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Picture your climate future

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ORIENTATION MEETING

Thursday, March 20, 2025 6:30-7:30pm

Thomas Memorial Library, Cape Elizabeth

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Click on this image for a downloadable flyer.

Click here to sign up for the project.

Email Deering High School or Seeing for Ourselves with any questions

These are the steps in this project. We will review these at the Orientation Meeting. For a downloadable version of these instructions, click here.

Step 1: Research (Estimated Time Commitment: ½ day outside of school hours)

A. Climate
Think about what Portland and the surrounding area will look like decades from now–say, 2055. Although you may be far gone, try to imagine what your environment will be like if you remain—flora and fauna. Then identify a locale for your photo(s). It’s your choice, but you might want to consider:

How will the local woods have evolved?
The beaches?
The wetlands?
The Casco Bay fisheries?
Local streets and structures?
Wildlife?
Will newcomers have arrived here, climate refugees from hotter locales?

 

It is perfectly fine to portray a hopeful scene, such as a recycling center or a house with solar panels.

B. Photography
You’ll be taking photos with your own smartphone or camera. (While film cameras are as acceptable as digital ones, you’ll need to process the film and scan the printed photos.)

Photography instruction may be available. Watch this space for further details. However, you almost certainly have had enough experience taking photos to produce striking images. Following these simple guidelines will take your smartphone photos up a notch:

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For a bit of training in landscape photography specifically, take a peek at this online guide.

Step 2: Field Work (Estimated Time Commitment: ½ day outside of school hours)

You’re ready to head out on your photo expedition! Sometime in the first three weeks of April outside of school hours, grab your smartphone and/or camera and head for the locale of your choice. (Sorry, we cannot provide transportation.)

Consider what will be the most evocative way to photograph the scene. You can capture the way it is now or the way it may appear in the future. (Filters may help with the latter.) You can try GenAI apps like Midjourney for one or two images at most; this project is about photographers roaming Portland, not sitting at a computer.

Or maybe you’d prefer to envision your climate future symbolically, like a ticking clock. (You can do this one at home.) The sky’s the limit!

Then take the picture, experimenting with different angles and perspectives. Take many photos; you’ll figure out the best ones later.

We may be able to arrange for True Life Media, a noted service in Portland, to shoot a video of the picture-taking one Saturday or Sunday. They and we will meet up with you where you’re photographing this day. (Bring a parent or other escort if you like.) You will also be interviewed on camera as to what led you to take part and what you hope will result. The footage would be included in a film about this project that may wind up on public television and in film festivals worldwide! (Check out the teaser here.) Let us know at the Orientation Meeting if you’re willing to participate in this part of the project.

Step 3: Captioning and Submittal (Estimated Time Commitment: 1 day outside of school hours)

A. Captioning

When you get home, decide on your favorites (a maximum of 10 photos). Then add a caption to each, conveying what you felt when you took the picture. Try not to say, “This is a photo of…” but relate what was in your mind. Adding an intriguing fact isn’t necessary but can take your image to a whole new level.

Check out the gallery of photos from the 2023 pilot project at CEHS.  Click on a photo to see the caption.

B. Sharing with Seeing for Ourselves

Then upload your work to Google Drive, Dropbox, or something similar, and send us a link no later than April 23. Be sure to upload the original hi-res photos. We will select the best photos from all those submitted and work with the photographer to fine-tune the captions by April 30.

The photos themselves will be exhibited during June 2025 in Thomas Memorial Library—and the entire enterprise could wind up in a film! Today’s teens have the most skin in the game, and it’s way past time for their concerns to become a prominent part of the national conversation about climate change..


C. Sharing with Home Stories

The final task is to contribute these final works to Out of Eden Walk Home Stories. A global storytelling initiative supported by National Geographic Society, Out of Eden Walk created the Home Stories portal—a space to connect with the world and our neighbors in it through multimedia narratives. Add your voice to the collection, and your Home Story will be seen by people all over the world. Please contribute your final photos and narratives by April 30, as seen below.

First, upload your photo.
The Title of Submission should include this parenthetical: (“My Climate Future” Project with Seeing for Ourselves and Deering High School)
Adapt your photo caption to What’s the Story of This Place.
The rest is up to you!




 

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Stipends

Thanks to the generosity of donors, a total of $900 is available for stipends to the first nine individuals to enroll in the program.

 

Subject to this ceiling, you can earn $100 for simply participating in a serious way—or $25 per usable captioned photo, to a maximum of six per participant. 

 

  • If there are up to six individuals in the program, they can each earn up to $150. 

  • If there are as many as nine, they can each earn $100.

  • Other combinations are possible.

 

All judgments and allocations are the responsibility solely of Seeing for Ourselves.

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