July 28th, 2009
I first heard of the Center for Biological Diversity’s work a few years ago and have watched and supported their work when I could. A month or so ago I finished reading Ed Humes book Eco Barons. A brilliant account of just some of the Americans who are using their wealth to try and save our planet from ourselves. I learned so much from this book about who, what, why and where some of the greatest environmental philanthropists and non profit organizations are putting their money, resources and energy. I was so inspired by the history of the Center for Biological Diversity and it’s campaigns that I immediately got in touch with them and told them I wanted to help in any way I could through my work.
This is not about who’s got the biggest budget in their photo department. This is about wanting to really define who you want to work with and why. And going after them. In this case it was a non profit organization. We know that sometimes they have money and sometimes they don’t. It is up to you to define how flexible you can be. And there will be times when the money is there and guess what they want your work. What I think IS important is that a couple of times a year if you can, do something first and foremost because you can give back to society and help through the use of your work and talent. It might not mean a lot to you perhaps but it means a lot to them. And ‘Pro Bono’ for all us self employed types can be a tax write off IF you’re working with a legally defined non profit and they have agreed they are accepting the work as a charitable donation.
Here is the front page of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Quarterly Newsletter for this summer. They kindly requested use of this image and they got it. I got the satisfaction of helping a cause I care about. Simple.
The CBD’s Mission Statement
“At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive.
We want those who come after us to inherit a world where the wild is still alive.”
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org
Posted in Clients, Environment, Nature, Pro Bono work, work | No Comments »
July 9th, 2009
This photograph was taken with a phone.
Things sure have changed in our world in the last couple of years. Daily we Twitter, Twatter, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Faffr, whatever. All in efforts to stay apace with the world around us. Increasingly now by just using our phones. I know all too well that feeling of nakedness when I discover I’ve left my phone at home. This sympton has got worse with the advent of social networking and a mobile lifestyle that anyone can tune into if (A) you’re there and (B) if anyones gives a toss or not. Frankly I find it disturbing that I would be so disturbed by something so trivial as leaving my phone at home. Yet until I am ready to go live in the woods or deep in the Himalaya then these are the tools that are there for the taking. Or not. Photographers know this all too well. Go with it or not? I decided I was going to participate.
So it was last month at the beginning of June that I got my first smartphone (the brand I won’t mention because they already get plenty of free advertising from consumers like me). They might as well have surgically implanted that thing in the palm of my hand. You could have quoted me a year ago as saying that all I needed my phone to do was ring. Just bloody ring goddammit! (Mind you I still have to speak to my phone like this). Now I can’t even go anywhere without expecting it to get me there with the drop of a digital pin. It’s a long way I am from when I was a wee girl navigating from a paper map on a roadtrip round the skinny by-roads of Ireland. Me and me Da (gramatically incorrect I know but I don’t care, this is my blog) spinning around in his powder blu FIAT 131 singing a couple of rebel songs to ourselves.
One thing I have become infatuated with is the third rate mobile upload. They may have killed Polaroid but they gave us the Mobiloid. And what with all the tools out there you can do a way more inifinite number of things that just scratch or shake. But perhaps that was the charm? Just scratching and shaking. Don’t get me wrong I was devastated when they decided to kill SX70. I was well on my way to a nice body of SX70 work. Somebody else thought so too. We had a party here once a couple of years ago and I woke up the next morning to discover a wee gap in the line of polaroids on the picture rail. Somebody had nicked my favorite one of all, a silhouette against a beautiful dark blue sky of Ireland’s most famous Round Tower, Clonmacnoise. Both my parents were with me that day as I shot in 2006. They were enthralled with the beauty of the polaroid as it revealed itself before their eyes. Everything about that day with my parents was precious. When I told them it was gone they were gutted. Whoever took that picture that night stole some of my special day too. Knacker.
How did I digress? The point of the post being the Mobiloid. For such a measly few pixels out of something I’m enjoying the limits of this scaled down version of a digital photograph. Photography still changes even when we think we’re done.
PS : A ‘Knacker’ roughly translates as a complete loser . Although that’s putting it politely. It’s a bit worse than that. I’m trying not to use profanities.
Tags: Mobile, phone
Posted in Mobiles, Mobiloids, Personal Work, cameraphone | No Comments »
