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News from BDSJS and Facing Climate Change
An update on Facing Climate Change
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.
Back to Bell Rapids
Before the snow began to fall, I made a quick trip out to Hagerman, Idaho to revisit the Bell Rapids agricultural development for Facing Climate Change. Sara and I completed most of our fieldwork for that story in 2010, but it’s a tale of change in Big Sky Country and I knew I had to get above it. (Field notes from our first trip are here.)
Once again I turned to LightHawk for help. LightHawk is an organization that supports environmental initiatives with mission-based flights and this was our third collaboration for Facing Climate Change. With beautiful clear weather, pilot Dennis Fitzpatrick and I spent several hours in his Cessna working our way up the Snake River and over the 25,000 acres of abandoned fields.
What had been missing from our coverage – the scale of this economic shift and landscape-level change – was easily captured from the air. I made images of ghost pivots (the abandoned tracks of irrigation systems) under the shadows of new wind turbines, empty potato barns with their roofs blown off, and the Snake River winding its way through the dry plain.
A big thanks to Dennis and LightHawk and stay tuned for the release of this piece and the rest of our new climate change series later this year!
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.
Paddle to Swinomish
In late July over a hundred tribes and First Nations from the US and Canada paddled towards the Swinomish reservation near La Conner, WA. The Tribal Canoe Journey takes place each summer in the Salish Sea, and this year the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community was the host. On the first day of the event, the host tribe formally grants the visiting canoes permission to come ashore to eat, rest, and share songs, dances and stories. Most of the canoes are paddled by youth, and for many of them the journey is an opportunity to learn and reconnect to the traditional ways of canoe culture.
Climate Solutions Breakfast
On May 10th, Climate Solutions held their annual fundraising breakfast at the Westin Hotel in downtown Seattle. This year’s speaker was Bill Gates who spoke to the 1200 attendees about the importance of investing in clean energy technologies. We were amazed by the sheer scale of the event; in an hour and a half the organization raised $488k for their invaluable work. We exhibited seven large prints from Facing Climate Change at the breakfast. The images were on display in the foyer and at the VIP reception. A big thanks to Savitha Pathi at Climate Solutions for the invitation.
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