eco-friendly photography

(image borrowed from American Photo Magazine online)


It's hard for me to differentiate which is worse for the environment, digital or darkroom photography. As a lab assistant during university, I was aware that dumping exhausted darkroom chemicals down the drain was not exactly environmentally friendly, and wondered where the barrels of used negative processing chemicals were taken when filled to the brim. I can only imagine how much waste is produced by factories that making silver gelatin photo paper.

Digital photography has created its own set of issues, from energy output to paper waste. American Photo Magazine offers 13 tips to be a green photographer, and like many other publications and organizations, guides the photographer to offset their carbon footprint. I am in complete agreement that we, people as a whole, should take responsibility, but to place the burden on the consumer alone seems unbalanced.

I first started thinking about this a while back when the Australian airline Qantas announced it would provide ways for its customers to offset their carbon footprint: Under the new program, Qantas and Jetstar passengers can elect to offset their share of flight emissions on an ongoing basis by making a small contribution through qantas.com and jetstar.com. But what happens if Qantas fails to achieve all the initiatives outlined in this press release? How are they held accountable (is it possible to)? And is it fair that customers are solely responsible for paying to offset their footprint? I personally think that Qantas should donate a portion of each sale rather than ask customers to fork over additional dollars. It should be an incentive that the customer takes on his/her own. Interestingly enough Qantas recently announced that it is added a slew of new services and features to their economy flights - which I'm sure require a lot of energy use etc.

So going back to American Photo, I would have liked to read in the article how the American Photo office is implementing their own advice. Additionally, I would like to see how companies like HP, Epson, Nikon, Canon - any establishment with a foothold in digital photography - is taking steps to reduce or offset their carbon footprint.

I believed that every individual - within reason - needs to take responsibility for the environment, but companies should share the burden with their customer base.

humanitarian work

The week I spent in Honduras is, I hope, the first of many incredible opportunities to see firsthand the impact that non-profits have on the populations they work with. I was there for a week in November 2007 for a pro bono collaboration between the Virginia Hospital Center Medical Brigade and my daytime job. In addition to managing the entire project (strategic planning etc) my job was to conceptualise and manage the development of the Brigade's first ever website. All the photos on the site designated as Booz Allen Hamilton were also taken by yours truly.

Although I grew up in a third world country, I have never seen as much abject poverty as I did over there. I witnessed and experienced so many incredible things - a 44-lb tumor extracted from a woman's pelvis, an emergency c-section, trekking up a slippery mountain side through coffee plantations... and met a little boy who would not likely be alive in a year. He suffered from neuroencephalitis, which is when there is so much water in your skull that the weight of the liquid pushes down on the brain and basically causes mental retardation. What broke my heart was to learn that his medical condition could have been prevented had his mother included folic acid in her diet (basically spinach). Prenatal care is so rare, but so needed in a country where many women have their first child at age 14 and continue to have 6 or 7 or 8 kids. By the time the last kid is popped out, the mother herself is malnourished and so can barely provide proper nutrition for her children. Its a mess, and the worst part is, that it's a mess that can be avoided.

Photography plays a crucial role in communicating humanitarian issues to audiences who would not normally have first-hand knowledge. Check out these photographers for their humanitarian/documentary work (list is not comprehensive - just a grouping of my favourite photographers that do work in this area)

Sebastiao Salgado
James Nachtwey
Reza
Ami Vitale
Cameron Davidson
Shahidul Alam

april 2008 issue of DC Magazine

published again - check out pages 108 and 112!

january day

how beautiful is this line?
...life itself will decant the excess salt from the sea...

web variations of my name over the years

I love my last name, which in Czech means black cat or alley cat or tom cat (translation depends on who I speak to), but it really isn't the easiest to spell or say out loud. I've always identified myself through my first name, which is why I still get incensed at the mispronunciation of my name, for the record it's Taaaaaara, not Tear-a. But not my last name. I expect difficulty in its pronunciation. Over the years I've tried to make the use of my last name easier on people by not using it all.

My first email address back in high school was pixie17. It seems typical of my high school generation to have several email accounts that had nothing to do with real names. Among my favourites: drunkbunny18. It gives one a true sense of the nightlife scene in late-90s Bangkok. Or my friend's, at least.

I was in 12th grade when, in helping out as a student facilitator for some school event, I saw how my real name could entertain and be played with. Since my last name was long and could not fit on the name tag, I was appointed Tara Koc. My English teacher, Andy Davies - who remains my favourite teacher of all time - with all his toilet English/Welsh/Australian humour, took the piss out of me for this serendipitous abbreviation. pixie17@_.com was shut down and replaced by tarakoc.

I still keep that email address for nostalgic reasons but, feeling pressured by maturity, updated my current address to one that seems more professional. tarakoc became tara.kocourek. As a consultant to the govt, I've had to use federal email addresses to hide my true contractor identity, and recently assigned kocourt. Sounds like yogurt. This morning while signing up for a web membership, another variation of my name emerged: tarkoco.

I doubt the variations of my name will end anytime soon. Case in point: look at the name of this blog: tara.k, updated from my previous presence as tk photography. I don't mind all these changes though, since they reflect who I am at certain stages in my life.

free portraiture training

As I mentioned in a previous posting, I love portraits. People are so interesting, and their faces only scratch the surface. Mood, setting, lighting - among other things - affect the outcome, and I have found myself looking at Corbis Outline to get a sense of what photographers are producing these days. This is what I consider to be free training - studying images and imagining the shoot setup in order to understand the combination of elements that create a compelling portrait (of course, the subjects themselves are the make or break element).

Wow - I'm on a roll; three postings in one day!

on the other side of the lens

For the past two years, I've volunteered to pose for Iwan's Commercial Photography course at American University. It's fun for me since I'm usually the one behind the camera. I really enjoy meeting the new crop of students, seeing their enthusiasm, and helping them learn to direct models in a studio setting. Last year, Subairi of Urban Escape salon (Washington DC)and Nicki of Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa (Friendship Heights, MD) gave the students an overview ofthe importance of hair and makeup, respectively, and demonstrated their skills - on me. Check out the last thumbnail photo on the Urban Escape website. I look like an Asian Diana Ross circa 1978!