100 Years of Protecting the country’s most important lands
1) WORKING HYPOTHESIS
In life I believe that conserving and preserving other species on this planet through story telling is my calling. One of the ways I’ve wanted to do that is through the stories of the people who dedicate their lives to studying and protecting National Parks. My project will show this with a portrait series of the people who do just that, as well as portraits of the beautiful land and animals they protect (including interpretive rangers, VRP, biologist, geologists, etc.). Ultimately I want the audience to feel a connection to the national parks and understand that with out the national park service, we wouldn’t have these insanely beautiful preserved ecosystems that let us see the land as it was before we changed it. Although I will start this project in JRN 521, I hope to continue it long term and collect portraits from national parks from every state.
2) TOPIC
My subject will be the employees of the national park service, and ultimately the landscapes and species they protect. I will make a video focused on the Michigan National Parks, to tie everything back a little closer to home. I will introduce my audience to the national parks with national maps with the parks shown, statistics, lists of species, and a general overview of how many parks we have and my they are important. Much of my “other” parts of the project will be this information, including a (hopefully) interactive map, and timeline.
3) ACTION
I will take portraits of 2-3 NPS employees at their “favorites scenic site” in their park. I will take their portrait, with an extremely blurred background, then have them step out of the frame and take a portrait of the landscape, or mark the area to take a landscape portrait with the best light later on. Then, I will sit down and interview one person from each Michigan national park, and ask about their job, why it’s important to them personally, how our country would be different with out national parks, etc. I hope to take portraits of special species in each park as well (both plant and animal). These events will not be planned, but schedule with the park.
This process will be repeated at each park I visit across the state and country.
4) MAIN SUBJECT(S)
I do not know who my specific subjects are yet, but I do know the parks I will be looking into visiting:
Isle Royale (Michigan)
Sleeping Bear Dunes (Michigan)
Canaveral National Lake Shore (Florida)
And more based on timing and availability both in and out of Michigan
My portrait subjects will include:
Interpretive Rangers
VRP rangers
NPS Biologists
NPS Geologists
NPS Hydrologists
Interns?
5) CAMERA INTERVIEWS
I will interview a particularly enthusiastic Ranger from a Michigan National Park, hopefully Sleeping Bear Dunes, to talk about the history of Michigan national parks, and why in this particular area the national parks are special. This could go into how the ecosystems specifically in Michigan are important, maybe what plants and animals are specifically protected by the parks. It truly will depend on how the interview goes and who the subject is. I then hope to dive more into personal questions. Why did they choose to work for the NPS? How is conservation/preservation important to them? Is this a personal passion or were you raised this way? Why do you specifically think that this passion developed for you? Then I’d like to go into why do they think people should care? Why are parks special? Why should people visit and appreciate them? I personally know I wasn’t gun-ho about national parks until I worked for one, and now I’m absolutely obsessed. How do they think we can make people “absolutely obsessed” with the parks? How are national parks important on a state level? On a country wide level?
6) STRUCTURE
The portraits will be the home page, continuously fading in and out, hopefully with enough portraits that people can sit and anticipate the revealing of the landscape after each portrait. I’d like to have significant quotes form each subject as well.
A video will be incorporated further down in the story, going more in depth to what national parks mean to Michigan, rather than the written story which will be about the national parks nation wide. Graphics at the beginning will show how much of the US is dedicated to National Park Lands. Further down, a timeline will show the national parks history.
Further down form that, I hope to make a graphic or list of the endangered or threatened species protected by parks. In that section I hope to have a gallery of some of those key species.
I also hope to collect multiple time lapses in the parks that I visit to incorporate into my video. Time lapses form other parks will be available to watch at the bottom of the story.
7) LOGISTICS
My schedule is always up in the air, so this project is going to be a lot for me to take on. But I could see myself continuing this in a big way, so I’d like to start it here. So far, this is what I know:
March 5-11 Canaveral National Lake Shore – Florida
April 14-18 CPPA camping trip, out of sate park
TBD – Sleeping Bear Dunes
TBD – Pictured Rocks
TBD – Isle Royale?
- RESOLUTION
I hope that this project not only inspires my viewers, but myself to visit more national parks. From the few I’ve seen, I can already say that our country has some stunning ecosystems that are definitely worth preserving and conserving. It honestly shocks me that we’ve covered so much of this beautiful land up. I hope to inspire people to at least appreciate the other life that we share this earth with, and appreciate the people who dedicated their lives to learning about and protecting it.
Kaiti Grant 