Blue Earth Alliance: Collaborations for Cause 2017
Founded in 1996 by Natalie Fobes, Phil Borges and Malcolm Edwards, Blue Earth Alliance offers resources and support for photographers to fulfill projects that positively impact the world. Organized by Blue Earth Alliance, the Collaborations for Cause Conference provides an open environment in order to build strong, lasting bridges among creative multimedia storytellers, non-profits, socially responsible corporations and supporting communities.
#C4C2017: The Power of Partnerships
Speakers: Annie Griffiths, Art Wolfe, Mustafah Abdulaziz, Poulomi Basu, Helen Cherullo, Tom Costanza, Benj Drummond, Gary Halpern, Roberto Hernandez, Dan Lamont, Jay Lyman, Phil Manzano, Mercy Mason, Tim Matsui, Bryan Monroe, David Moskowitz, Thomas Patterson, Melissa Ryan, Mary Virginia Swanson, Richard Visick, Jon Warren
Tim Matsui – Story: From Awareness To Action | Collaborations for Cause 2017
Tim Matsui is an Emmy-nominated visual journalist and filmmaker focusing on human trafficking, alternative energy, and the environment. His most recent project, the award-winning documentary feature film The Long Night, tells a visceral narrative of domestic minor sex trafficking.
Tim's clients have included Newsweek, Stern, Der Spiegel, GEO, Wired and many other domestic and international publications. Today, Tim partners with non profits and corporations, and self publishes, to tell meaningful stories grounded in tenets of journalism. A non profit founder, Pictures of the Year and World Press Photo winner, and recipient of grants from the Alexia Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Fledgling Fund and Fund for Investigative Journalism, Tim seeks to inform and engage viewers through his projects, using media for social change.
Mustafah Abdulaziz – Water: Building a Global Understanding
Mustafah Abdulaziz lives in Berlin, Germany. His on-going project Water has received support from the United Nations, WaterAid, WWF, VSCO, and Google, has been reviewed by Phaidon, Monopol and published in Der Spiegel, The New Yorker, TIME and The Guardian. Worked as the first contract photographer for The Wall Street Journal. In 2012, was named one of PDN’s 30 Emerging Photographers to Watch. His work has been exhibited at Strandvägen in Stockholm, The Scoop in London, Brooklyn Waterfront in New York City, König Galerie in Berlin and the National Geographic Museum in Washington D.C.
Melissa Ryan & Mercy Mason – Engaging Communities In Conservation Through Photography | Collaborations for Cause 2017
Nature Conservancy magazine’s Director of Photography Melissa Ryan will discuss the participatory photography workshop that she and photographer Jason Houston created to use photography as an engagement experience for individuals & communities working to conserve their natural resources.
Mercy Mason, one of the high school students who participated in the workshop, will present her personal experience and speak to the impacts the workshop had on her and her community.
The participatory photo workshop was held in July 2016 in the remote village of Klemtu, deep in the heart of British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest.
blog.nature.org/science/magazine/outtakes-class-in-session-in-the-great-bear-rainforest/
Mercy Mason is a high-school senior at Kitasoo Community School in Klemtu, British Columbia, Canada. Mercy has participated in several programs supported by the Spirit Bear Lodge and designed to help engage youth in the community with their cultural heritage and the environment including the Súa Youth Cultural Group and the Supporting Emerging Aboriginal Stewards (SEAS) Community Initiative Internship. In 2016, as part of a Nature Conservancy magazine assignment on the SEAS program, TNC Canada hosted Photography Director, Melissa Ryan, and photographer, Jason Houston, to run a participatory camera workshop with SEAS interns. Mercy is in the Blackfish clan of the Kitasoo Xai'Xais First Nations.
Melissa Ryan is the director of photography for Nature Conservancy magazine, the flagship publication of the world’s leading environmental conservation organization, The Nature Conservancy.
Melissa works in close partnership with photographers to create & publish dynamic environmental conservation stories that reveal the connections between global natural resource use, scientific research, and the beauty & wonder of the natural world.
Melissa’s goal is to elevate the authentic, unique vision of the photographer so they can create compelling visual images that will inspire & inform viewers and help ensure lasting conservation solutions.
Previously, Melissa was a photo editor at National Geographic Books where she edited 16 books on topics, such as: nature, space, travel, ancient civilizations, dolphins, and clean water.
Melissa began her career more than twenty-five years ago at the University of Texas-Austin where she earned her photojournalism degree specializing in social documentary projects on youth, incarceration, and elder care.
Helen Cherullo – We Are Not Alone | Collaborations for Cause 2017
Images have played a decisive role in preserving wild places in North America for well over 100 years, and they are essential in campaigns to protect the Arctic, which few people will ever see firsthand. But images alone are not enough. Helen Cherullo, executive director of Braided River, and a dedicated Arctic protection proponent, will present the critical role of photographers, incredible imagery, and genuine coalitions in the “We Are the Arctic” campaign to date, and marching forward.
Helen Cherullo is the publisher of Mountaineers Books and founder of Braided River. She believes that wilderness is sacred, and appreciated through beauty: if we capture the heart, the mind (and responsible public policy) will follow. She has worked with many of the continent’s finest emerging and veteran nature photographers and writers on books, media, exhibits, and events. Braided River collaborates with grassroots organizations and committed philanthropists to preserve the last remaining wild places in western North America—including the topic of her presentation—the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 2011 she received the “Voice of the Wild” award from the Alaska Wilderness League to recognize individuals whose actions, commitment, and contributions lead to greater awareness about protecting and preserving Alaska’s wilderness.
She has a degree in Journalism, with a major in Fine Arts from the University of Montana. Previous professional experience includes graphic design and advertising production, and being sole proprietor of a graphic design and printing management company. Her passion is developing creative, professional visually-driven communication campaigns that support grassroots engagement.
Roberto Hernandez – Documenting Injustice | Collaborations for Cause 2017
In 2009, a low-budget documentary film called Presumed Guilty was released in movie theaters across Mexico. The film tells the story of Toño Zúñiga, a man who was wrongfully convicted of murder in Mexico City. Through documenting his life in prison and his legal struggles to regain his freedom, the film made a compelling case for criminal justice reform in Mexico and challenged dominant policy narratives.
The film’s impact was unexpectedly explosive. Its depiction of Mexico’s court system was so realistic and embarrassing that a federal judge issued a ban. In response to the censorship, the film was uploaded to YouTube and pirated DVD copies flooded the streets. Today, Presumed Guilty remains the most successful documentary in Mexican history. According to polls, one in every three Mexicans has seen the film.
Layda Negrete and Roberto Hernández, the filmmakers, will discuss their experience making Presumed Guilty and explain how the film helped catalyze national judicial reforms in Mexico.
Roberto Hernández (Director/Producer) was trained as a lawyer in Mexico and Canada and had no particular interest in cameras or film until he found himself collecting statistics in the basement of Mexico City's Superior Court, which houses the archived legal cases of one of the largest cities in the world. What he saw inspired him and his wife, Layda Negrete, to make "El Túnel," a short documentary that presented scandalous facts about Mexico's justice system and was broadcast on several television stations throughout Mexico. As a result of the support the film received, in 2008 Mexico's Congress passed the most significant amendment to its constitution's due process clause, requiring public trials and the presumption of innocence. But Hernández, currently a graduate student in public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, notes, "The implementation of this reform is hardly progressing at all, as the Mexican government today remains ostensibly focused on an offensive against drug cartels."
Poulomi Basu Postmodernism in Photography and Transmedia Activism | Collaborations for Cause 2017
Poulomi Basu's body of work, A Ritual of Exile, investigates the causes and the consequences of normalized violence against women in Nepal. Perpetrated under the guise of Hindu tradition, the root cause of this violence is the belief in the impurity of a women’s menstrual blood. Hidden, under-reported and unresolved, these women are untouchable and, as a result, this violence takes the form of ‘exiles,” a way to keep menstruation shrouded in mystery and taboo, a weapon to shame women into subservience. In a world that is ravaged by war, the media is often full of images of those affected by conflict but, for many, the conflict begins at home.
This multidisciplinary project, combining still photography and virtual reality films, is designed to reach multiple audiences across different platforms, including print, virtual and physical installations.
"I want to turn my audience into activists and crack open the veil of silence and shame around women whose lives are shattered by such gender based violence," Basu says.
A Ritual of Exile reveals how the chaupadi ritual disrupts the lives of girls, exposes them to recurring danger and imposes unjust restrictions on women throughout their lives.
Poulomi Basu is a storyteller, artist and activist. Her name sounds like ‘follow me’ with a ‘P’.
She was raised by her mother in Calcutta, India and found early inspiration in the city’s rich cinematic history. After her father’s sudden death when Poulomi was 17, her mother told her to leave home, to follow her dreams and live a life of breadth and choices that was denied to her.
Since then, Poulomi prefers the path less trodden. She has slept in the wilderness under a cloudless sky staring at a million stars in search of a guerrilla army whose story strikes right at the very heart of modern India’s global ambitions, through to divided families eking out an Alaskan existence on the last rocky outpost of American soil.
Time and again, she has found herself amongst ordinary people who quietly challenge the prevailing orthodoxies of the world in which they live: rural women in armed conflict, a mother's pain for a son lost to ISIS, to the wonder of a near blind child reaching for the light.
Poulomi is forever in awe of the resilience shown by those in extraordinary circumstance, by those who are bent but not broken.
Poulomi’s work has become known for documenting the role of women in isolated communities and conflict zones and more generally for advocating for the rights of women.
In December 2015, she shared a platform with the parents of the Nirbhaya Delhi rape victim talking about her social activist initiative, The Rape in India Project.
And, in January 2016 at the UN Young Changemakers Conclave, Poulomi spoke on the social impact of sustainable development with specific reference to her long-term project A Ritual of Exile and her collaboration with NGO Water Aid and their To Be A Girl campaign, which raised £2 million, using this material.
Poulomi was featured alongside Hilary Clinton as one of the one of the 'Amazing women from around the world giving their best advice' by Refinery29.
Poulomi was part of the VII Mentor Program. She is based between New Delhi and London. She has covered issues across Asia, Europe and America.
She is co-founder and director of Just Another Photo Festival, a festival that democratizes photography by taking photography to the people and forging new audiences.
Poulomi has also undertaken the 'Reporting in Crisis Zones' hostile management training at Columbia School of Journalism, kindly supported with a bursary from the Rory Peck Trust.
Annie Griffiths – If You Want to Go Far, Go Together | Collaborations for Cause 2017
In the changing climate of editorial publishing, photographers are learning that, if you want to go far, go together. Friendship, collaboration and collective resolve can motivate action on both editorial and business issues.
One of the first women photographers to work for National Geographic, Annie Griffiths has photographed in nearly 150 countries during her illustrious career. She has worked on dozens of magazine and book projects for the Society, including stories on Lawrence of Arabia, Baja California, Galilee, Petra, Sydney, New Zealand, and Jerusalem.
In addition to her magazine work, Annie is deeply committed to photographing for aid organizations around the world. She is the Executive Director of Ripple Effect Images, a collective of photographers who document the programs that are empowering women and girls throughout the developing world, especially as they deal with the devastating effects of climate change.
Annie is known for her warmth, and for her ability to quickly create photographs that humanize various situations and cultures.
Annie’s work has also appeared in LIFE, Geo, Smithsonian, Fortune, Merian, Stern, and many other publications. With author Barbara Kingsolver, she produced Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands, a book celebrating the last pristine wilderness in North America. Proceeds from the book have raised more than a quarter of a million dollars for grassroots land conservation. In 2008. Annie published A Camera, Two Kids and a Camel, a photo memoir about balance, and the joy of creating a meaningful life. In 2010, she published Simply Beautiful Photographs, which was named the top photo/art book of the year by Amazon and by Barnes and Noble. Annie is currently at work on three new books.
Annie has received awards from the National Press Photographers Association, the Associated Press, the National Organization of Women, The University of Minnesota and the White House News Photographers Association.
Collaborations for Cause 2017 Panel
Bryan Monroe – Why What We Do Still Matters? Hint: We're Not There Yet | Collaborations for Cause 2017
Bryan Monroe is the Verizon Chair and professor at Temple University’s School of Media and Communication (SMC). Before joining Temple, he was most recently the Washington editor, Opinion & Commentary at CNN and editor of CNNPolitics.com. His work at that network included editorial planning and content strategy across all online platforms for CNN in its Washington, D.C., bureau. He also served as the assistant vice president of news at Knight Ridder Newspapers, where he helped lead journalists at the Biloxi Sun Herald to the 2006 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service for their coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
Monroe was also vice president and editorial director at EBONY and Jet magazines, where he led coverage of the 2008 presidential election, conducted the first post-election interview with President Barack Obama and did the last interview with pop legend Michael Jackson before his death. Monroe was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and served as a visiting professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
He was president of the National Association of Black Journalists from 2005 to 2007.
World Vision – Content Is Not King | Collaborations for Cause 2017
The role of content and image in fulfilling storytelling, marketing and editorial needs at World Vision US.
Tom Costanza spent the sixteen years as television news photographer at stations from Scranton to Seattle covering everything from presidential inaugurations and shuttle launches to earthquakes, hurricanes, and house fires. TV news helped him develop resourcefulness, compassion, and solid storytelling skills. When the opportunity to work at World Vision presented itself, Tom was able to use storytelling for a cause. Since joining World Vision in July 2001, Tom has spent a good part of the last sixteen years on the road capturing stories, spending three weeks traveling around the world to cover the Asia tsunami and in 2010, the earthquake in Haiti. He’s reported on child soldiers in Uganda, street children in Mexico, AIDS in India, and hunger in the Horn of Africa. Fortunately, the many heart-rending moments have been balanced by witnessing the joy, faith, and resilience of the world’s extraordinary people, his camera reflecting their light in some of the world’s darkest places.
Phil Manzano is the director of Content Development in the Brand & Campaigns division of World Vision US. Currently, he oversees a team of writers and photographers, publications and promotional content. Prior to World Vision, he worked at The Oregonian in Portland, Ore. for more than 25 years as a writer and editor. He lives in the Rainier Valley area of South Seattle, and, on sunny days, can be found biking along Lake Washington.
For almost 30 years, Jon Warren has dedicated his life to helping the poor to be seen and heard. He has traveled to upward of 60 countries producing photographs for many global publications and organizations such as World Vision. As Photojournalism Manager for World Vision, Jon travels the globe to tell the story of the charity’s work to build a better world for children. He’s photographed everything from the Haiti earthquake to the famine in Somalia. He lived with a Kenyan family trying to survive on food rations and spent a month with children in Cambodia working in a garbage dump. Through it all, his goal is to go beyond the statistics of poverty to show his subjects as individual and worthwhile human beings, loved and treasured by God. Jon has won awards from the National Press Photographers Association Pictures of the Year, Communications Arts, Folio, Maggie Awards, the Society of Professional Journalists, and Magnum Opus.
David Moskowitz – Fundraising and Public Engagement in Conservation Storytelling | Collaborations for Cause 2017
David Moskowitz is the author and photographer of two books, Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest and Wolves in the Land of Salmon.
As a biologist, photographer and educator, David has worked on wildlife studies and conservation initiatives around the United Sates and internationally. The focus of much his work has been on using tracking and other non-invasive research methods to study wildlife and promote conservation. David is certified as a Track and Sign Specialist, Trailing Specialist, and Senior Tracker through Cybertracker Conservation and is an Evaluator for this rigorous international professional certification program. David holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from Prescott College.
David’s current project, the Mountain Caribou Initiative, is a multi-media exploration of the conservation challenges faced in the world’s largest remaining inland temperate rainforest, found in the interior mountains of western North America and home to one of the most unique and endangered populations of caribou found on the planet.
Thomas Patterson – What I Look For When I Hire A Photographer | Collaborations for Cause 2017
Thomas Patterson is a photo editor and content specialist for the international humanitarian organization Mercy Corps. After more than a decade on the photo staff of the Statesman Journal newspaper, Thomas earned a master's degree in Multimedia Journalism and undertook a Graduate Teaching Fellowship at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Based in Portland, Oregon, Thomas is also a photojournalist and multimedia storyteller specializing in multimedia projects for editorial, corporate and non-profit clients around the world.
Tim Greyhavens | Collaborations for Cause 2017
Tim Greyhavens is the Executive Director of the Wilburforce Foundation, and oversees the administrative, financial and planning functions of the Foundation, including coordinating the work of six program areas. He also serves as program officer for Wilburforce's Conservation Law and Policy Program, focusing on National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and conservation voter campaigns. As part of his foundation work he has served on both the Management Board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association and on the Board of Directors of the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity. Recently he was one of four philanthropic leaders on the national Task Force to Shape the Partnership for America's Great Outdoors. Tim has been with Wilburforce since it was founded in 1991. Prior to that he worked for more than twenty years with wildlife protection and animal welfare organizations, including the International Snow Leopard Trust and the Humane Society of the United States. In addition to his foundation work he is an accomplished wildlife and nature photographer, and his images have been shown in galleries across North America.
Day 1 Talk 3 - Jay Lyman
Jay Lyman is a librarian at the Seattle Public Library where he helps people find information that helps their businesses succeed. The library has many great resources, and assists people from various industries and at different stages in the business startup lifecycle. Jay and his colleagues can help you find information about companies, markets, customers and much more.
Richard Visick is a librarian in the Arts, Recreation, and Literature department of the Seattle Public Library. SPL offers patrons a wide variety of arts related resources, both in-person and digitally. Richard has a history of assisting artists with their information needs, having previously worked as a librarian at Chihuly Inc. and the Art Institute of Seattle.
Mary Virgina Swanson – Connecting With Like-Minded Supporters | Collaborations for Cause 2017
Mary Virginia Swanson is an author and educator who helps artists find the strengths in their work, identify appreciative audiences and present their work in an informed, professional manner. Her seminars and lectures on marketing opportunities have proven to aid photographers in moving their careers to the next level.
During the course of her career Swanson has worked in the fine art, documentary and commercial markets as well as heading her innovative licensing agency for artists,"Swanstock." She served as the Executive Director of the 2016 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, Virginia and has returned to her consulting practice, working with emerging and established artists and arts organizations. Swanson is the recipient of the 2015 Honored Educator from the Society for Photographic Education, the 2013 Lifetime Achievement FOCUS Award from the Griffin Museum of Photograph and the 2014 Susan Carr Award for Education from the American Society for Media Photographers (ASMP). Swanson contributes time to BEA project photographers upon receipt their award to help strategize their fundraising efforts.
Swanson co-authored with Darius Himes the acclaimed Publish Your Photography Book: Revised & Updated (2014). Her current book project is Finding Your Audience: An Introduction to Marketing Your Photographs (2017).” Mary Virginia’s web site is www.mvswanson.com Instagram feed is @maryvirginiaswanson. She lives and works in Tucson, Arizona & NYC.
Art Wolfe – All in a Life's Work | Collaborations for Cause 2017
Over the course of his forty year career, photographer Art Wolfe has worked on every continent and in hundreds of locations. His photographs are recognized throughout the world for their mastery of color, composition and perspective. Wolfe's photographic mission is multi-faceted: art, wildlife advocacy, education, and journalism inform his work.
Wolfe is the host of the award-winning television series Art Wolfe’s Travels to the Edge, an intimate and upbeat series that offers insights on nature, culture, and the realm of digital photography. It now airs worldwide. He was also featured in the 2015 Canon Australia/National Geographic Channel production Tales by Light, now streaming globally on Netflix.
Since his first publication in 1978, Wolfe has released 100 books in all editions; 2014 saw the release of his magnum opus Earth Is My Witness; this mega project features Wolfe's favorite photos taken so far and is garnering international accolades and awards. In 2015 it was published by National Geographic in France (Hymne à la Terre) and Germany (Eden). Published in 2016 are a revised edition of Migrations and Photographs from the Edge: A Master Photographer's Insights on Capturing an Extraordinary World.
Numerous US and international museums and galleries have featured monographs of his work as well his traveling exhibitions, Travels to the Edge, and Beyond the Lens. Earth Is My Witness is now a traveling exhibit in Europe. Wolfe has been a contributor to many group exhibitions.
Education is a major component of Wolfe’s work, whether it is about the environment or about photography. He leads photographic tours worldwide as well as regularly presenting his groundbreaking Photography as Art seminar.
Wolfe's photographs have appeared in the world’s top magazines such as National Geographic, Smithsonian, Audubon, GEO, and Terre Sauvage. Magazines all over the world publish his photographs and stories, and his work is licensed for retail products and advertising, as well as products such as USPS stamps, of which he has three, including the latest Forever Stamp commemorating the US National Parks.
Along with his numerous book and television awards, Wolfe is the proud recipient of the Nature's Best Photographer of the Year Award, the North American Nature Photography Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Photographic Society of America’s Progress Medal. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and a Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers.
Wolfe maintains his office, stock agency, and production company in Seattle, Washington. His fine art work is available online at artwolfe.com, the Rotella Galleries, located in Bellevue, Washington, and New York City; and online in Europe at the-art-of-wild.com.