Thursday, July 22, 2010

Rough Draft Intentions

Me: I have been researching freshwater conservation issues for months and months and I made a big decision to take a dive and start to photograph it all. It's interesting to push through this intense research process and then make tangible experiences with the people and places I've read so much about. If anyone has any leads or knows anyone across America that works in or around freshwater I would love to hear about it. I feel like beginning a project is the hardest so I need all the help I can get.

S.V.: What is your research angle?

Me: Well, it's rather broad at this point and I'm really interested in narrowing it down asap so I can sleep better.

I would say I'm really interested in how freshwater shortages and pollution affect industries and communities. A small town like Orme, Tennessee that ran dry in 2006 or the oyster industry downstream from Atlanta at the south of Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama that is caught up in a huge political battle - which is more important? Oysters? Or the water needed for human use up stream from that industry?

These situations are prevalent throughout the states as we start to feel more pressure from a finite freshwater source. In Chicago, I'm interested in people fishing from Chicago River, a.k.a. Bubbly Creek (famously written about in Upton Sinclair's, The Jungle). I'm also interested in the scientific perspective of water. I really want to go out with the EPA/IDNR when they inspect/test the water in the lake as well as the rivers around the city here. It's really interesting to me to think about people inhabiting a beach on the lakefront but not having the opportunity to swim because of E coli.

So my research angle is to photograph and photograph and photograph and over time my opportunities, connections, and knowledge will grow, I hope.

Thanks for asking. Helps to talk it out, G-money.


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