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THE WITNESS
Greenpeace USA photo editor and photographer for based in Washington, D.C.
Born in the rust belt where the land was either oily, rocky, coal-caked waste or a profuse explosion of green and vibrant life. I breathed air thick with coal smoke and auto exhaust. Even Koolaid could not cover the metalic taste of the water from the faucet. Summers in southeast Georgia helped me understand the power of the earth, the beauty of the green and vibrant marshes, the magestic strength of the live oaks, and the rich diversity of life in the tidal streams. The vast ocean and intense sun framed my world view. Now, a father of two beautiful women, I feel connected to the time before automobiles and electricity that my own grandmothers described to me, and connect to the change to sustainable ways of life that will ensure a peaceful, vibrant future for our children and grandchildren, and all forms of life on earth. The July Photo of the Month is a powerful image of a Steller sea lion, its head raised high in the air against a beautiful panorama of the Alaskan Arctic.
Sea lion, Dutch Harbor, Alaska
I like the subtle reflection of the giant animal in the glossy mud of the foreshore. He seems rooted in the dark band of earth setting off the lighter upper fur. His posture embodies the rugged angles of the snowy peaks beyond. Continue reading
The June 2012 Photo of the Month by Elizabeth Dalziel shows a polar bear at Horseguards Parade in London.
The May 2012 Photo of the Month by Melvinas Priananda ties Indonesian rainforest destruction to one of the world’s largest purveyors of fast food. KFC is part of Yum! Brands Inc., which claims to be the world’s largest restaurant company.
Taken on recently cleared and drained rainforest peatland on the island of Sumatra, the giant fast food bag goes to ground zero in a global campaign to convince KFC to stop using throwaway packaging made by destroying the Indonesian rainforest. Continue reading
Greenpeace is hosting a photo contest with ViewBug.com. We want to see what power looks like to you. Power, as in what powers your life? Power as the visual form of energy – human energy, physical energy, the energy of nature, energy infrastructure, energy generation, human power, people power, water, wind, solar, living power, imaginative power, the power of life. There’s a lot of visual possibilities.
So pick up a camera, look around and use the power of photography to share your vision of power. Enter the Contest, or check out the entries here.
The April Photo of the Month by Michael Nagle shows the above ground entry way of Apple’s Fifth Avenue Store in New York after Greenpeace activists released black balloons with the message “Clean Our Cloud.”
I like the way the reflection of the black balloons trapped inside the glass cube seem to trail away from the Apple logo like dark sooty smoke merging with clouds outside and framed by the streetscape. The balloons evoke the air pollution caused by burning coal to create electricity. Continue reading
This is a picture that should be framed in crime scene tape.
The March 2012 Photo of the Month by Wade Payne shows the remains of Kayford Mountain in West Virginia where surface mining since 1986 has brought the mountain down. The people who live there, like Larry Gibson whose family has lived on Kayford for more than 200 years, describes how he now looks down on a hole where he used to look up at the graceful slope of a mighty mountain.
The February 2012 Photo of the Month by Michael Nagle captures the new Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior, backlit by the setting sun as it sails by the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior sails past the Statue of Liberty
The silhouette and shadows of the ship etched against the sea, Lady Liberty tall in the glow of a winter sunset, is breathtaking. In the background, plumes of archaic, industrial smoke of New Jersey on the far horizon provide compelling contrast to the ship’s contemporary power and speed. Continue reading
I find the end of the year a good time to look back, contemplate
events and appreciate the beautiful and good of the earth. For some,
the holidays are a time to acquire the latest electronic gadget, to
buy and give new things. Seeing all the flashy advertising promoting
the latest gear, I started thinking about all the once desirable items
after they are discarded; the consequences of conspicuous consumption
and the power of photographs to reveal problems and to force real
changes. The December photo of the month is such a photo. An iconic
image that helped bring about real and positive change.
Like an Exhibit A, this photo helped overcome computer maker Apple
resistance and change the way old computer parts are handled.
At the time the image was created in 2006, Greenpeace was ranking the
electronics industry for the amount of toxic materials in their
products and how involved they were in ensuring their products were
recycled responsibly. We still do. Dell jumped ahead and began to take back all of
their equipment. Apple was falling way behind other makers and
refusing to talk about making changes. Greenpeace decided to talk to
the company through their customers and this image helped them
understand the issue. It shows a colorful Apple keyboard in the hands
of a Chinese child in front of a huge stack of obsolete electronics.
After a year of “Green My Apple” events, Apple finally got the point
and announced plans to stop putting toxic materials in their products
and to start responsibly recycling their equipment.
Published in reports, displayed at news conferences and on web pages,
this image kept the campaign alive and directed. This is the power of
photography to reveal the truth and inspire action
By: bmeyers
This image by Shayne Robinson, taken at dawn on the beach in Durban, South Africa, as representatives gathered for the UN climate talks, is the November 2011 Photo of the Month.
I like the crisp silhouettes of people raising a wind turbine set against the drama of turbulent sky and the full power of the rising sun. It captures the concept that by working together, the people of the world can step out of the fossil fuel powered night, and use new technologies to meet our energy needs. If we embrace a clean, renewable future, the clouds of smoke will dissipate and the sun’s abundant energy will shine on a healthy, sustainable world.
So far the news from Durban is not good. Just as previous talks failed to produce any binding commitments to do what real peer-reviewed science tells us is urgent and necessary to limit the impacts of climate change, there is no sign of progress this year. In the United States, with an economy and government completely dominated by dirty energy companies, well-funded lobbyists and their political allies howl at every mention of global warming. The constant drumbeat of misinformation and false promise of drilling in the fragile ecology of the Arctic, distract us from the need to make any changes in policies or even to stop giving millions of dollars in tax subsidies to the richest corporations on earth, even while borrowing trillions to fund government.
Without leadership, vision and the plain truth, we will not join together in this dark hour and do the heavy lifting it will take to build a sustainable future.
The October 2011 Photo of the Month by Ulet Ifansasti shows Greenpeace Indonesian activists in tiger costumes in Sumatra, Indonesia, where logging concessions are destroying the remaining habitat of the endangered Sumatran tiger.
The complex, diverse ecosystem that supports the last of these amazing animals is being rapidly transformed into the barren, scorched, eroding earth clearly shown in the image. The trees are turned into pulp and paper for products like Paseo and Livi toilet tissue being sold in the United States.
This photo is one of an amazing series that follow the activists around Sumatra investigating the true state of their country’s vital rainforests, and engaging people in cities and villages throughout the region. I like this photo more than the others because of the low angle of view, the gesture of the activist half against the sky and half against the earth with the scrolled burned vine, the texture, the other activists in support. It all works together.
The “tiger” activists write movingly of the widespread destruction they witness, the constant rumble of giant trucks hauling away the trees and what it is like in remainng astoundingly beautiful natural forest. Cakra Prathama of Greenpeace Indoniesia wrote: “The future of our forest is the future of Indonesia.” and called upon President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to save Indonesia’s culture by saving the rainforest and its iconic species from extinction.
Help by asking U.S. Retailers to stop supporting this rapid onslaught.
