some more access....

After my internship, in mid-Feb, I will be photographing the landfill site and recycling centre in Hempsted, Gloucester. I will have full access to roam around the recycling centre which is good, however it looks like I'll be shown round the landfill site in a car with someone that works there and I can take pics outside the window. It's better than nothing I guess!

I also have permission to go and photograph the workers at Westonbirt Arboretum. I'm not entirely sure what kind of work they do, so I'm planning on heading down on Saturday 5th February to meet some of the staff and find out more.

Environmental Exhibition

I am trying to organize an exhibition with other students who are doing their major projects/bodies of work on environmental issues. I think it would be a good way to get the message across, and it will hopefully make an exciting and interesting exhibition to visit as it will hopefully include all sorts of works like photography, illustration, film etc.

I have just emailed the town council and transition town Cheltenham to see if anyone can help with finding a shop/space to hire in Cheltenham town. I'm not really sure the best way to go about it.

At the moment I haven't got anyone to do the exhibition with (except one illustration student) so I need to ask around soon, I just want to do a bit of research into the costs and dates etc so I have more to tell and see who's seriously interested.

The reason I want to do it in March is so that it can tie in with the Working in the Media brief. This puts a bit of pressure on making sure I have good enough images to show by then.

I HAVE ACCESS!!

"Hi Camille,

Thank you for getting in touch.

We, the entire Infinergy team, will in fact be heading up to Ferndale Wind Farm around mid-Feb to see the turbines being hoisted.  The exact date is yet to be confirmed.  Would this be of greater interest?  As well as the hands-on construction team you would also have, project managers, CEO, MD, communication team and even most likely receptionist!

If you’d like to have a chat about this, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.  My contact details should be marked below.

I hope this is of interest. 

Kind regards,

Kari"

Well, this is perfect. I'm really excited about this. I plan to go to the site where it is being built before and after as well so I can get a contrast. Even if I don't use the images I think it'll be good to cover all grounds. 

This Sunday I plan to go to South Wales and see at least one wind farm that has already been built and to photograph that.

Also, the people at Westonbirt have emailed back and are happy to let me photograph, I think the best way to figure out if there's anything useful there is to go and see for myself, however it will have to wait until next weekend unfortunately, unless I can get there Saturday afternoon. Bit of a pain having to squeeze things into such a small space of time in the week. 

Wind Farms in the UK

Well, the renewableuk website emailed me back. they directed me to some useful links -

Wind Farms Currently under construction

Developers to contact for individual wind farms

Find the nearest wind farm to me

From this image you can clearly see that there is no shortage of wind farms for me to shoot

Wind farms in the areas closer to Cheltenham

With this information I emailed the wind farms that are currently under construction that aren't too far away from Cheltenham. There are two in South Wales.
I got a reply from one of them asking me to call them tomorrow, so I really do hope something comes from this phone call. Keep your fingers crossed!

I really want to photograph the people that put the wind turbines up. I can imagine it's quite a hefty procedure. I plan on photographing in a way that shows the people in their most natural way. I do not want to get them to pose, I want them to get on with what they're doing and for me not to get in the way.

Also, SWEA emailed me saying that a wind farm will be being built near Highnam. I'm am uncertain about the dates yet, but let's hope it's before the deadline. I am waiting on a reply to find out.

Posters

Guardian- Green Patriot Posters

I was browsing the Guardian website and found these. They're clever and funny. I might consider making something similar to promote my exhibition at the end of the year.

Stuart Franklin

 GREECE. Stylida. Windfarm about to be set up. Picture taken in 2007.

FRANCE. Champagne Region. Wind turbines. 2007.

GREECE. Corinth. Motor Oil refinery. Picture taken in 2007.

GREECE. Megalopolis. Power station. Picture taken in 2007.

GREECE. Megalopolis. Open caste lignite mine and excavator. Picture taken in 2007.

MALAYSIA. Kepong Forest Reserve. Crown shyness in the 'kapur' tree (Dryobalanops aromatica), one of the dipterocarps that, as they mature in the forest, develop mutual avoidance. 1997.

RUSSIA. Monchegorsk. Kola Peninsular. Polluted landscape affected by nickel smelter. Picture taken in 2006.

USA. California. Julia "BUTTERFLY" in a 200 foot ancient redwood tree named "Luna". She has lived in the sequoia "Luna" for the past year to protect it from deforestation. 1998.

PHILIPPINES. Manilla. Smokey Mountain, a rubbish dump, children scavenge through the waste for anything that could be recycled. 1988.

 BELARUS. 2000. Woodcutter in Beloiveskaya forest.

 I really like Stuart Franklin's work. I can tell he has covered a wide area of environmental issues over a long period of time world wide. He has photographed landscapes and people, which is what I hope to do with my project. Although he has photographed people, I don't think he has photographed them as intimately and thoroughly as I hope to.
Franklin has photographed a lot of issues from energy, pollution, waste, and deforestation. I want to address at least one of these issues. I'm just having trouble finding the people.
Franklin told me he prefers to photograph on film, and he loves photographing trees and people. I can see a lot of his images are on digital and of landscapes. I think it's near impossible to not shoot landscapes when doing an environmental project. 
He also told me he uses digital as it is easier, quicker, and better in low light conditions. I may have to consider this format when shooting my project. I ideally want to shoot on 35mm and hassleblad black and white. 35mm for the people, and hassleblad for the landscapes. But as time is an issue with me as I can't properly start shooting until after my internship I may have to consider digital as it is a lot faster to process.

renewable energy

Renewable UK

I found this useful website, where it shows all the wind farms in the UK. I have emailed them asking if I could photograph the workers that put them up, there are a few in South Wales that are under construction. If I had the time and money I would just go there and ask myself, however I don't so wouldn't want to risk it being a waste of time.

treeeees

I've just emailed the Forestry Commission, Westonbirt Arboretum, and Forest of Dean council.

Fingers crossed something positive will come of this...

SWEA Meeting - 24/01/11

Well, this didn't exactly go as well as I had hoped. 


I arrived at Highnam at about 10am to meet Alastair, a Project Manager at SWEA. He showed me around the building (which was pretty empty as everyone was out doing work) and explained what they did. They are a charity run organization which is trying to get people to use renewable/energy efficieny energy. As a company they are doing incredibly well, as they are now partnered with most of the European countries. The main work that SWEA do is spread the word about the ways in which businesses/homes/schools etc can make their buildings more energy efficient, to save on costs and to help the environment.


I went out with a nice lady called Karen, to see their work in action. We went to an all girls school near Barnwood Rd, Gloucester where we joined a class of about 30 pupils (all volunteered to be there) to do an energy survey of the school. This was SWEA's way of spreading the word to younger people. A program called YEP. This is a great idea, as I think the younger they learn the better. However, as it was in a school I couldn't take photos and it wasn't really anything worth taking photos. So, I pretty much gained nothing from going.


Alastair did say that they have teams in Wales, so I have emailed him asking if there is anything I could photograph there, which is a bit more exciting (not exactly in those words). I think a project on renewable energy would be a great thing to do, it's just figuring out if there's anything I can do, other than builders putting solar panels on peoples houses.


Shame the negative side of energy is a bit more interesting to photograph, e.g. nuclear etc. I do want to photograph the things that are effecting our environment, but I want to compare them with what we are doing to help it. Unfortunately the helping it side is a lot more difficult to find...

Photographer Research

Book-What Matters created by David Elliott Cohen

Meltdown-A Global Warming Travelogue. Photographs by Gary Braasch

Top:Houses in the shadow if the Amos coal-fired power plant in Pocam West Virginia.

Bottom:China Steel Plant, part of Shougang Group, a major coal-burner

Aerial view of smog over Chicago during a record heat wave.

The Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park, ina 1917 photograph by the A.  O. Wheeler Survey of boundary (top) and again in 2005 (bottom).

Econonmic Miracle, Environmental Disaster. Photographs by Stephen Voss.

Top:Debris at the base of a pipe that releases black water from the state-owned Lianhua MSG factory. Local villagers protesed when many became sick with stomach and intestinal ailments. In 2004, Lianhua ("Lotus Flower") provided clean tap water to the village, but the company continued to pollute the river.

Bottom:A trash dump in Shenqui County clogs streams and pollutes groundwater.

Book: Ecotopia

Mitch Epstein "...has photographed  nuclear power plants, coal plants, oil-drilling operations and wind turbines, as well as the people who live in those places, their homes and backyards, and the surrounding landscape."
Gavin Coal Power Plant, Cheshire, Ohio, 2003

Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond, West Virginia, 2004

Christopher Lamarca "..has been photographing environmental activists in Oregan who are prtesting logging activities that have been expanded by the Bush administration"
Forest Defenders, 2002-2005

Book:Robert Adams - Turning Back

Tutorial with Kim

I had a tutorial with Kim yesterday. We were talking about Magnum, my dissertation, and my major project.

I mentioned that when I interviewed Stuart Franklin at Magnum I asked him what he likes to photograph the most. He said "I love trees".

Kim suggested I used this for my project. He talked about the disease that was killing thousands of Oak trees, which are obviously a historic icon for Britain. I could photograph the workers that have to chop them down.

Here's a couple of links I found about it - Oak Tree Disease and Forestry Commission

Recycling for Gloucestershire Meeting

The meeting went very well. I met two people, Kate and Simon. They were both very friendly and helpful. They talked me through what it was they do. They mainly do promotion material and events.

The list of things that included are-

1. Two websites-main,and schools
2. Real nappies -promoting parents to use reusable nappies to create less waste,and to save money.
3. Home composting- 14 master composters and 4 community composting sites.
4. Recycling Centre- five recycling centres, but closest one is Hempsted, Gloucester.
5. Two Landfill sites
6. Reuse Organisations- Butterfly Project and Emmaus
7. Schools
8. Road shows

I said I wanted to photograph things where it was more hands on, E.g recycling can going round picking up the waste etc. They said it was the district council that run this, but they would be able to talk to them for me a they are associated with them. Things I could do with the district council-

1. Recycling Collection
2. Bring banks/kerbside schemes
3. Low performance areas - Matson, Barton, Tredworth.

With the low performance areas, they said this was where communities just didn't recycle. They were having issues with too much waste in the streets. Kate suggested I could document a family in one of the areas as to the reasons why they don't recycles-what their ethics are and what they consume. 

I'm interested in looking into the low performance areas, the recycling centres and recycling collection, and also the landfills. Kate said it would be quite difficult getting permission to photograph in the landfill sites, however I could try. They run educational school events to the landfills so I could possible join them on one of these trips.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it went and I'm quite excited about getting started. They also want me to do some promotional material for their website, so it would mean getting work published. This would be for free, but in return they will help me with me project. They have someone who works in getting all the statistic for waste/consumption etc so this would be helpful to put this information with my photographs.

I am still going to go to the meeting with SWEA to see what they can offer, as I still want to keep my options open at this early stage.

Starting plans

So, I know I want to aim my Major Project towards environmental issues that are current. I care a lot about it, so it would be enjoyable to do plus I will hopefully learn more about it as I go along. When I look at images of environmental issues it tends to bring up lots of landscapes. This is not the approach I want to take. I want to photograph people, after all it would never have happened if there were no people involved. It's just a case of figuring out how to go about it.

Obviously climate change is a major factor, and it seems that a lot of the problems in the environment have a major impact on climate change.

A few examples-

1. Desforestation - the less trees there is more carbon diozide and greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere, and in turn warms the Earth up. It also destroys all the natural habitat and wildlife that were once in the forest. The main reasons deforestation happens is because of money, and agriculture.
2. Population/Consumption- This year the population will reach 7 billion, and it is estimated to reach 9 billion by 2045. The Earth is running out of natural resources and we continue to consume more and more. A more ecological balance is needed, but there seems to be no sign of slowing down. The National Geopgraphic have released a magazine, here's a link to the  7 BILLION
3. Waste/Energy-As a nation we consume a lot more than we need. This increases our carbon footprint, and also creates a lot of waste and heat into the environment. The richer countries create more waste than the poorer countries, even though there are a lot more people in the underdeveloped countries. A more equal spread of how we consume and use things is needed. 

I don't necessarily want to focus on the bad that is happening to our environment. I think it would be good to look at the influence people are having on the environment and what they are doing to help it.

So, with this all in mind I decided to start local. I emailed Vision 21 (tackling climate change), Recycling for Gloucestershire,  and Cheltenham District Council Recycling Centre. I simply stated what I was hoping to do, and whether it would be possible.

Vision 21 replied with-

"I wish we could help but currently we are snowed under.

 I would recommend you try one of the following:

 Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust

Severn Trent Water – Sewerage Works – Hayden Lane Education Centre.

SWEA

Gloucestershire Wilderness Centre

Friends of the Earth

Rendezous"

Cheltenham District Council Recycling Centre said they were too busy with a very big project, and they simply didn't have to time for me. They did suggest I try Tewkesbury Borough Council instead.

Recycling for Gloucestershire replied saying "Your request sounds very interesting and I hope there could be a mutually beneficial project we could work on together."

After receiving the email from Vision 21 I contacted Severn Wye Energy Agency (SWEA) and Friends of the Earth.

SWEA replied with "yes, we’d be happy to have you come along and visit us....Our team carries out various energy surveys, often at community buildings and schools, and I’m sure we could arrange for you to attend one of these if you want..."

Friends of the Earth replied with -

"Your project sounds very interesting. I'm sure there would be interest in the FoE group for your project. Would you like to come to one of our next meetings to introduce yourself and explain what you would like to do? You could also hear about what we are getting up to. 

The next two meetings are wednesday 12 January and wednesday 9 February. We meet at 8pm at the Vision 21 offices in Cheltenham."

 

 

So, in response to all of this information. I  have arranged a meeting with Recycling for Gloucestershire on Friday 21st January, and one with SWEA on Monday 24th January. The meeting with Recycling for Gloucestershire is just to talk about what they do, and whether it would be suitable with what I want to do, and likewise with SWEA. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend the Friends of the Earth meetings as I will be in London on my internship for both dates. They have said they will keep me informed of any activities that happen over the weekends, however I cannot see this building up to anything.

In the mean time I've got the websites to look at-

Recycle for Gloucestershire

Recycle for Gloucestershire Schools

SWEA