SIGN THE CHANGE.ORG PETITION TO STOP THE ILLEGAL DEFORESTATION OF PREY LANG

The forests of Cambodia, which the World Bank previously called it’s “most developmentally important natural resource”, are being destroyed at an alarming rate to the financial benefit of the ruling elite. Global Witness calls Cambodia a ‘country for sale’, and according to a recent USAID report, without urgent action, Prey Lang, the largest evergreen lowland forest in Southeast Asia and home to an estimated 200,000 indigenous people, will be completely destroyed in 2-3 years.

Wanting to understand the effect that deforestation was having on the environment and indigenous communities, I traveled through Prey Lang for 6 days in February on motorcycle, staying in the forest homes of members of the Prey Lang Network, a grassroots association of villagers risking their lives to try and slow the destruction of their forest.

The danger to these activists became all too real on April 26th, 2012, when one of our guides, Chut Wutty, a leading activist for the protection of Prey Lang, was shot dead by Cambodian Military Police as he was working with journalists to expose illegal logging activities in another threatened region of Cambodia. After publishing three conflicting accounts of his death, the government has closed their investigation into his death. Responding to international pressures and attention, the Prime Minister of Cambodia has suspended the land concessions that Wutty was fighting against, but activists believe this is only a political maneuver, one that will be quickly reversed as soon as international eyes have turned away.

Click through to see more photos and to get involved.

Sok Khoeurn, 20, Puth Voeurn, 28, and Kong Neam, 49, gather hearts of palm in the forest near their village. They live in Sandan district, which is the site of  Prey Lang’s largest land concession. The sounds of chainsaws and billowing smoke plumes are omnipresent:  “We are scared of the Company that is clearing our forests every day… I am afraid I’ll have nothing to feed my children because our forest is being destroyed” said Ms. Khoeurn.

.

Sam Meas, 64, supports his family by collecting resin from trees via controlled burns. “[Prey Lang] is very important to us… It is both our food and our farms.” Mr. Meas is a Kuy, an indigenous ethnic minority that has lived in harmony for hundreds of years. They are quickly being torn from their traditional lifestyles by the destruction of the forest.

.

Prum Lom, 55, (right), an ethnic Kuy from Spong Village, gathers medicinal plants in Prey Lang. He says, “This forest is our business. We survive bacsue of the forest, by gathering byproducts like rattan, liquid resin, animals, and medicine.” Mr. Lom and other members of the Prey Lang Network spend up to 10 days at a time on patrol in the forest trying to stop small scale illegal logging.

.

Mat Siev, 30, clears forest for a cashew plantation in Steung Treng province. Owning a chainsaw allows him to fell more than 100 trees per day. With the arrival of foreign owned companies, demand for small-scale illegal loggers like Siev has skyrocketed. Many illegal loggers pointed out that they have no other way to make an income, now that their resin trees and forest farms have been cleared for plantations by other loggers or larger companies.

.

Mak Moer, 36, works for the illegal loggers, bringing supplies like gasoline for the chainsaws to them in the forest, and transporting cut timber out. “I know it’s illegal work, but I have nothing to do. I can’t work construction. My farm was destroyed by floods. I have no work in the village, and my rice is out of stock” said Mr. Moer, a father of two. “I am just transporting the timber, I have never cut a tree. I feel sad seeing the trees being cut.”

.

Chut Wutty, a vocal environmental activist and the Director of the Natural Resources Protection Group, leads patrols of dozens of villagers into the forest to try and stop illegal loggers; confiscating their chainsaws and burning their felled timber. Their activities are deemed illegal by the military and police, and they are under constant threat of arrest by local authorities, some of whom own the chainsaws being used in the forest. While on patrol with Chut Wutty, he confiscated a chainsaw owned by the Deputy Governor of the district, Sandan.

.

Chut Wutty burns wood felled by illegal loggers. His mission is to empower communities to take up the fight to protect their livelihood, in hopes the government will eventually recognize their collective voice. His approach has been two fold, both on the ground trying to document and stop illegal activity as they find it, and in the capital Phnom Penh were he has been trying to influence the government through petition and legal counsel. Still, he acknowledges “chainsaws are louder than the law.”

.

On April 26^th, Chut Wutty was shot dead by Cambodian Military Police while on a mission in the Cardamom Mountains to document illegal logging. According to the Phnom Penh Post, upon his death Wutty was “the country’s most vocal critic of the military’s alleged role in illegal logging conducted by companies granted land concessions in protected forests and related government corruption.” He leaves behind a wife and two children, as well as a massive hole in the leadership of environmental activism in Cambodia. His death serves as a chilling reminder of the danger that environmental activists put themselves in when standing up to well connected, monied powers in Cambodia, but activists are using his memory as a rallying cry to amplify their work in protecting Prey Lang and other important environmental resources in Cambodia and to bring them back from the brink of destruction.

.

Despite their efforts, illegal logging is still occurring on a massive scale. Here, a truck most likely belonging to Vietnamese company PNT transports unmarked resin timber out of the forest, which according to GPS was well past the boundaries of their government concession. When they saw our camera, they immediately began shouting at us to stop filming and drove away. Chut Wutty asked, “the company [PNT] has finished their concession long ago. So why is wood still leaving the forest on their trucks?” Both the Cambodian government and PNT deny that this illegal logging is taking place, despite the clear evidence.

.

A view of a rubber plantation owned by the Vietnamese company PNT, taken while driving a motorcycle and being pursued by both military police and private security, who were unable to catch up to us before we cleared the boundaries of the Company’s property. This area was very recently old growth forest and provided the home and livelihood for many people who are now displaced around the country. Prey Lang, and other vital old growth forests like it in Cambodia, are disappearing at an alarming rate. According to a recent report by USAID, without urgent action, Prey Lang will be completely destroyed in 2-3 years.

.

The Prey Lang Network and associated groups are petitioning the government for action to save the forest. You can help. Visit www.preylang.com to learn more and take action, and SIGN THE CHANGE.ORG PETITION TO STOP THE ILLEGAL DEFORESTATION OF PREY LANG.

Click for more photos from Sundance 2012

.

*Isreal, cab driver

.

*The view from the hot tub at Hotel Park City

.

*The lobby of the Hotel Park City

.

*Cross country skiing

.

*Keeping people warm

.

*Jen

.

*The line for the Bing Bar

.

*Lindsay

.

*Kestrin

.

*The Temple Theater

.

*The view from Main Street

.

5/9/12 update: it was just Chosen in the American Photography 28 photo competition.

A slideshow of my photos were published on the Huffington Post as part of their coverage on the “Occupy” blockade of the Long Beach port on December 12th, 2011

I spent several days in Zuccotti Park, New York City, during October 2011. Click through to view more images and read about the experience.

At first arrival, shivers run up my spine. Holy fuck. This is the beginning of something. Something big. Something that only happens once in a generation; maybe once. I’ve been scared it was going to skip mine. But here they are, twenty and thirty year olds, sixteen and sixty year olds, speaking in one voice. The “Human Mic” reverberates across the park as Naomi Klein encourages everyone to come together, to fight. This Human Mic, it’s something new, I’ve never seen it before, it’s a beautiful thing, a thousand people speaking in one voice, waves that crash across the park. The General Assembly starts, reports are made, and Direct Democracy is on display. It takes two hours to get 90% consensus to spend $650 to help fund an art show, two very long hours spent working through every block, every dissenting voice. But eventually, the consensus is reached. The money is delegated. Mic check. Talib Kweli arrives. He performs a new song, and then a classic Blackstar track, for the 50 of us that can hear him.

But my 2nd trip down there, a week later, the vibe has changed. Tourists are everywhere. They walk in packs through the maze of paths cutting through the ubiquitous blue tarps and tents. Everywhere you look, it’s cameras and recorders, there seem to be more tourists and reporters than demonstrators. The drum circle has grown, but now there’s less hippies; there’s more tourists in expensive fall coats, dancing with abandon. More costumes have come out, there’s a Devil here and an Evil Radiation Man there, and hey look a Plutocrat in a top hat walking by. The Hari Krishnas have found the park, they’re smiling as they sing, drumming and bouncing with the spirit. The Evangelical church groups are out today too, they’ve come to lend their voice, they’ve come to preach. A woman sells a button that says “Destroy Capitalism”, 1 for $3 or 2 for $5. The media is out in full force, they grab the nearest guy in a costume and sit him down and let him rant or rave about whatever he wants, and then say he’s speaking for the movement, tonight at 7.

Without a leader or a message, the ironies run rampant through the park, stepping on the heels of the tourists stopping off between their trip to the Statue of Liberty and MOMA. There is still a dedicated core of demonstrators, but they’re harder to find amongst the carnival. And an ugly feeling starts to bubble up: that for all the fear of the movement being co-opted by nefarious political forces, it has been co-opted by a nefarious political group: The drop-outs, the burn-outs, the lazy and the drug addled that really do rely on government hand outs, that couldn’t give a damn about banking reform or campaign finance reform. People that are interested in using the opportunity, using the cause to make their life a little easier: a safer place to stay, free food, a community, an opportunity to promote an individual cause. Here, END COLUMBUS DAY! There, SAVE THE CATS AND DOGS! Over there, END THE WAR IN LIBYA! And behind you COME TO MY ART SHOW THIS FRIDAY!

Goddammit, is this a sideshow? Is Occupy Wall Street just a distraction from the idea that the 99% can raise up and demand fairness in the banking system, demand a political system not inundated with corporate dollars? Wouldn’t it be better if we just did this on Twitter? If we just signed a petition and shared an article to our friends on Facebook? Wouldn’t it be cleaner? Wouldn’t it look better to those conservatives, those ‘Tea Partiers’ that economically should be standing hand in hand with the Occupiers demanding a fairer shake, and yet coil in revulsion whenever they see an image of the ‘dirty hippies’ dancing to the drums at the Occupations around the country?

But, come back down on a Tuesday morning, before the bulk of the tourists get there, before the drumming starts. Before the Krishnas and the media. Come back down when it’s a bit quieter, and the core re-emerges. Voices are lower, conversations are being had, there is communication everywhere you look. The tents, homeless, drug addicts – at this hour they seem like a mere by-product of the Occupation. Weeds growing in the garden, but not a good enough reason to stop fertilizing. Everywhere you look you can see care, rampant care. Sandwiches being made, coffee being shared, warm clothes being donated and distributed.

And now, go to the East side of the park, sit down in the People’s Think Tank for a few hours. Listen to the conversations being had, and then stand up, speak, be heard. Yes, we want banking reform, and campaign finance reform. But those are ideas that can be overturned. What we want, whats deeper than any specific political demand, is a new way of thinking, something that can’t be re-legislated and watered down or killed in committee. What we want is liberation through education. We want a place in every city where any person can go to seek understanding, to be empowered, to connect with their community through the values that we can all stand behind, the values that make us human.

And then realize, the medium is the message, the Occupation IS the movement. Sure, these Occupations bring with them the homeless, the drug addicts, but these exist in every city already; it is just forcing us to look them in the eye. And without the Occupation of space, would a few thousand people really have catapulted this issue to the forefront of our minds? No way. A million people could sign a million petitions, but it wouldn’t be as powerful as the 200 tents that forced the entire nation to take notice. #BankingReform can trend on Twitter from now to eternity, but it won’t get your attention as quick as a single image of a policeman in riot gear, his pepper spray blazing.

And now Zuccotti is shut down. And LA, and Oakland, and Portland have all been evicted. But the movement is just starting. People are waking up. They are starting to ask, why are these folks willing to sleep out in the cold? To face constant derision, and the specter of police brutality? Wait, because they’re lazy? Too lazy to get a job? That doesn’t ring true. Because they’re smoking weed and having sex in tents? That’s not it either. There is something deeper going on. It started in Zuccotti park, and then it spread across the country, to every major city. And then they started evicting them in every major city, beating and arresting them. But it’s not going away. Who knows what form it’s going to take on, but it’s not going to fade. We’ve entered a new world, and people are tuning in. I know that I am.

I recently took photos of my neighbor Cynthia and her family, and her mom Fanny asked if I would photograph the members of her church for a fundraiser. So last week my assistant and I loaded up the van and drove down to the church, on 108th and Compton Blvd in South Los Angeles. It was a great day. Click below to view some of the photos.

I set a goal to have a billboard up in Los Angeles by the end of the year, and here in June I’ve got my first.

Click through to see more of the SYTYCD ads.

It’s especially cool since I started 3 years ago as the behind the scenes photographer on the auditions for So You Think You Can Dance, then progressed to shooting the live show, then the publicity gallery, and now this. I’m grateful to have been entrusted to work on each of the projects.

One of the challenges of this shoot was that we were ‘piggybacking’ on the motion commercials they were shooting for the show. Same location and same models means saving money, but it also means a much more hectic day as two crews balance around each other to get everything they can in the time allowed. And of course, since the photo shoot was happening at the good grace of the motion shoot (who was footing the majority of the bill), we had to defer in terms of locations and timing. But we thrive on challenges, so in the course of the day we managed to shoot 5 different models in 4 different set ups. Not bad.

Here are some of the shots you can see around town: