a seismograph.  And they learned to maintain their seismograph, and read it properly, and understand earthquake physics, and geology, and history, and learn first responding, how to respond to an earthquake and how to do first aid. He taught them all that, and when the earthquake came…” listen »

STEPHANIE HAMPTON
“Well, I have to admit that I felt a little bit alienated when people were equating natural history so much with the outdoors. . . I would argue that my connection with plankton is just as strong as somebody else’s connection with a forest. And that happened in the lab.” listen »

ROBERT PAINE
“Anemones have odd cellular structures so that they don’t suffer from aging. I’ve watched one anemone out there; it’s sort of become a pet. My first trip to this island in 1968, there it was, the same size in the same place. And last year, there it was, same size, same place. People probably wish they could be anemone-like.” listen »

Visit declinetorebirth.org to hear the rest of these conversations, and many more. We’ll have additional new content after the fourth and final synthesis workshop in June.

ABOVE: Workshop participants sit beneath broadsides that showcase portraits and quotes from the previous day’s conversations.

Pathways for Youth is an effort to create the next generation of public lands stewards and National Park Service employees. By deliberately connecting existing programs and partnerships, North Cascades is creating a continuum of meaningful park-based experiences. Our story follows several young people who discuss their own unique pathways through educational programs, internships and seasonal employment.

The visuals for this piece are primarily video interviews and video portraits. We set up a mobile studio and filmed all 10 interviews over one long day during a youth leadership conference at North Cascades Environmental Learning Center.

Visualizing the youth’s pathways presented the perfect opportunity for us to experiment with motion graphics and we employed a simple trail motif to tie experiences together. For music, we once again worked with Nick Drummond‘s ever-evolving collection of riffs and melodies.

We enjoyed this opportunity to collaborate with a few old friends from the North Cascades and hope the piece will help the Park continue to create opportunities for the next generation of stewards.

2/27/11 UPDATE: North Cascades National Park received almost $400,000 to expand the Pathways for Youth program in 2011. Congratulations to all involved! Read more

Our new Hozomeen story has been getting some play, and we wanted to share a couple of favorite blog posts about it. The first is from our friend, Eric de Place at Sightline Daily. Check out his review and read a passage about Hozomeen from Jack Keroauc’s Desolation Angels, “Hozomeen, Hozomeen, most beautiful mountain I ever seen. . . ”

Next, Tim Matsui interviewed Benj about our new story for his blog, The Chronicles. I love the connection Tim makes between old tools, like the ones made out of Hozomeen chert, and new tools, like the ones we used to create this story.

You can also read about Hozomeen on North Cascades Institute’s Chattermarks blog, Nau’s The Thought Kitchen, Aurora Select’s email newsletter, and North Cascades National Park’s video page.

A big thanks to everyone who’s helping to share this story!

The Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission (SEEC) first approached us to tell this story last winter. They had recently hosted an event called the Hozomeen Gathering, which brought together Washington tribes, British Columbia First Nations, archeologists, anthropologists, agency representatives and others to share knowledge and honor the long history of indigenous involvement with the upper Skagit watershed. Having completed a documentary video about that event, they wanted us to select one of the themes from the Gathering and tell a more focused story, a short piece that would capture the essence of Hozomeen: the place, its people and their intertwined history.

The challenge was selecting a single access point to such a monumental landscape and narrowing down the many voices that share a common interest in Hozomeen. When we learned about park archeologist Bob Mierendorf’s work with Hozomeen chert, we were excited by the tool stone’s ability to connect people with the landscape. We also thought that it would provide a good opportunity to explore the complex relationship between archeology and oral histories. So, with Bob as our main character, we selected other voices and perspectives to support our story: Canadian archeologist, Dave Schaepe; Sonny McHalsie, cultural advisor for the Stolo First Nation; and Larry Campbell, historic preservation officer for the Swinomish Tribal Community.

Having narrowed the focus and identified our characters, it was time to begin the fieldwork. Between June and September we spent three days with Bob. One of the many highlights was photographing artifacts from the archive in Marblemount and then visiting some of the sites where they came from. We also spent an afternoon with Larry, one day in British Columbia, and one day shooting aerials with help from LightHawk pilot Linda Chism — a total of six days of fieldwork for a seven-minute story.

Once we had all of these assets, we worked with Benj’s brother, Nick Drummond to compose a musical score. This was the first time we’ve worked with Nick on a client story. It’s very rewarding to use music that’s specifically designed for a story in terms of tone, scale, and even theme. In some places Nick used rocks that he found in his backyard for small percussion.

SEEC was created in 1984 when the High Ross Treaty prevented the further raising of Ross Dam and potential flooding in the American and Canadian Skagit Valley. Our newest multimedia story will help them achieve their unique mission to promote education, research, collaboration and cross-border stewardship of the Upper Skagit Valley. It currently appears on their website and will be featured on National Park Service’s website and in live presentations.

» View story

1/12/11 UPDATE: Tim Matsui posted an interview with us that includes more details on how this story came together, here.

“What’s it like to try to breath on a high pollution day? Do ten jumping jacks, hold your nose, and breath through this.” Aileen Gagney from the American Lung Association handed me a thin bar straw.

For the human health story from our new Facing Climate Change series, we’ve been exploring how climate-related air pollution impacts people who have asthma. As temperatures rise, researchers project an increase in the number of days where ground-level ozone concentrations exceed regulatory standards. The ozone is created when sunlight reacts with emissions from vehicles and other sources, and it makes people who have asthma suffer more attacks. Those most likely to be hit hardest by health consequences like this include low-income families and seniors, another opportunity to consider climate equity.

We’ll be working with the King County Department of Health over the coming weeks to bring this issue to life. Check back soon for updates on our new stories.

In 35 years the State of Idaho went from selling this land for around $1/acre, basically begging farmers to make the desert bloom, to buying the water rights back for almost $1,000/acre. What’s left is a sort of post-apocalyptic landscape of sheet metal barns with telephone numbers still scrawled on the doors, houses with boots under beds and paystubs in kitchens, four million pounds of dry steel pipe that used to carry Snake River water, and some enormous new wind turbines.

Benj and I worked long days, photographing at sunrise and sunset and interviewing farmers in between. We spent nights in the back of our truck up on the plateau, just us, the wheatgrass and wind. Except for the first night, when we woke up to find a pair of tiny headlights making their way across the empty space. As the vehicle got closer, the driver flipped on a spotlight and we knew someone had called the police. After a few minutes of questioning, a second officer arrived on the crime scene. Once we convinced them that we were taking pictures, not old farm equipment, they turned into the friendliest cops we’ve ever met.

We spent a lot of time chasing light down straight dusty roads laid out in a one-mile grid. (Bell Rapids Road becomes the 400 road. If you follow that to the 5600 road over to the 300 and up to the 5700, the light will inevitably be better back down the 400 to the 5500.) 25,000 acres is a lot of ground to cover — for us and for the Snake River water that once made these fields green.

One of the places we visited was near a new wind farm and we all had to wear hardhats, which made it difficult to bend over to dig roots. It also made it tough to wear headphones, though that was only one of the many challenges with trying to record audio in 35 mile-an-hour winds. We were mostly looking for bitterroot, or Lewisia rediviva (think green sea urchine meets pink kleenex), and digging for it beneath towering wind turbines was like walking the ridge between ancient practice and modern technology.

After you dig bitterroot you have to prepare them for eating, and it takes three times as much effort to peel one as it does to pull it out of the ground. In that sense, gathering roots is like making a good story. Once you have all the pieces, the hard work begins. In the coming months we will edit Benj’s images, log my wind-blown audio and shape these nuggets into a story about how climate change impacts traditional foods.