Deep Hanging Out at Collaborations for Cause

Posted 11 May 2012 by Sara in Announcements, Exhibits and Presentations

I’m happy to report that Collaborations for Cause, Blue Earth’s first annual storytelling retreat for photographers, nonprofits and communications professionals, was a huge success! Over a hundred people from places like Seattle, British Columbia, South Carolina and New Mexico joined us on Whidbey Island for two days of “deep hanging out” (see Scott Macklin’s four Rs of storytelling below).

Benj and I shared six case studies from recent projects. Benj also moderated a fantastic panel on publishing, partnerships and environmental advocacy, featuring Hellen Cherullo from Mountaineers Books, Dan Ritzman from the Sierra Club and Gary Hawkey from ioColor. The group discussed To the Arctic, an inspiring new photography book by our friend Florian Schulz. Florian himself gave a powerful keynote later that evening.

There were too many other amazing speakers and topics to list in this post, but here are five bits of storytelling wisdom that I came home with:

“Engagement first, stories second… Don’t just tell stories, give them something to do.”
— Dan Green, Gates Foundation

“Vision is more than a collection of opinions. It’s what ought to be.”
— Milenko Matanovic, Pomegranate Center

“Don’t dumb it down, break it up.”
— Suzie Katz, PhotoWings

“Hope is not a strategy, but it’s core to our work.”
— Helen Cherullo, Mountaineers Books

And here are the four Rs of storytelling according to Scott Macklin, Associate Director of the Master of Communications in Digital Media program at the UW:

• Relationship: Don’t just create stories about people. Make stories with them.
• Relevance: Ensure your story is relevant through “deep hanging out.”
• Rigor: Practice your craft.
• Result: It’s not all about getting an “A” on the first draft.

Finally, Cathy Britt (@CathyABritt) from the Burke Museum put together a comprehensive summary of key points, tweets and case studies:
storify.com/CathyABritt/collaborations-for-cause

A big thanks to everyone who came out. Get ready for an even bigger and better retreat next year!

All photos © Tim Matsui.

Collaborations for Cause

Posted 15 April 2012 by Benj in Announcements, Multimedia, Photography

Collaborations for Cause: A retreat for nonprofits, change-makers and visual storytellers.

This May 4th and 5th, Blue Earth is bringing together photographers, NGOs and communications professionals to explore best practices, synergy and the collaborative future of storytelling. Whether you work with an organization that’s trying to reach new audiences, or are a photographer interested in cause-driven projects, you’ll leave the retreat with new ideas, strategies and connections.

We helped put together the program and if you’ve been interested in taking a workshop with us, this will be even better. We’ll present the backstory to a few of our recent projects during an event packed with folks from Braided River, The Gates Foundation, FusionSpark, Pandau,The University of Washington, Blue Earth and more.

The retreat will be hosted by the Langley Center for New Media on Whidbey Island, just an hour north of Seattle. Enjoy an early bird registration discount through April 25.

Full details at blueearth.org.

Impossible Bird

Posted 10 April 2012 by Benj in Announcements, Photography

My brother and our musical collaborator, Nick Drummond, is about to release a new CD! The self-titled EP, Impossible Bird, is a new project with Tyler Carson. I contributed all the album photography and design. Read The Seattle Weekly’s review, listen to a sample track below and then join them for the Seattle CD release party on April 28, 2012.

 
Impossible Bird: Here I Am

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Blue Earth Photo Contest

Posted 9 February 2012 by Benj in Announcements

Blue Earth, a nonprofit organization that helps photographers complete documentary projects on environmental and social issues, has announced a new photo contest. They’re looking for images that exemplify their mission to raise awareness about endangered cultures, threatened environments and social concerns through photography. Jurors include Jason Houston, picture editor at Orion, Gary Halpern, president of PhotoMedia, and Eric J Keller of Soulcather Studio. Think Tank has donated three beautiful bags to go along with the cash prize. Enter by March 31, 2012. Full details here.

Ecosystem Services in Tanzania

Posted 10 November 2011 by Benj in Announcements, Photography

We made one final trip to Africa this year. In August, we returned to Tanzania’s southern highlands for Conservation International and the TEAM Network to build an image library and exhibit in support of the project’s next chapter.

“Most conservation science today isn’t ambitious enough,” says TEAM’s Sandy Andelman. “We are informing battles, but we are not providing the knowledge needed, at the scale needed, to win the war.” To meet this challenge, Conservation International, the Earth Institute and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation envision a monitoring network that combines ecological, agriculture and socioeconomic data from around the world. The approach is similar to TEAM’s biodiversity monitoring work, but the focus is ecosystem services and the scale is huge: 400 sites within two or three years.

To help bring this vision to life, we visited southern Tanzania to produce an image library and exhibit. We accompanied researchers collecting micro-climate data from farmers’ fields, installed camera traps on the steep slopes of Udzungwa National Park, and tried to show the link between intact ecosystems and the foods, fuelwood and clean water that communities depend on.

Though successful, the trip was not without challenges. Many of the “services” on our shot list were either highly restricted or illegal. A huge thanks to Joseph Martin, Emanuel Martin and Miller Sanga who went above and beyond to help us find what we needed. (Most tourists are looking for lions, not people doing laundry or making charcoal.)

Upon our return, we quickly produced a dozen large-format prints for a donor meeting in New York. (More details on the meeting can be found at nature.com.) The exhibit will continue to travel in 2012.

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