Blog
News from BDSJS and Facing Climate Change
On the outside
A short, uplifting postscript on our Connecting Prisons with Nature video we produced two years ago for the Sustainable Prisons Project:
Daniel Travatte, the bee-keeping inmate, was recently profiled in the Kitsap Sun. He was released from prison last June and is now raising 70,000 bees professionally. Read the full story at the Kitsap Sun.
The captive-rearing program for the Oregon-spotted frog continues to exceed expectations. Earlier this year, egg nests were found at the release site, indicating that the frogs had survived and were beginning to reproduce in the wild. Last week, 163 new frogs were taken to Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Harry Greer was able release the frogs himself. Harry, an inmate who has worked on the project since its inception, is now on work release. Read more on the SPP Blog.
The Natural Histories Project
In June the Natural History Initiative held a fourth and final synthesis workshop at North Cascades Environmental Learning Center. Throughout this year we documented the first three of these workshops (focused on natural history and society, education and research), recording conversations between pairs of participants and combining them with intimate portraits. The results are featured as a series of broadsides and an interactive website.
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!
Blue Earth Print Lottery
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.
Anniversaries
Benj and I had our first wedding anniversary this August, though we lived and worked together for ten years before we got married. In fact, ten years ago this September we embarked on our first major collaboration: Bone Wood Alpaca, an exploration of people and landscape in the high Peruvian Andes.
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.
Nick Drummond’s new album
Our frequent musical collaborator (and my brother), Nick Drummond, is about to release an impressive new solo album. I spent the weekend designing the disc packaging and other collateral. Listen to the first single from the album or join us at the release party at Seattle’s Triple Door on June 3.
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