Call for Photographers by Blue Earth Alliance – Deadline July 20th

If you could create a documentary photography project that would deeply impact everyone who sees it, what would it be? Is there an untold story just waiting to be communicated visually that could motivate people to act? And how would you even begin to plan such a project – from funding to logistics?

I’m drawn to the non-profit Blue Earth Alliance by their simple yet powerful tagline, “Photography that Makes a Difference.” Their mission is to raise awareness about endangered cultures, threatened environments and social concerns through photography. The old adage “a picture speaks a thousand words” is especially true when it comes to using visual storytelling to instigate social change. Think of any major catastrophic event in recent history. It is the images of these tragedies that touch hearts around the world and help us understand the reality of a situation. Yet I find hope in the fact that such images inspire us to make a difference in whatever ways we can.

Blue Earth is calling on documentary photographers to submit project proposals “whose goal is to educate the public about endangered cultures, threatened environments, or current topics of social concern.” They only accept project submissions twice a year, and the submission deadline for the next round of reviews is July 20th, 2011.

Need help with your project submission or just help with conceptualizing a documentary project in general? Blue Earth has a free PDF handbook for photographers pursuing documentary projects: Shooting From The Heart.

A special thank you to Doug Landreth who introduced you, the creativeLIVE community, to Blue Earth during his Beyond Photography: Artistic Post Production workshop last month. Doug generously donated the series of oversized one of a kind prints that decorated the creativeLIVE set to Blue Earth to help fund their projects.

Let’s motivate each other and share the causes we are passionate about. If you could create an educational documentary photography project of your dreams, what would it be? Let us know in the comments!

~Kenna Klosterman