Beyond Print: Crowd-Funding Our Multi-Media Project
In the August issue of Photo District News (PDN), I was thrilled to find a new web-site called Kickstarter among others! On their site they say: A new way to Fund & Follow Creativity. In the PDN article, photographer Jason Florio said, “It is no longer realistic to expect magazine editors to help fund long-term projects.” Some photographers and documentary filmmakers are now crowd-funding their work.
Since the BP Gulf Oil disaster began spewing, I felt a strong urgency to get down there – it works well with my environmental injustice projects. Now you can help us make that happen by making a pledge for this project.
Pledges start at $1, $10, $20 and go up from there. We want lots of people to participate, so tell your friends =D !
Before Kickstarter, I raised funds for my first book Fruit of the Orchard | Environmental Justice in East Texas – kind of this way, even though I had a publisher and there was no Kickstarter.com. The University of North Texas Press needed $10,000 to publish the book – duo-tone photographs cost money to produce. UNT Press wrote five grants with no results and two long years slipped away before I decided to do the fund raising the old fashioned way - pre-selling limited edition prints. The PDN article says that Edward S. Curtis raised funds for his projects the same way. Use of the Internet gave mine a modern twist even though in 2005 I used plain text email sent to folks mostly on dial up connections. In three short weeks, with a choice of 6 limited edition prints, I raised the needed $10,000. The award winning book was published in the fall of 2006. We even spoke at the Texas Book Festival.. The then Senator Barack Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope” had just come out and he was speaking at the there too.
With a crew of three, myself, environmental writer/producer Vicki Wolf, and photo assistant Kyle McPeek, we will explore the Gulf Coast for environmental injustice issues. With the major networks and the news media leaving the Gulf, we want to step in for the aftermath. There are many truths and untruths we wish to explore – like BP and the Government saying 80% of the oil is gone, while another report contradicts those statements among many others.
This work will be a stand alone 30 minute multi-media documentary film. I will photograph with the Holga, Nikon D300S, and video with a Sony HD video camera as well as the Nikon D300S. The working title is The Gulf Coast: How Much More Can It Take. The project will also work into the feature lengthen documentary Dying For Profit. With each film, fine art prints will be available, formed into a traveling exhibition, and eventually a book.
About the Project:
The Gulf of Mexico is rich in natural resources – from abundant aquatic life and shoreline birds and wildlife, to ocean beaches that provide recreation and livelihood for millions of people every year. But the people living here don’t call this place paradise. They know that this beautiful place also seems to attract natural disasters as well as man-made environmental disasters.
The Gulf Coast also is rich in oil deposits. More than 25 percent of the country’s petrochemical products are produced at refineries and plants in the gulf. The wealth and culture that has resulted from the oil industry cannot be denied. But lack of precaution has caused one environmental disaster after another for people and wildlife that depend on this beautiful, rich ecosystem and consider the Gulf Coast home.
This project examines the impact of the latest disaster – the BP gulf oil spill – is having on people, the ecology, and the wildlife of the area. The photographer’s lens will zoom in on communities, families, coastal marshes and birds to describe what this disaster means to the people and creatures closest to it. The writer will go to the heart of the story through interviews with people dealing first-hand with this calamity.
We intend to increase awareness about the true cost of the BP gulf oil spill in an area already suffering from environmental injustice and an ecosystem already damaged and stressed. Our closer look at the impact of this disaster also will explore most promising solutions for restoring the gulf.
This work — The Gulf Coast: How Much More Can It Take? — will stand alone as 30-minute multimedia documentary on the impact of the BP Gulf Coast oil spill. It also will be part of Dying for Profit, a documentary project in progress that examines environmental justice issues in East Texas as well as the Gulf Coast. http://www.youtube.com/watch… Dyig for Profit is an extension of Cromer-Campbell’s 1st book, Fruit of the Orchard | Environmental Justice in East Texas.http://www.cep.unt.edu/foto
To get a comprehensive look at the condition of the Gulf Coast and the impact of the gulf oil spill, we will target areas of the Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida coasts to photograph and document the condition of coastlines, ecosystems, communities and wildlife. Along the way, we will interview those who make a living from the sea, scientists and toxicologists, activists, mothers and wildlife experts. After research is complete, we will focus in on the most poignant and illustrative stories that get to the heart of the suffering as well as the resilience of communities and nature.
Please support this project http://kck.st/doEq9l.
Our Team:
Tammy Cromer-Campbell award winning photographer/filmmaker/author.
Vicki Wolf, health, environmental writer, and audio producer.
Kyle McPeek, assistant to photography and video
