Exploration with Culture
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) puts on two summer youth programs, bringing recently resettled refugees together into the American school system. Some have basic English skills, others have none. This is just the intro into their new life, from harm to home in the U.S.
In order to prosper, every living creature requires clean air, clean water and abundant food. For ocean-thriving mollusks, clean seawater is a must. In December 2011, Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire formed a Blue Ribbon Panel. Their purpose: to investigate and study a new threat to Pacific Northwest waters. They were putting Ocean Acidification (OA) under the microscope.
What is occurring is evidence of our Industrial Period 100 years prior as heavy carbon dioxide (CO2) elements now begin surfacing in the shallow waters of the Puget Sound. As the spring and fall seasons of the Pacific Northwest bring strong northwesterly winds, currents in the Pacific Ocean stir up these century-old pollutants, pushing them upwards and east into the estuaries. These so-called up-wellings decrease pH levels, causing normal numbers of 8.25 to sink lower into the acidic levels of 8.14 (The pH scale is representative of aqueous solutions from zero to fourteen; where zero characterizes hydrochloric acid or battery acid, and fourteen is sodium hydroxide, better known as bleach). Acid is a solvent. It dissolves what it comes in contact with. Add acidic waters to oyster seed and you find its ingredients eating away at the calcium carbonate that makes up the mollusk’s shell.
Taylor Shellfish Farms is the first to experience this threat. They are attracting globe attention to what is occurring within their hatcheries and throughout their farms. They rely on clean healthy water for larvae seed to develop, but ocean acidification is effecting the development of these mollusks, prohibiting full and consistent growth of their calcium carbonate shells. What is the future of the mollusk culture if we continue burning fossil fuels and causing the climate to warm-up at faster then expected rate? Our industrial state affects more then just our air quality.
To see Part II of the multimedia project Ocean Acidification and our Oyster Culture, please click here
In March 2013, I met Benoit Eudeline. Benoit speaks in a thick French accent and is the lead scientific researcher at Taylor Shellfish Farms’ hatchery. Located in the pristine Dabob Bay, Taylor Shellfish is Washington State’s foremost producer of farm-raised shellfish, supplying the industry with top-grade oysters, mussels, clams and geoduck. It produces two-thirds of the state’s mollusk aquaculture and is the country’s largest supply to Asia, boosting its’ economy and solidifying the region’s bearing as a premium seafood culture. But in 2008, all this came to a screeching halt. Something was happening. Numbers were falling at Taylor Shellfish and each of the other farms in the area. Production was at a loss. Larvae within the confines of the hatcheries became insolvent at surviving. Holes appeared in their developing shells. Disease and predators disrupted growth. Something was brewing in the Pacific Northwest.
Nowhere else in the world was this environmental phenomenon occurring. Mollusks, particularly oysters, were thriving as usual, but in the northwestern estuaries of the Pacific Ocean, the declining health of young shellfish became obvious. First, the oysters; then slowly the shells of young geoducks and the tendrils of mussels, which they rely on to suspend to their host, began showing signs of frailty. As the seasons over the next few years passed in confusion, scientists began studying the changing environments until one thing became evident.
To see Part 1 of the multimedia project Ocean Acidification and our Oyster Culture, please click here
The Explorers’ Club hiking through the jungles of Bainbridge Island. When I was a child, I was obsessed with exploring. I wanted to go everywhere and find anything new that I could set my eyes upon and reach for. The above image was shot for a family with this exactly in mind, putting me in their feet back when I was a child in search for adventure.
I’ve had the pure joy of working with IRC’s Seattle Chapter since the start of 2013, connecting with a broad range of international community members around the Pacific Northwest region. June 20th, 2013 was none other then World Refugee Day where a handful of individuals received their United States Citizenship at a local art gallery in downtown Seattle, which exhibited art by IRC-sponsored refugees turned U.S. citizens. Here is a look at a naturalization ceremony, welcoming these newly-recognized U.S. citizens.
Spent a sunny summer day hiking to the base of The Brothers on the Olympic Peninsula, reaching just above the tree-line before running out of time. An hour and twenty minutes up to Lena Lake and then an additional three hours upwards. We passed below massive pines and wound through streams that disappeared beneath the riverbeds.
Here’s a look at the newest project, creating a youth group surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. Living as a nomadic family, these characters have bonded and divided up the tasks in order to hunt, cook, carry, prepare and maintain within a hostile world. They’re in constant threat, picking their way through a tattered landscape, foraging for their everyday amenities. Thank you to the Field’s family for participating and going along with my vision.
On the move
Portrait of the Water-Bearer
Portrait of the Fire-Carrier
Portrait of the Fire-Carrier II
The Hunter and The Hunted
Eagle Eyes
The Kill
Portrait of The Hunter
The Pool of the Un-Drinkable
Spotted
Fishing the Uninhabitable
Alone and Surviving
Portrait of the Warrior
Portrait of the Warrior II
The End of Innocence
Back to the Woods
For more visit http://www.CameronKarsten.com
From YES! Magazine’s Spring 2013 Issue #65, author Marjorie Kelly arrived on Bainbridge Island as a speaker in residence in Island Wood’s Business Management program. For YES! Magazine, I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with her, photographing at a few different locales. Kelly’s article The Economy: Under New Ownership discusses the positive roles of cooperatives, specifically their business models, and how they’re creating a healthier more stable world economy for employees and consumers. She is also author of her new book Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution
Sneak peak of a Youth Survival Group shoot: In a post-apocalyptic world, a band of youths group together to fight the threats of day-to-day survival.
More imagery to come!
Location: Clear-Cut Field – Olympic Peninsula, WA
Camera/Lens Specifics: Canon 5D MarkIII w/Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM Autofocus Lens
24mm, 1/160 sec at ƒ/18, ISO 100, tripod, composite.
Post: Capture One & Adobe PS6
Unveiling the faux SOG Knives Beach Party Campaign. I had a blast with this shoot, from vision to pre-production to execution outdoors and the very fine details in-studio. Then there was post-production. Here you have the SOG Fielder knife, the SOG Machete and two SOG Tomahawk throwing axes (one chrome, one black) – and the characters that like to use them.
Visit www.CameronKarsten.com for more
Cameron Karsten's Imaginarium 