A special note for Seattle-based students and others interested in professional photography.

Blue Earth project photographer Annie Marie Musselman is looking for a photography intern to assist her with basic office tasks in her Seattle studio.  Duties include, amongst others, filing, sorting, QuickBooks documentation, and invoicing.  Requirements include a love of animals, organization skills, and flexible schedule.  If interested, please contact anniemaries@comcast.net.

-Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

This week was the 3^rd annual Microsoft Pro Photo Summit - a 2-day event that brings together renowned professional photographers and industry leaders to discuss the top issues affecting the industry.

Photo courtesy of Jeff Greene, Microsoft

Blue Earth was prominently featured in a 30-minute presentation by nature and wildlife photographer Florian Schulz. Florian showed examples of current and past Blue Earth projects, and spoke from the heart about how Blue Earth helped him get “Yellowstone to Yukon” off the ground. He followed that with a presentation of his own inspiring images and videos, including recent work documenting the coastal ecosystems from Baja California to Alaska’s Beaufort Sea. Florian highlighted the importance of creating wildlife corridors linking existing parks and public lands, to preserve habitats and ensure diverse and healthy ecosystems. 

Also speaking at the summit was world renown nature photographer, Frans Lanting. Frans gave the opening day photographer keynote, presenting images and poems from his Blue Earth sponsored project, “Life: A Journey through Time”.  His talk can be found here.

For more info on the Pro Photo Summit, see Jeff Greene’s blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/prophoto/.

- Larry Ockene, Blue Earth Board President

At our board’s annual retreat earlier this year, we had a lively discussion about ways that Blue Earth could increase our connection with our global community.  While we’re proud of our web site and newsletters, they are time consuming to produce and update, somewhat impersonal, and don’t provide means for two-way communication.  We needed a vehicle for reporting on topics of interest, and bringing in the diverse voices of our community.  Hence was born this blog.

There will, of course, be compelling imagery.  But we’ll deepen the dialog by telling the stories behind the photographs – covering not just the issues, but revealing the human side of a journalist’s experiences in the field.  Through this forum, you’ll hear from our sponsored photographers, board members and advisors, and others who share in our mission to raise awareness about endangered cultures, threatened environments and social concerns through photography.

We encourage you to add your voice to the dialog, and support us in using the power of photographic storytelling to motivate society to make positive changes.

- Larry Ockene, Blue Earth Board President