Busy Summer

As the Water Is for Fighting project winds down in edit, I'm looking forward to the next bunch of projects and wanted to share some photos from the summer. Four stops along the way yielded amazing stories, beautiful locations, and scary paths to the future. I was inspired constantly, and learned a ton. Living in the Pontiac was a blast and I'm happy to have landed in southwest Colorado for a little while.

I very much enjoyed shooting on the Sony FS7. For the price, its been hard to beat. It stood up well to the humid south, dusty Nevada and even a few splashes on the Salmon River in Idaho.

I began in North Carolina filming a story about environmental racism on the part of the industrial swine industry. The water and air are constantly under assault from the waste from millions of hogs living in one section of the state. It was hard to imagine calling this place home, but I met some truly inspiring people who are fighting to better their situation. (Keep an eye out for another blog post on this soon.

I then travelled to the Savannah River and met with Tonya, the Riverkeeper , to learn about the battle going on now against the Palmetto Pipeline, a new gas pipeline Kinder Morgan is proposing to put in. It would parallel the length of the Savannah River and then turn south to cross countless more rivers. The environmental concerns were secondary down here for many characters we met, the real contention is, this is the south, no one comes and just takes our land. We ran the river from Augusta to the Atlantic Ocean and saw an amazing wild river, in danger for an unnecessary pipeline.

Next I turned west to meet Hank Vogler, and sheep rancher in eastern Nevada. Filled with fire against the big dogs in Las Vegas, Hank has been trying to hold his community together and protect his water rights from the distant thirsty city. Very confident in his positions, I learned a lot and enjoyed hearing his perspective on things, often different than mine. This part of Nevada was rugged country and beautiful to photograph.

My final stop was in Idaho, on the Salmon River. Feeling like home (I guided there for several years), it was a blast to get back on this immensely special river with family and friends to film a story about the value of these types of protected places. Coming off the river, my positions were reinforced even more that these rare places are important and life changing. Already looking forward to getting back!