Almost 40 years ago, EPA’s Documerica project captured thousands of images of environmental problems and everyday life. Now it’s your turn!
On Earth Day 2011, EPA put out a global call for current photos of life and our environment, PLUS a challenge to photograph the ‘now’ of places in Documerica. Your photo could be exhibited around the U.S. in 2012!
Congratulations to NOAA, Ocean Explorer for their featured photo in State of the Environment!
This photo taken on September 1, 2011 shows a new deep sea discovery! The 2011 Galapagos Rift Expedition with NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer Program brought scientists to study the deep sea hydrothermal vent systems in the area of the Galapagos Islands.
In a vent field now known as the “Tempus Fugit Vent Field” at about 2,560 meters down, or about 8,399 feet, scientists discovered,”one of the largest concentrations of Riftia tubeworms ever observed, with anemones and mussels colonizing in close proximity.”
What does a subway system have to do with our environment?
For one thing, public transportation can help cut down on automobile emissions and that means better air quality. Healthy air is one part of our collective quality of life. Care and respect for our surroundings also plays a role in the quality of life we enjoy where we work and live.
Documerica photographer Erik Calonius took these photos of the New York subway system in 1973. Calonius began his time with Documerica as an intern working closely with project director Gifford D. Hampshire. In addition to his work on several Documerica exhibits, he took photos in Washington, D.C., New York City and rural Ohio. He captured images of the impacts of noise and water pollution, urban blight in large cities, and the ravages of strip mining on the American countryside.
Now, the challenge is on YOU if you live in that area or plan to travel to it. What looks different? What remains the same?
See if you can match up these images, to compare what nearly 40 years later looks like!
Share your photos here. We can’t wait to see our world as you see it!
“You’re capturing a slice of history, every time that shutter closes,” says Gary as our phone call comes to an end.
Documerica is full of stories; after all that was its intent.
Gary Truman was one of several graduate students who accompanied Flip Schulke to the quaint, German town of New Ulm, Minnesota in 1975. Flip knew Gifford Hampshire who was the life, energy, and vision behind Documerica. One of Flip’s contributions for the project was to head back and cover the life and environment; as Gary puts it, “in a town that adopted him.”
Taking his advanced students, some like Gary who were already working professionally, Flip asked for their ideas to cover this community. What resulted was a week of moments in a small American town; its births, its deaths, its churches and schools, its streets and its faces. Hundreds of photographs forever captured a slice of New Ulm’s history.
Images of landscapes and industry, animals and people, pollution and the thriving results of protection, are together in a 2011-2012 photographic time capsule! From Colorado to South Carolina, Trinidad to Vietnam, we can all see the State of our Environment.
Crossing state and national boundaries, our environment is our shared air, our shared water, our shared earth. What do YOU see?
Congratulations to Flickr participant ‘janice5481′ for her featured photo from State of the Environment!
It’s not a pretty picture taken on August 14, 2011, but this is also what State of the Environment is about: the truth of what you see where you live. Taken on her phone, this picture shows two endangered sturgeon that died in the West Pearl River in Louisiana.
Fish breathe by taking in dissolved oxygen through their gills. Water pollution can sometimes deplete that dissolved oxygen to the point where there is not enough for fish and other aqautic organisms to survive.
The Clean Water Act established the basic legal structure to better prevent and control discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States, as well as set water quality standards. The basis for the Clean Water Act was enacted in 1948: the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. That was significantly reorganized and expanded in 1972 and the “Clean Water Act” became its common name.
Almost 40 years ago, EPA’s Documerica project captured thousands of images of environmental problems and everyday life. Now it’s your turn!
