Wow. Great news this week from Pictures of the Year International. “Mining the Mountains” and its parent project “Powering a Nation” were both recognized with Awards of Excellence. Special thanks to Monica Ulmanu for her wonderful 3D graphic on mountaintop removal and my wingman and co-producer on the coal trail Sara Peach for being awesome. Looking forward to watching all the multimedia winners.
This past week Chapel Hill received the best snowfall that I’ve seen in my six years here. Snow almost never accumulates here, it comes and goes overnight. So it was amazing to see people cross country skiing outside our townhouse last weekend. It was the perfect excuse to take out the new 7D for a test run. Shot at 24p with Canon 24-105 and 200m L Series lenses. Used MPEG Streamclip to convert H.264 files to XDCAM for editing.
So people are starting to notice, which is great. “Powering A Nation” was recently featured at Multimedia Muse, a new site (or at least new to me) run by three anonymous photographers looking to increase corporate demand for high quality multimedia and photojournalism. Even better, we’re starting to see more people are starting to come to the site to engage with the content.
This summer I was privileged to spend 10 weeks working with an exceptionally badass group of fellow producers, students and educators on a project called Powering a Nation. The project was part of the larger News21 Initiative, an experimental journalism lab funded by the Knight and Carnegie Foundations. Powering a Nation takes an in-depth look at America’s energy challenges. My contributions were on the coal front: I was the lead producer for “Mining the Mountains,” a story on the increasing tensions surrounding mountaintop removal in southern West Virginia. I also backed up Sara Peach on her piece “Debating coal’s future.” This wonderful motion graphic I’m sharing was produced by Ashley Zammit, Melissa Moser and Sara Peach. Check it out: poweringanation.com.
A bit of a trailer for what I’m working on for News21 with my colleague Sara Peach. The project is still taking shape, but we’re working on two pieces that will look into issues surrounding mountaintop removal and the quest for more coal-fired power. Check out poweringanation.com for updates.
The results from the NPPA’s (National Press Photographers Association) monthly multimedia contest were released the other day and “Under One Roof” won first place in the individual audio slideshow category. “Under One Roof” is a short piece I did for the Carolina Photojournalism Workshop this past May at Ocean Isle Beach, N.C. After a week-long chase, I was honored to meet the Greene and Dunlap families, all 11 of whom are living together in a small doublewide trailer in Shallotte. Though it meant a lot of sacrifice, by living together they were able to actually save money and provide a better situation for their children. Watch “Under One Roof.”