We are pleased to invite applicants for the Blue Earth Prize For Best Project Photography at the PhotoAlliance 2009 Our World Portfolio Review.  This new award offered in partnership with PhotoAlliance provides recognition for photographic work best representing our mission: To raise awareness about endangered cultures, threatened environments and social concerns through photography.

This award will highlight the work of one attendee in a special Featured Projects Section of our website, a newsletter article and blog follow-up about PhotoAlliance, the Review and the winner.  Blue Earth will also waive the application fee for the winning photographer to submit for Blue Earth project sponsorship in our upcoming September 21st deadline as well as offer free membership for one year.  Three runners-up will also be offered free submission for Project Sponsorship and a one-year Blue Earth membership.

PhotoAlliance 2009 Our World Portfolio Review
Addressing the Creative Ways We Explore, Portray, Express and Connect Communities Through Images.

March 13-15, 2009 in San Francisco
Deadline to submit your portfolio for consideration
February 13th, 2009

Reviewers are committed professionals representing a cross section of our community including book and magazine publishers, packagers and editors, museum, non-profit and commercial gallery directors and curators and leading educators and photographers.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

Our project photographers are a busy lot - sometimes it’s hard to keep track of where they all are on any given day!  Keep any eye out for an exhibition or presentation near you.

Anna Mia Davidson – Lecture on her work in Cuba at the Photographic Center Northwest on February 4th at 7 p.m.

Annie Marie Musselman – Finding Trust exhibit opens May 16th at The Alice Austin House in Staten Island, New York

Benjamin Drummond & Sara Joy Steele – Presenting at the National Teach-in on Global Warming, February 5th at Pacific University near Portland, OR

Bert Teunissen – Shooting in Hungary in March for his Domestic Landscape project

Heather McClintock – Traveling to Uganda February 10th-April 22nd and photographing a book on the aftermath of the civil war in northern Uganda with a special focus on the educational program Learn How To Live initiated by Oxfam Novib and War Child.  McClintock will then continue work on The Innocent project, as well as beginning a new, more intimate, although parallel project, in conjunction with The Innocent project in northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, that deals exclusively with rape, domestic abuse, mutilation and other forms of gender-based violence against women and children throughout the world.  This new work is pursued with the desire to manifest the self worth and beauty within each victim, each survivor, and ultimately to help prevent violence against women during conflict and in humanitarian settings through empowerment, education and structures of law.

Jon Orlando – Hitting the road in February to interview veterans for his Warriors for Peace project

Subhankar Banerjee – Currently serving an Artist Residency at Dartmouth College.  He will also be speaking at Columbia College, Chicago, IL on February 9-10th; conducting a lecture and class visits at the YMCA, Seattle, WA on March 18th; giving a public lecture (simulcast to over 2000 radio stations) at The Commonwealth Club of California, San Francisco on March 24th; and presenting the Joan and Dick Stroud Memorial Lecture at the Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, PA on April 9th.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

Lynne Cherry and Gary Braasch’s book How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming has won the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru/Science Magazine 2009 award as best “Middle Grades Science Book.”  This annual award was inaugurated to mark “outstanding science writing and illustration for children and young adults.”  Cherry and Braasch’s book has also won awards from the National Science Teachers Association and the School Library Journal.

In case you don’t have your own copy of Braasch’s other recent award-winning book Earth Under Fire: How Global Warming is Changing the World (which inspired the children’s book), note that a new paperback edition will be out in March 2009.  Be sure to visit the companion web site to the book Earth Under Fire or World View of Global Warming for more information.

Once again, congratulations to Gary from everyone at Blue Earth!

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

© Tammy Cromer-Campbell

Once again, Blue Earth is pleased to announce a distinguished prize awarded to one of our project photographers.  This January, Blue Earth project photographer Tammy Cromer-Campbell won First Prize in the Green Dot Awards 2008 competition, Entertainment and Culture category, for her work in Fruit of the Orchard.

Founded in 2006, the purpose of the competition is to bring notice to green businesses and organizations:

Recognizing that human activity is causing dramatic environmental change, we must ensure that we act today to protect tomorrow’s environment.  Businesses and organizations have become especially aware of the impact that their practices have on the well-being of the planet and many are acting to adopt more sustainable attitudes.  The purpose of Green Dot is to reward those who practice excellence in environmental responsibility.

Her Fruit of the Orchard project is a study in environmental justice, initially focusing on “a small African-American community in Texas—their struggles, some deaths, and ultimate triumph, with a toxic waste facility” in their town.  The book grew out of a simple request of Cromer-Campbell by local resident Phyllis Glazer, founder of Mothers Organized to Stop Environmental Sins (MOSES), to make a photograph for a campaign poster.  Even small beginnings can lead to great results.  What began as a small part of a protest campaign eventually grew into the internationally recognized documentary project we know today.

Our congratulations to Tammy!

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

© Anna Mia Davidson

If you appreciate the powerful images from Anna Mia Davidson’s project “Beyond the Cliché: Positive Influences from the Cuban Revolution,” be sure not to miss her public lecture at the Photographic Center Northwest on Wednesday, February 4th at 7 p.m.  Davidson will be speaking about her Blue Earth project, and this is a great opportunity to hear about her work in Cuba firsthand.

Read more about her Cuba project and view a small gallery of photos.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

Blue Earth project photographer Camille Seaman on stage at the Henry.

Camille Seaman enthralled the crowd this weekend at the Henry Art Gallery with stories from her documentary photography work in the Polar Regions.  Her lecture Saturday was the second in a series Blue Earth launched this winter highlighting documentary photography.  Attendees saw a collection of recent work, were given a rare first-hand account from the photographer’s own perspective, and had the opportunity to ask questions after the presentation.

It’s a treat seeing a presenter leaving the audience wanting more.  The crowd was so engaged asking questions long past our allotted time, we had the pleasure of being politely shooed out of the auditorium by gallery staff!

Scheduled lectures include current and former Blue Earth photographers; be sure the mark your calendar:

Benjamin Drummond & Sara Joy Steele - March 14, 2009
Tim Matsui - May 9, 2009

All lectures are held Saturdays, 2 p.m.at the Henry Art Gallery Auditorium, 15th Ave NE & 41st Street in Seattle.  Admission is free for Henry Art Gallery and Blue Earth members; $5 for students w/ ID or $10 for general admission.  Tickets will be available at the door.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

Photographers take note!  Blue Earth has updated our project submission guidelines.  If you are planning to apply for project sponsorship, please check out the new guidelines before sending in your materials.

In general terms, our guidelines remain the same, but as of today Blue Earth will now only accept electronic submissions.  We’re using the power of the internet to make our application process both simpler and greener.  Photographers will no longer have to box and mail CD’s or worry about applications being lost in the mail.  In addition, eliminating the need to ship plastic discs and other materials around the country will help reduce our carbon footprint.

We take our environmental responsibilities seriously and will continue to find ways to green our work in the community as well as our internal operations.

One other related item of note is that we’ve also published a list of frequently asked questions, many of which directly address the application process.  As always, however, feel free to contact us anytime if you have questions or need any additional information.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

© Camille Seaman

Double-check your calendars to make sure you’ve kept the afternoon clear.  The second lecture in Blue Earth’s new series on documentary photography focusing on global environments, social, and cultural issues is this coming Saturday, January 10th, 2 p.m.at the Henry Art Gallery.

Blue Earth photographer Camille Seaman will be presenting Looking for the Connections, with highlights from recent work in the Polar Regions.  More details.

After the lecture, she will be available for questions and a book signing.

All lectures in the series are held Saturdays, 2 p.m.at the Henry Art Gallery Auditorium, 15th Ave NE & 41st Street in Seattle.  Admission is free for Henry Art Gallery and Blue Earth members; $5 for students w/ ID or $10 for general admission.  Tickets will be available at the door.

See you Saturday!

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager

An aerial view of the Owens Valley from David Maisel’s “The Lake Project.” © David Maisel

Blue Earth currently sponsors about 30 photographic projects.  Over the years, different projects have run their course and moved forward on their own. But that doesn’t mean they are any less important today than they were when Blue Earth first sponsored them.

Today I’d like to dip into our archives and highlight work from David Maisel’s project Black Maps. Often abstract in appearance, Maisel’s photos of regions suffering from environmental degradation are powerful statements. They speak directly and give first-hand evidence of the damage humanity can inflict on an entire region.

It is easy sometimes to overlook the scope of the damage directly in front of us - Maisel changes the scale.

- Bart J. Cannon, Program Manager