Forestry Commission Contacts

I received this email from someone who works at the Forestry Commission in South Wales-

"Your enquiry  regarding environmental photography  has been passed on to me by my Director,
I think we have quite a good opportunity for you in S Wales as we are currently dealing with a outbreak of a tree disease that is killing larch trees that is partly linked to climate change, we also will be having a very large wind farm built on FCW managed land and we supply wood fuel to a biomass power station in Port Talbot that supplies the national grid there are photo opportunities from large machinery working to close up's of trees suffering from the tree disease and our staff and contractors who deal with this" 

I also have permission to photograph in the Forest of Dean, which is a lot closer however they do not have as much manual things to photograph. I received this email from them-
 

"I have been passed your email.  I'm quite happy for you to come over, but actually what to photograph might be quite difficult.  A lot of the work is adapting techniques in management of trees which are difficult to express visually.  There is a team based at both Alice Holt in Farnham and in Bristol.  You're quite welcome to come to the Dean and take photos but will need to discuss what you want to focus on.

 

Have a look at the following link to our website and let me know how we might help.

 

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-7m8f59"

 

I need to look into what it is I want to photograph at the Forest of Dean, and whether they can be of any help to me.

 

 

There's also this link that i have been sent which is about using the wood to fuel renewable energy in South Wales-

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-6HYJAE

New direction....just concentrate on forests

Ok, so after my tutorial with Anthony I have decided it would be best just to concentrate on one particular area. It was far too broad before.

I want to concentrate on stories that are realted to forests/woodlands.

I have arranged shoots with different eco-villages-

Tipi Valley in Wales

Coed Hills in Wales

Round House in Wales

I have also got permission to photograph with various forestry commission bases in Wales and England, with issues related to climate change and tree diseases.

I also still plan on going to Westonbirt Arboretum

I want to photograph the relationship people have with trees, whether they live with them or work with them. I want to see ways in which people use trees. The overall issue I will be looking at is Climate Change. The land has been radically impacted by humans, we essentially live in a concrete world now. So it would be interesting to see the people who still have a relationship with the remaining forests and woodland, and to look into the need to sustain them.

What direction to go in?! lots of questions i need to find the answers to

So far, I  have arranged to photograph a wind farm being put up in South Wales, the staff at Westonbirt Arboretum, and the landfill site/recycling center in Gloucester.

The wind farm will take a few weeks from beginning to end.-ENERGY

The work at Westonbirt is an ongoing process for years to come,and they do a lot of different work there. -TREES

 

The visit to the landfill site and recycling centre will last an hour each. I am also able to photograph the bin men on their rounds. I would rather have longer at the landfill site and recycling centre, but this is all the access I could get.-WASTE / RECYCLE

I don't know where to go from here.

Should I focus purely on one area? 

Or should I branch out and look at other areas as well? 

So far I have only focused on the good that people are doing, should I look at the bad as well so i can compare?

Will looking at other subject areas make it too vague?

Should I focus on one particular theme?

Other areas I would like to look into are- 
consumption - pollution - light pollution - population - individual waste

Westonbirt visit...

I went to meet a nice guy called Ben Oliver at Westonbirt Arboretum on the Saturday just gone. 

He was incredibly helpful, as he talked me through all the things that staff have to do to maintain the arboretum, and he also showed me around a few of the areas they have recently been doing work to. 

In short, they do a hell of a lot of work. There are so many different aspects that I didn't even know about. The beginning stages where they plant the seeds in greenhouses the Propagation which can take years and has less than 40% success rate.

At a certain age trees start to minimize their co2 intake, so it is better for the Arboretum and to act against climate change to chop them down and grow new ones. Although this doesn't look good to the public, they are thinking way ahead for future generations. Trees take hundreds of years to grow, so they have to think very carefully and plan their landscape very thoroughly so they have a constant mix of new and old trees.

Tree surgeons are often called in to maintain the the trees. When they are diseased they may need to be chopped down, or if they have grown too big some branches need to be removed to let more light into the area so it is more enjoyable for the public, and so the surrounding trees get the light they need to breathe.

I've emailed Ben saying the kind of things I would like to photograph. I said 

"I am particularly interested in photographing the work done to the trees. From the beginning in the propagation stage, to planting, to the end of their life when they are chopped down by tree surgeons, plus any work that is needed to be done to prevent against diseases. I am also particularly interested in what work is done to combat climate change, and would like to learn more in that area."

I am waiting to hear back as he needs to check with a man called Mark (who runs the tree team and organizes all the health and safety) to make sure it is possible for me to do it, and what dates I can visit.

Although we are arranging dates, Ben did say that the work they do completely varies and depends on the weather, and the type of things that come up so it will not always be possible to plan ahead. He said they could call me a day or two before and let me know the plans for that week, and that way I can work around them.

I'm really looking forward to learning more about trees, and what is done to sustain them. There is a lot of technical information that is involved, and it would be interesting if I could learn more in this aspect. I think it definitely helps to know the subject you shoot.

I have also contacted forests in South Wales and the Forest of Dean so hopefully I will get a response from them, so I can photograph on a grander scaled and different issues.

Exhibition/South Wales Shoot

I have confirmed a space above the shop called Rendevous in Cheltenham town centre. They are linked to a charity called Foot Steps. The exhibition will be from 22nd-26th March. It will include students from other courses who have also done creative work on environmental issues. 

The Environmental and Sustainability Executive from the Students Union has got in touch with me, and due to some previous mishaps he has a fairly large amount of darkroom vouchers which he could donate as a prize towards to exhibition. I am meeting him on Monday 7th February to talk about the best way to go about it. I want to make sure it's fair, and has a suitable judge. I will have my own work included, plus all the work will be very different so we will need to figure out the best way to go about it.

At the moment I have a few people interested. I have two Illustrators and one Editorial and Advertising Photography student. I hope to expand to other courses. I have asked Kim to send an email round to all third years, however I plan to put up posters around Pittville Campus this weekend so it is more publicly seen. Although I want more people to enter, I am unsure how big the space is. I will be visiting it on Saturday, so I will need to figure out how many people it can realistically fit in. If too many people enter I will have to consider declining some of them. I will do this once I have seen all the work, and see whose is the least relevant. Although this is harsh, it simply won't be feasible to find extra space to accommodate everyone. I do want it to be as fun as possible for everyone though, as I think it's an exciting experience to display your own work to the public, plus having a prize will motivate people to do their best to get the presentation of their work to a professional standard.

I need to get shooting so I have something to put up! At the moment I have nothing. I plan to have my images from the wind farm in South Wales, so fingers crossed they come out okay. I want to visit the wind farm before they get put up, when they're delivered, and afterwards. I have emailed a couple of people from the developers however they haven't got back to me yet. I'm thinking of just going down soon so I at least know what the place and area is like. I'm thinking of questioning the people that live in the surrounding area and see what their views are on the wind farm, and see if it has affected anyone's life in anyway.

Also, in the mean time I will start photographing other issues that surround me in every day life. The things that I see the public doing around me, that relates to the project. Some ideas I've had recently is to expand on my consumption project from Photographing the Real module. I was not happy with the results of this module, so it would be good to explore new ways to photograph this. I will start this on Sunday, as I will be in Westonbirt on Saturday.