Work done in conjunction with various forestry and environmental non-profit organizations over the years will be shown in Athens, Ohio on Nov. 10 to celebrate the International Year of the Forest. I’m happy to have work in the show with friends and other great photographers Josh Birnbaum, Pradeep Edussuriya, Jim Korpi and Michael DiBari.

The Chicago run Yo Yo Magazine has a few images from my Fox River Derivatives in their second issue. The magazine is a mixture of art, poetry and narrative. Definitely excited to have work in mixed media and open minded venues such as this one.

Take a look at the work at http://www.yoyomagazine.org/

Al Gore’s book on climate change “Our Choice” recently came out as an app for the iPad. The newly worked version of this book includes my view of the Pioneer Forest in Missouri, a large sustainably managed (and absurdly beautiful) forest that I hope to visit again. Good to see it getting good reviews as well as publishers try to figure out how to best exploit new platforms.

So, what I didn’t mention in my last post about this experiment project is that every so often, when I process a batch of film from my time on the Fox River shoreline, I spend some time in my yard setting fire to the negatives to a certain extent. Most of the time I don’t scan the negatives beforehand. There’s a reason for all of this that maybe I’ll get into later when I’m out of the initial sketching mode, but for now I’m just figuring out this process. This is the work that I’ll be bringing to the American Diversity Project….though I’m not sure it will necessarily conclude with the December meeting. If you visit the ADP website you’ll see this year’s theme is water and oil. I decided to take a more interpretive and material based approach than my normal, more straightforward documentary work.

Things have been a bit busy around here lately, have been in NYC this week and saw some familiar faces as well as met some great new people. A visit to the city always recharges me. I will most likely be out of town again sporadically in different weeks leading up to the new year.

Image Courtesy of Jim Korpi

I’ve been out of school for a bit now but one of my classmates when I was there was photographer Jim Korpi. His new website has a plethora of new work and it’s really, really wonderful stuff. Jim and I worked together in the summer of 2008 (well, at least congruently, with him in New England and myself driving all over Middle America), completing a fellowship for the non-profit NNFP, documenting people and land. He has continued to document the American landscape with inquiry regarding our relationship with, and impact on it. Please look at his blog as well. He is as thoughtful and disciplined a writer as he is a photographer. Some people’s work just makes you want to make your own work better, and heck, makes you want to be a better person.

A good friend of mine, Neil Osborne (currently in Toronto) is doing some really cool things within his niche lately, like landing an adjunct teaching position at Queen’s University teaching conservation photography and visual communication within their school of environmental studies. Some lucky students there…

But the point of this entry is to point you towards his blog where he is now interviewing other prolific folks within the field of conservation photography…and featuring some of their work. You can probably see some of the best photography of our natural world with a point that goes beyond looking pretty…which is a fantastic thing if you ask me.

His blog is here, check it out for his first interview with Spanish photographer Daniel Beltra.

Chad Stevens, a professor at UNC and a classmate/instructor friend of my from when I was at grad school in Athens has recently put out a piece with Yale and Mediastorm that studies the effects of mountaintop removal, which is a really important issue to me. Also, fellow Chicago photog Daniel Shea has some images from his Removing Mountains project. Please check it out.

I was on assignment this morning for Aurora Photos/The Ocean Conservancy photographing some volunteers clean up the shores of the often closed because of too much E. Coli North Ave. Beach in Chicago. I was pretty amazed at the number of trash bags filled up from seemingly miniscule bits and pieces of trash along the shore. Thousands of cigarette butts, water bottles, beer bottles, a boat tarp, deflated balloons and beach balls, and even shotgun shells, all hiding within plain sight of the average beach goer. North Ave. beach doesn’t look that dirty. One woman I met told me the L.A. beaches she used to frequent as a California resident were often as crowded but “there people seemed to care more” because the beach didn’t get so dirty. I’m not sure what the deal is, but having a %100 increase in the number of volunteers this year over last shows that maybe some people here are starting to care.

Whatever the case, I love, love, love being on beaches, near water. Rocks, sand, gravel, black sand, gold sand, white sand, dirty brown sand, I don’t care. I also love photographing near water, and I made it a goal to try and make an interesting water picture this morning. Who knows if this works, but it speaks of the current murky state of things to me. Anyways, I was thankful for an environmental issues assignment on the beaches of my home area. Being on the beach on a warm autumn day isn’t a problem for me either …

Building a giant kiln - Doniphan, MO - Copyright 2008 Peter Hoffman/NNFP

I’m excited that the good folks over at Fovea Exhibitions, a non-profit proponent of photojournalism in Beacon, NY has decided that my work from last summer about sustainable forestry and organic farming would fit into their “Man vs. Land” projection exhibition showing on the night of Saturday, June 13. Not only is this one of the first outside places I get to have work seen, but I also really like the work that Fovea does and am excited to have a part in that.

If you’re in NYC and want to get away for a day to an excellent little town north of the city c’mon up. I checked out work from photojournalists Chris Hondros and Todd Heisler, and somehow ended up at a fantastic little photo crew backyard bbq last time I was up there. I’m going to try to make it, though I’ll be in Charlottesville, Virginia for the Look3 Festival, probably head out early.

Many of the photographs I make are born of frustration. Case in point above. On a recent cold and snowy night the local university, Benedictine University in Lisle had power blaring through their stadium lights illuminating …. I’m not sure what. There was no one there, nothing to light up. I’ll admit that there could be a reason for this, but at face value I see a hugely blatant waste of energy, that not only was pointless, but brightened up the night sky from a mile away. At least it made for what I thought to be a photogenic scene.