Please join Greener Photography on Friday April 22nd 2011 for the Earth Day Webcast: People, Planet, Profit. Listen from 10AM-1PM Pacific to be inspired, get original ideas on how you can go green, and learn more about the environmental impact of the products you offer your clients. Register here.
What with reusable capture cards for both stills and video, and “lightroom” processing for much of image postproduction, we think of photography as an increasingly eco-friendly industry – if we even consider our medium and green technology in the same breath. Greener Photography aims to make us even more aware. It’s the place for the photographic community to consider the environment; learn to conserve and better preserve our resources and images; and connect by sharing suppliers, ideas, and methods.
We all know that photography started out as a fairly caustic process, with chemistry that was often immediately harmful to both humans and the environment. Most notably mercury used in Daguerreotypes, and various print toners. I myself was an instant victim of Elon poisoning, which, once recognized, spurred my switch to Ilford films and chemicals.
It’s just plain good business to drive our industry toward standards for environmental awareness and practices for pollution reduction. Packaging and shipping methods are as big and issue as the materials and chemicals that go into our products themselves. In Colorado many of the ski areas have banned, or will soon ban, photographic chemicals from the mountains where photos are made for ski schools or commercially for tourist sales and event imagery. Framing is another area where most of us don’t really know much about the source of materials and the methods of production. Greener Photography’s site begins to explain what it all means and how you can become involved.
Our own experience is telling about community interest in green industry. Recently a neighbor to my studio created a ruckus by wildly claiming we were dumping photographic chemicals into city dumpsters and waste water! Since we’ve been exclusively giclee printers for more than 10 years since the time I became an early Epson Gemini Mentor, the claim could have no validity whatever. The Colorado EPA official who followed up on the complaint was impressed at our setup and the variety of things we do every day to recycle, reuse and select greener methods. Needless to say, Photo Mirage got high marks and a favorable report from the EPA!
An exciting part of the Earth Day Webcast will be a presentation by Rough Mountain Film and Media. This Boston firm specializes in video identity for both non-profit and business sectors – something Photo Mirage does as well. Presented on the internet, these productions lower the studio’s environmental impact, as well as eliminating much of the printing, sampling and travel necessary for a business to introduce itself to new clients.
Greener Photography was founded on opposite coasts by Thea Dodds and Dawn Tacker, both photographers with a high interest in all things green. Visit the Greener Photography website for reams of information www.greenerphotography.org. I recommend watching the webcast and considering becoming a member.
