The Environmental Concern Collective has found some compelling reasons to incorporate visual content into our work. Visuals are often easier to process and can distill complex environmental data into clear, digestible formats. Infographics, charts, and images can help the audience quickly grasp concepts like climate change, pollution, or deforestation. It’s also easier to make abstract issues more relatable, like showing how rising sea levels will affect specific coastal areas.
We are using some cutting-edge tools to gather and analyze data. Thermal imaging and multispectral images can provide a whole new dimension to environmental research. Thermal differences could help identify heat islands in urban areas or track temperature changes in vulnerable ecosystems. And multispectral imaging would be used for examining vegetation health, land degradation, or how different land-use practices (like farming or mining) affect the environment. The visuals are adding a layer of immediacy to the data—it's one thing to talk about temperature variations, but showing them visually really brings the concept to life.
The images we capture will be utilized in publications, peer-reviewed articles, presentations, multimedia outlets, research, education, cultural, historical preservation, and messaging.
The Environmental Concern Collective has found video to be an invaluable tool for examining climate issues. We have found several ways to utilize this tool to demonstrate cultural issues and concerns, highlighting the physical issues that need to be addressed or those that intersect with environmental concerns that cannot be effectively demonstrated in any other way.
Our video tools will also enable us to present this information to laypeople, allowing them to see the issues for themselves. Our process will include capturing video from the air, underwater, and at ground level. We will provide interviews with people living in the environment, content from scientists, and the results they find, along with direct visual content of the environment itself.
Drone work will play an integral role in what we hope to accomplish in documenting environmental issues. We will be using drones to provide information, utilizing Lidar technology and topographical imaging overlays to show exactly what is happening with the terrain.
Thermal imaging will be used to identify hidden hot spots and cold regions. We can use thermal images to aid in mitigation efforts for housing, industry, farming, and cultural sites. Multi-spectral images will help us determine where things are going wrong and what is working. It helps demonstrate the health of the environment, agriculture, and industry, and shows where changes in activities may have caused problems in the past, allowing us to learn where changes can be made.
Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) cameras are used to identify areas where gas plumes are occurring, such as off-gassing from industry and natural sources, and help guide us in making informed decisions about changes.
Other drone uses fall into a more familiar format; we can document migrations, water flow, erosion, population growth, and guide us to possible solutions.
Drones are not just for air work but also include underwater work. We will use underwater drones to monitor water quality, identify areas of encroachment, assess the health of plants and other aquatic life, and detect potential unseen issues that could impact our overall work.
Still imagery will be the cornerstone of the work we use to document what the average person can see for themselves on-site and connect it to those things they cannot see.
We will utilize a range of technologies, including:
Some of what we capture will be hidden underground, locked into vapors that cannot be seen with the naked eye, or concealed behind walls, and may be so common that you miss it without being emphasized.
Lidar can demonstrate the contours of the land and the contributions created by man. This allows us to observe both dramatic and subtle changes in elevation, similar to what you would see on a topographical map. The biggest difference is that we can also see these changes on a rock face, the contours of a building, and how they relate to the overall environment.
Thermal imagery enables us to visualize a temperature profile, whether on a local or broader scale. With thermal imaging, we can help homeowners and businesses save money while also benefiting the environment. We can see where nature may be contributing to the problems or mitigating the existing ones. There may be a thermal vent that needs to be addressed, underground heat impacting the surface, or a cooling cycle aiding the Earth's healing cycle.
OGI images are created in one of the ultraviolet spaces, making them invisible to the naked eye. The information we glean from this imagery will literally show us where, how, and why certain environmental problems exist.
Multi-spectral photography is the bread and butter of understanding what is happening with plant life. We can make informed decisions about what needs to be done to make farming, gardening, and nature a healthier space for the plants we rely on for life, shade, and environmental mitigation.
When incorporated into other technologies and imaging, it can extend beyond the plant world and into animal life and health, demonstrating environmental changes and tracing alterations that humans have made to their personal environments, including additions to structures and shifts in technology.
Infrared images can provide a wealth of information concerning human activities. We can observe the impacts on the environment due to various activities, including:
All of this information is created in conjunction with other types of imagery and technologies.
Lenticular images are primarily designed to give people an easy way to see changes in the environment from a healthy perspective to a climate disaster. The creation of lenticular images is accomplished during the printing process, but it needs to be considered when capturing the image to ensure the final production looks right.
Microscopic images give us insights into things we cannot see with the unaided eye. We can observe:
This can help identify options for climate corrections that would not otherwise be apparent.
Macro photography allows us to see more details in the things around us — like structural issues with buildings or the structure of a plant. While visible to the naked eye, macro makes those details clear.
Image stacking allows clear details to be seen within a larger structure that may otherwise be missed.
HDR imagery allows us to see things as they really are. It corrects optical illusions created by lighting, shadow, or environmental changes. With HDR, each element displays its actual color and structure.
Wide-angle and zoom imaging are common techniques. Wide-angle is used for capturing vast subjects, like mountain ranges. Zoom focuses on a specific element of that larger scene — like a cabin on one of the mountains.
Macro-zoom imaging is a new technology allowing us to get close-up shots of distant subjects without disturbing the environment.
Visual data is valuable in researching environmental issues, allowing the researcher to see the details of what they are learning about. It provides clear images of terrain, composition, and internal and external influences that numbers alone cannot show.
Visual data is integral to:
Visual data must often be integrated with other findings to establish the validity of results.
The publication of visual data will be disseminated as widely as possible. Outlets include:
Traditional media is vital for nonprofit visibility and outreach. Many of our focus areas will involve complex issues such as:
Our research may offer both complex solutions and simpler ones — like crop rotation or nutrient adjustments, or capturing floodwater for later use, as is done in parts of Africa with sand banks.
To manage this publication process effectively, we are incorporating a professional librarian. This expert will help catalog, store, and retrieve environmental, agricultural, cultural, and scientific data — making it available when needed.
In In the Blink of an Eye, acclaimed editor Walter Murch suggests that the best edit is the one the audience never notices. When that happens, viewers remain fully immersed in the story—the editor has drawn them in, established mood and place, built emotional and narrative continuity, and left a lasting impression without calling attention to the craft itself.
Working with documentary-style footage adds another layer of challenge: editors must accomplish all this while shaping a cohesive and compelling story from often-disparate material, with gaps that Hollywood productions rarely face.
With a clear understanding of my clients’ goals, this process comes naturally to me. I’ve lost count of how many times interviewees have expressed surprise, saying things like:
That is the magic of editing.
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.