Blue Earth project photographer Daniel Beltrá is participating in a new exhibit in Aspen focusing on the ongoing Gulf oil spill disaster “SPILL - Crude Response: oil, plastics and perspective.”  The exhibit coincides with the current Gulf oil and climate discussions at the Aspen Institute’s Environment Forum.

SPILL shows us how artists experience environmental issues, and how we are all in it together. The exhibition was created to give policy and industry leaders an artistic way of looking at the Gulf Oil Spill. SPILL artists bring us real life stories of tragedy and hope, from their eyes, and the idea that we need to continue to focus on how important and vital the ocean is to our collective daily existence.

Participating artists include Daniel Beltrá, Aurora Robson, and Kenji Williams.  The exhibit opens today, July 28 and runs through September 25, 2010 at the 212 Gallery.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

Blue Earth project photographer Greg Constantine has just opened a new exhibit at The Go Down Arts Centre in Nairobi, Kenya featuring new work from his project Nowhere People.

Kenya’s Nubians: Then & Now is the first exhibition in Africa for photographer Greg Constantine (USA, b. 1970).  The Nubian community has lived in Kenya for over 100 years.  Brought to Kenya by the British in the late 1800s, Nubians served for the British in the King’s African Rifles during WWI and WWII and were vital in the development of East Africa.  Unable to return to their homeland, the British designated over 4000 acres of land for the Nubians and their families to settle on.  The Nubians named the land, Kibra or ‘land of forest’.  After Kenyan Independence, the Nubian community has historically been denied recognition and has been one of Kenya’s most invisible and under-represented communities.  Over the past 40 years, hundreds of thousands of rural migrants have flooded into Nairobi in search of work and Kibra has been the land where they’ve been encouraged to settle.  Eventually the Nubian settlement of Kibra would turn into Kibera, one of the largest slums in Africa.

Kenya’s Nubians: Then & Now combines rare, historical photographs of the Nubian community in Kenya with Constantine’s own work on the community’s struggle for recognition.  The exhibition aims to promote the dynamic and rich heritage of a community few in Kenya are aware of, and it intends to help tell the story of one of Kenya’s communities who, as one Nubian elder described is, “being squeezed into extinction.”

The exhibit runs through August 14, 2010 and will be accompanied by an outdoor exhibition/installation in the Kibera slum (outside Nairobi) from August 13-15.  After Kenya, the exhibit will travel to London - keep an eye out for details.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

In case you can’t make his exhibit at the Museum Of New Art, Blue Earth project photographer Jeffrey Sauger will open a new exhibit at the Jack Hanley Gallery.  The exhibit features work from his project Where Furrows Run Deep, documenting the plight of African American farmers in the rural South.

The exhibit runs July 6-30th, 2010 at the Jack Hanley Gallery, New York (136 Watts).  If you will be in New York, be sure not to miss the show!

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

Blue Earth project photographer Jeffrey Sauger just opened a new exhibit at the Museum of New Art.  The exhibit features work from his project Where Furrows Run Deep, documenting the plight of African American farmers in the rural South.

Through these images, I hope for the audience to make a connection to the people who have opened their lives to me, to become more informed about the plight of the African American farmer, to acknowledge the existence of institutional racism that still pervades our society and to have an honest and open conversation about it.  In these tough economic times, many people can likely relate to the physical, emotional and financial struggles of the American family farmer.

The exhibit is open now through July 17, 2010 at the Museum of New Art, 7 North Saginaw Street in Pontiac, Michigan.  If you are in the area, be sure not to miss the show!

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

In Goma, DR Congo, on Feb. 4 2009. Children arrive at a temporary resting place before being reunited with their families by the ICRC. Ozias Kambale Pimo, 11 from Kiwanja speaks about whether his parents are still alive. (c) Ron Haviv

The Seattle Center’s Harrison Street Gallery is hosting Our World at War: Photojournalism Beyond the Front Lines, an exhibit sponsored by the American Red Cross Serving King & Kitsap Counties and Seattle Center Productions.

The exhibit offers a unique and first-hand look at what war and armed violence do to people’s lives - from the heartbreaking loneliness of an elderly woman made homeless by last year’s war between Georgia and Russia to the unbridled joy of two brothers reunited after being separated by fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Forty unforgettable images of war-torn Afghanistan, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Georgia, Haiti, Lebanon, Liberia, and the Philippines by renowned war photographers Ron Haviv, James Nachtwey, Antonin Kratochvil, Franco Pagetti and Christopher Morris will be on display.

The Our World at War exhibit opens June 26 at the Seattle Center’s Harrison Street Gallery, 305 Harrison Street, and runs through August 15.  Free and open to the public, 9 a.m.-9 p.m. daily.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

The ICP Award winners have been announced, and now it’s time for the exhibit!  The 2010 International Conservation Photography Awards exhibit will be hosted by the Burke Museum and will feature the winning photographs and honorable mentions from the 2010 ICP Awards.  Over 75 conservation photographs from around the world will be on display from June 19 - Sept. 6, 2010.

If you will be in the Seattle area, be sure not to miss this unique exhibit!

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

We could all use a few tips from an expert when it comes to wildlife photography!  Florian Schulz recently appeared on The Marc Silber Show to discuss his ongoing work, his unique perspective on photography as an “adventure,” and to offer a few concise tips for shooting in the wild.  Florian is not only a Blue Earth sponsored photographer with his extensive, ongoing project on wildlife migration corridors, but also an award winning conservation photographer recognized as one of the emerging stars.

It’s a rare opportunity to hear stories from the field first-hand, so be sure to check out the interview - and don’t forget your notebook!

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

© Benjamin Drummond & Sara Joy Steele

We are pleased to note that Benjamin Drummond & Sara Joy Steele’s Blue Earth project Facing Climate Change will be featured at the offices of SRG Partnership during the Living Future 2010 “UnConference for Deep Green Professionals” to be held in Seattle May 5-7, 2010.  They will be exhibiting with two other local artists Sara Osebold and Vaughn Bell.  If you are attending the conference, or just happen to be in the area, be sure not to miss the exhibit.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

This is your last chance to see the popular Photo Center Northwest exhibit Blue Earth: Art as Activism, a new show featuring three Blue Earth photographic projects.  The exhibit closes this weekend Sunday, February 28, 2010.   For his project Amazon Forest At Risk, Daniel Beltrá photographs the threats to the Amazon rainforest and inspires an appreciation of the plants, animals and people that depend on it. Heather McClintock’s project, The Innocent: Casualties of the Civil War in Northern Uganda is a collaboration of trust and discovery, from the vantage point of the children living in the war-torn region. In her project Life in Peril: Tanzanian Albino People, Rozarii Lynch documents the atrocities currently being committed against albino people in Tanzania, and the social, health, and economic issues they face.

Blue Earth: Art as Activism

Exhibition Dates: January 22 - February 28, 2010
Location: Photo Center NW, 900 12th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122

Daniel Beltrá - Amazon: Forest at Risk

The ancient rainforest of the vast Amazon basin represents over half the world’s remaining tropical forests. This verdant wilderness is one of our richest ecosystems, harboring the greatest biodiversity on the planet. And, this forest is vital to the world’s atmospheric health as almost 25% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come directly from tropical forest clearance. Burning down the Amazon contributes significantly to global warming. Since 2001 Daniel has photographed the changing forest, witnessing both the worst drought in living memory and one of the river’s most extensive floods. He has documented the burning of thousands of acres of untouched rainforest. By continuing to document the threats to the forest’s wildlife and local inhabitants he presents a powerful argument for their protection.

Heather McClintock - The Innocent: Casualties of the Civil War in Northern Uganda

The Innocent is a collaboration of trust and discovery, from the vantage point of the children living in the war-torn region of northern Uganda. Despite living amidst conflict, these children are resilient enough to show the courage, strength of will, and hope that exists within the human spirit. For more than twenty-two years, the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been engaged in an armed rebellion against the government’s military, the Ugandan Peoples Defense Force (UPDF). The Acholi tribe has been caught in the middle of this complex and barbaric civil war, in which countless numbers have been brutalized and abducted minors comprised almost 90% of the rebel soldiers. It is estimated that as many as 66,000 children have been abducted by the LRA, wrenched from their families and forced to become soldiers and sex slaves. The Acholi are a proud and gracious people who want nothing more than to be educated, sleep safely in their own homes, have food to eat and clothing on their backs, to live in peace; no different than you and I.

Rozarii Lynch - Life in Peril: Tanzanian Albino People

Despite being a significant portion of the population, albino people in Tanzania are under- represented and largely misunderstood. Under the searing sun they suffer greatly-physically and socially. They face significant health problems such as poor vision and a high incidence of skin cancer. They also endure widespread discrimination, a lack of education, and limited financial and health resources. Compounding this misfortune, albino people in Tanzania are now commonly hunted, mutilated and murdered. Their body parts, believed by some people to have magical powers, are sold to witchdoctors who make “get rich quick” potions which are traded to those seeking fortune. By documenting the atrocities currently being committed against albino people in Tanzania, and, the social, health and economic issues they face in general, this project aims to raise international awareness and effect positive change for their situation.

© John Trotter

The Ansel Adams Gallery and Blue Earth are proud to host an inspiring lecture series and photo exhibit featuring our dramatically changing planet titled “Changing Earth: Photographer’s Call to Action” at Mumm Napa Fine Art Photography Gallery through March 13, 2010.

The fourth in our Mumm Napa lecture series will feature “The Future of the Colorado River and the American Southwest,” a presentation by Blue Earth project photographer John Trotter on Saturday, March 6th 2010, 10:30-11:30 a.m.

“The Colorado’s modern notoriety… stems not from its wild rapids and plunging canyons but from the fact that it is the most legislated, most debated, and most litigated river in the entire world.” Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert

“What will the American Southwest look like when the great reservoirs storing Colorado River water are emptied by the combined effects of drought and overuse, a future, which now appears inevitable?,” asks John Trotter. “How dependent have we become on a model of endless growth that itself depends on a finite amount of water? In this presentation, we’ll view photos from the river’s headwaters to its desiccated delta for a glimpse of how we have reached this point.”

A native of Missouri, John Trotter worked as a newspaper photojournalist for fourteen years, on stories large and small, local and international. He photographed events ranging from local elections to national political conventions and covered United States military interventions in Panama, Somalia and Haiti. Some of his work from Somalia was part of a United Nations exhibition on that country’s massive famine in 1992. On March 24, 1997, while on assignment in Sacramento, California for The Sacramento Bee, he was nearly beaten to death by a half-dozen young men. During his long recovery from that attack he photographed Sierra Gates, a brain injury rehabilitation residence, where he himself had lived after his release from the hospital. Those photographs have been published and exhibited in Europe and the United States and a book of them is forthcoming. On the fourth anniversary of his attack, Trotter took the first pictures for his project on the enormous pressure of human development on the Colorado River, which is ongoing. He has lived in Brooklyn, New York, the Oakland of Manhattan, since 2000.

Mumm Napa Winery is located at 8445 Silverado Trail, Rutherford, CA 94573.  For directions call (707) 967-7700.  Visitor center and fine art photography gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.  Series lectures are free and open to the public, but please RSVP at (707) 967-7740 to guarantee seating.

We would like to thank SanDisk for sponsoring the lecture series and our friends at PhotoAlliance for generously helping to publicize the lectures.

Don’t forget! This Friday evening Photo Center Northwest is hosting a reception for Blue Earth: Art as Activism, an exhibition featuring three Blue Earth photographic projects. The artist reception, Friday, February 5th, 6-9 p.m., will feature brief presentations by all three artists. For his project Amazon Forest At Risk, Daniel Beltrá photographs the threats to the Amazon rainforest and inspires an appreciation of the plants, animals and people that depend on it. Heather McClintock’s project, The Innocent: Casualties of the Civil War in Northern Uganda is a collaboration of trust and discovery, from the vantage point of the children living in the war-torn region. In her project Life in Peril: Tanzanian Albino People, Rozarii Lynch documents the atrocities currently being committed against albino people in Tanzania, and the social, health, and economic issues they face.

Blue Earth: Art as Activism
Artists’ Lectures and Opening Reception
Friday, February 5th, 6-9 p.m.
Lecture Tickets: $6 regular, $4 members, 206.720.7222 ext 10

Exhibition Dates: January 22 - February 28, 2010
Location: Photo Center NW, 900 12th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122

“If you go to every farmer in this complaint, they all have an issue,” says Sherman Witcher.  “We all have a bond.  We can’t get loans because of the color of our skin.”  After bringing one of their semis up from the field to be repossessed by the bank in Rocky Mount, VA, somebody shot 13 bullet holes in it.  Photo taken in May 2001.  © Jeffrey Sauger

Celebrating Black History Month this coming February, Blue Earth photographer Jeffrey Sauger’s Where Furrows Run Deep will be exhibited at Loupe Digital Studio.

The American Dream remains elusive for our nation’s black farmers, who have been losing their land at a rate three times faster than the national average.  Institutional racism, foreclosures and bankruptcy have torn families from farms they have occupied for generations.  Today, African Americans own roughly only 1 percent of all farmland in the United States.

As this population continues to disappear from our national landscape, Loupe Digital Studio presents “Where Furrows Run Deep,” a comprehensive collection of images by Detroit-based photographer Jeffrey Sauger.  Shot on black-and-white film over several years, “Where Furrows Run Deep” depicts the tragedy and triumph of the American black farmer without artifice: It is both anthropological document and aesthetic achievement.

The exhibit will run through February with an opening reception February 4, 2010 at 117 East 24th Street, Studio 2B in New York from 6-9 p.m. Exhibit hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

Could you use some advice from a rising star in nature photography?  SanDisk is a generous sponsor of the ongoing lecture series from the Ansel Adams Gallery/Blue Earth exhibit Changing Earth: Photographer’s Call to Action at Mumm Napa.  Camille Seaman recently appeared on The Marc Silber Show to discuss her work and her approach to photography.  In the interview, Seaman offers advice for taking photographs, and Marc highlights her tips on natural lighting.

Marc will be interviewing additional Blue Earth photographers from the exhibit lecture series in the next few months.  Keep an eye out for updates!

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

Congratulations to Blue Earth project photographer Stephanie Sinclair for being chosen for the 2010 Whitney Biennial.  For those new to the art world, the Biennial is a prestigious exhibition of contemporary American art at the Whitney Museum in New York.  Featuring 55 artists, the exhibit will run from February 25-May 30, 2010.

Once agian, our congratulations to Stephanie Sinclair!

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

President Obama’s science advisor and head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren, praised Gary Braasch’s (pictured left) documentary project and images at the exhibit opening. © Gary Braasch

One day after his exhibit “Climate Change In Our World” opened in Washington DC photos, Gary Braasch’s photos were the backdrop to Al Gore’s remarks at the Tech Awards in San Jose, November 19. © Gary Braasch

In case you missed the opening last week, the American Association for the Advancement of Science just launched a new two-part exhibit in their headquarters in Washington, DC by environmental photojournalist and Blue Earth photographer Gary Braasch in association with author and filmmaker Lynne Cherry.  The exhibit, titled “Climate Change in Our World,” highlights Gary’s work from his book Earth Under Fire: How Global Warming is Changing the World.  “How We Know About Our Changing Climate,” the second part of the exhibit, is designed for kids, parents, and school groups.

Both exhibits run at the AAAS headquarters through March 15, 2010.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

If you have been following the news regarding the recent and ongoing climate talks, you might be interested to know that Blue Earth photographer Subhankar Banerjee is highlighted by Professor Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers and chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, in The New York Review of Books.  If you are in the area, Banerjee will be in Copenhagen Dec. 6-11 as part of the (Re-) Cycles of Paradise exhibit at the UN Climate Change Conference.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

Jon Orlando – Warriors For Peace

The portrait “Jared Hood” was recently selected for the group show “Encore! More of The Art of Photography Today” at the Camera Obscura Gallery.  Opening night during the First Friday Art Walk this upcoming Friday, Nov. 6th, 5pm- 9pm.  The show will be up until January 2nd.  Camera Obscura Gallery - 1309 Bannock, Denver.

Gary Braasch – Earth Under Fire

Opening reception for Gary Braasch’s new climate change exhibit in the Lobby of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1200 New York Ave. NW, Washington DC, 20005 on November 18th at 5 p.m.

Subhankar Banerjee – Land As Home

ARTPORT_making waves in collaboration with the Global Gender and Climate Alliance presents the Exhibition (Re-) Cycles of Paradise at DGI byen Copenhagen, from December 7-18, 2009.  A photography and video installation by Subhankar Banerjee will highlight the voice of Gwich’in elder Sarah James and her efforts to bring attention to how issues of climate change and industrial development affect her community and the ecology of the Arctic.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

If you are in the New York region this fall, an exhibition of photos from Daniel Beltrá’s Prince’s Rainforests Project, featuring 26 large-scale prints, is making an appearance in Manhattan.  Beltrá has been busy recently, just opening a new show from his rainforest project at London’s Kew Gardens last week.  This new exhibition is hosted by the Corps Action Center (also known as The Action Center to End World Hunger), 6 River Terrace, Battery Park City in New York, open weekdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and runs from October 1 through November 15.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

Aerial view of the flooded area west of Santarem, Brazil.  One of the most extreme droughts recorded in the Amazon was followed by one of the worst floods, straining the local population even further. © Daniel Beltrá/Greenpeace

Blue Earth photographer Daniel Beltrá was recently at London landmark Kew Gardens to open a new exhibit sponsored by the Prince’s Rainforest Project.  Our readers may recall that Beltrá was presented the Prince’s Rainforest Project Award this spring at the Sony World Photography Awards.

The new exhibit and his ongoing work for the project are receiving increasing acclaim in the world’s media.  We thought a roundup of a few articles might be in order:

Focus on the Rainforest by Daniel Beltrá

Daniel Beltrá’s photographs of deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo

New photos highlight rainforest devastation

Prince’s Rainforest exhibition opens at Kew

Exposição em Londres traz fotos de tribo brasileira ameaçada por hidrelétrica

Fotos que luchan por el planeta

Daniel Beltra’s photographs of rainforests in the Amazon, Indonesia and Congo

Forest snaps are ribbit-ing

Q & A: Daniel Beltrá, environmental photographer

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

Our project photographers are a busy group!

Bert Teunissen continues to travel for his Domestic Landscapes project, recently adding 41 amazing new images to his project archive from his recent visit to Poland.  More trips are planned in the near future.

Heather McClintock will be one of several artists featured in the a new exhibition of the Center’s Award Recipients from October 8 - November 25 , 2009 at the Photographic Center Northwest, 900 Twelfth Avenue in Seattle.  The exhibition highlights the Center’s 14th Annual Project Competition Award Winner and Singular Image Award Winners.  There will be an Opening reception October 8, 5-8 p.m. and an informal Artist’s Talk with Cori Chandler-Pepelnjak at 5:30 p.m.

Former Blue Earth photographer Frans Lanting’s “LIFE: A Journey Through Time” will be shown in Italy, Mexico, and London.

• On Saturday October 3, 2009, LIFE will be performed in Bolzano, Italy, by the Orchestra Haydn of Trento and Bolzano, conducted by Keiko Mitsuhashi.

• LIFE will next be performed on Saturday November 7, 2009, in Merida, Mexico, during the Wild9 9th World Wilderness Congress.

• Marin Alsop, Principal Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Music Director of California’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, will conduct the London Symphony Orchestra in a special performance of LIFE at the Barbican in London on Sunday February 21, 2010.

Annie Marie Musselman has just added 9 new photos to her expanding Finding Trust project gallery, all featuring patients at the Sarvey Wildlife rehabilitation sanctuary.

Two photos by Jon Orlando were chosen for the “Visions of Peace” project in Denver, CO.  Visions of Peace, sponsored by the Colorado Department of Peace Campaign, is a campaign to create a “national department of peace.”

• Walker Fine Art Gallery, 300 W 11th Ave # A, Denver, CO 80204.  Visions of Peace event during the First Friday Art Walk, October 2, 7-9 p.m., running through November 1.

• Mercury Café, 2199 California St. Denver, CO. Visions of Peace event on October 18, 5:30-8 p.m.

Don’t forget to mark your calendars!

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager