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RESPONSECALL AND

APRIL 19, 2015TH

E EMERALD TABLET

by CamIlle seaman

I was sitting on my couch in Berkeley California holding my almost two year old daughter in my arms as I watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center. It was in these moments of shock and horror that I realized that my daughter would never know those buildings in the way that I had except for in a photograph or film.

I had been a nYc bike messenger. I delivered parcels to the World Trade Center daily. I knew those buildings, I knew that space in a physical way. When they fell, it was the first time I realized the significance of a photograph as a historic documentas proof of existencemuch in the same way photos of our ancestors keep them real and alive for us.

Weeks later, the US was precision bombing Afghanistan. There I was on my couch in North Berkeley watching the news and thinking that we were going the wrong way. So much darkness and cynicism. I caught myself thinking almost out loud, What can I do to counter this?

In that moment, it was as if someone had tapped me on the shoulder and said, Its time. We need you to get off your couch and do something.

Me? Why me? All I knew how to do was make pretty pictures. But the switch had been flipped. I Knew that I would use a camera to document my experiences with the intent to show how beautiful life is and how amazing our planet is, in counter to the darkness.

I had no plan. No grand ideas, I just had intention. That intention created paths and opened doorways to places I had never dreamed I would be so privileged to witness. I had no idea what Climate Change was as I made my way back and forth to the Arctic and then the Antarctic as an Expedition photographer on ships.

It did not take long before I started to notice the changes. Subtle at first, then more and more pronounced. My beloved Poles were melting. My first images of the Polar Regions were to share with viewers how awesome these remote parts of our planet were. I realized within a few years that my images were no longer of what we had but what we were losing rapidly. I know now that these photographs

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will stand as a document to what once was if we continue to ignore the very strong message our melting poles are sending us.

I stopped going to the poles in 2011. I began to feel that my images had no impact, inspired no change and that I myself was part of the problem. Traveling thousands of miles burning fossil fuels. How could I ask the world to change if I myself did not?

The scientists and the data only made what was coming more real and daunting.

Yet all around me change seemed to be happening at a snails pace, if at all.

Finally one day I threw my hands up in surrender. I said to my daughter, who was eleven years old at the time, If you tell me that you wont have children, then I say lets just live a great fun filled life and say forget you to everyone and everything on this planet!

Mom, she said. I am eleven. How can I tell you if I will or wont have children? And besides, you have to try!

We are all Earthlings. We humans share this planet with many other

life forms. The earth does not belong to us, we belong to it. Knowing this, how can we continue to sit and do nothing? How can we as citizens of Earth look to others to pick up the trash, clean the water and the air and our soil? dont we all have to trY?

I know in my heart that the answer is yes. It has to be me who tries to make a difference, and you and you and you. Each one of us has unique abilities. Each one of us has something that

we do like no one else on the planet. Each of

us is absolutely necessary. We need

each other. I need you. We need every

single species of plant and animal to keep our

planet alive and well.

Each one of us is several billion years in the making

of this moment. The collective experience stored within our

cells makes us the right people for the job.

Paul Hawken said, It is not a crisis of climate we face but a crisis of culture. I know that if we would allow ourselves to see our relationship with this planet in an interconnected way and allow that interconnectivity to define what it is to be human, our behavior would inevitably change. Our treatment of our only home, this magnificent planet Earth, would change. Change is already happening. Let us make that change positive.

So what can I do, you ask. I am just one individual. How can I possibly help to effect the positive change that is needed when that necessary change seems overwhelming, if not impossible? I too have felt this way, dismayed by what I see, depressed by the sheer weight of the difficulties we face. I asked myself these questions, but I discovered that what I do does make a difference.

If you look close enough, you will see people answering the call. The pace seems slow, only because I am impatient to see how grand and glorious we actually will be. I see more and more people creating solutions, asking questions, and shining light on areas that need to be exposed. The doers, the makers, the thinkers, the visionaries, all are looking for a way forward that will make us proud to call our selves not only human but of this earth. We are Earthlings.

Change is coming. Somehow we think that change means loss or sacrifice, but change has a greater range. It can be scary or encouraging, troubling or rewarding, and I prefer to think of the coming change as encouraging and rewarding. It is becoming easier and easier to imagine a human world that defines itself not by how much stuff we have, how much bling or status, but by how well we can live in harmony with each other and within our environment, how we treat other species with respect instead of subjugation, acknowledging that the Earth is not a resource for humans to exploit.

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This planet is not ours to use then discard. Let us seek to understand the earth as sacred. The true gift that it is. A verdant blue planet quite capable of offering everything we could ever want, if we care for it with love and careful consideration. Let us define ourselves by that which unites us and not by those that divide. Quite simply, we humans are all Earthlings, connected to all and responsible for each other.

I had no idea that the images I make would find their way around the world, touching people in a very personal way. It doesnt seem like much, doesnt feel like that big of a deal. Yet every time I receive an email from someone telling me that

they will never see ice the same way is important. Each time others let me know my work has touched them in some way, I know the work has been worth the effort.

I was an apathetic earthling, just hoping I could do my thing and make no trouble, walk quietly through my life, and call that ok. I am sure many of us feel this way, but, in the end, it is necessary to step up for the benefit of future generations and for those with whom we share the Earth in the here and now. We must step forward as a son, a daughter, a mother, a sister, a friend, a neighbor. We owe it to each other. We owe it to all our fellow Earthlings. Each breath we take comes so easily, so effortlessly, but

that air is not inviolable. Its clarity and its purity are delicate, the breathing fragile. It is our duty as inhabitants of this planet to honor and revere the breath of life, if we want human life to continue on this beautiful planet.

Save the thing you love. Pick that one thing, whether its the tree in your yard, butterflies, tigers or bees. Stand up to save that one thing you love about living here on Earth. You make all the difference.

We need you.

We need your vision of what life can be, not just what it is. Creating a peaceful world on this beautiful planet has always been a collective effort.

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As a mother of a teenage girl, I know and have known since she was an infant that I must lead by example. Positive change happens faster, perhaps, when we cease being children looking to follow the examples set for us, and understand instead that examples of active change must start with the standards to which we hold ourselves and how we confront the difficulties we face as individuals and as members of the greater human family.

Does it have to be you? You are being called on right now, in this moment. Will you answer the call?

My job as a photographer is to inspire you. Show you things in a way that opens you to greater awareness and compassion. As we skate along the edge of oblivion I hope that my words and my images will inspire you to ask what you want it to mean to be a human being on planet Earth. We only have this one home, this one place of safety in the great void of space. My job as a human being is to walk lightly upon the earth so that its gifts are still abundant for our children's great great great grandchildren.

All my relations.

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Camille Seaman strongly believes in capturing photographs that articulate that humans are not separate from nature. She is a photographer and explorer for Camille Seaman Photography. Her photographs have been featured in prestigious publications, including National Geographic and TIME Magazine. Seaman has a bachelors degree in the fine arts photography from the State University of New York at Purchase. She has won several photography awards, including a National Geographic Award and the Critical Mass Top Monograph Award. In 2008, Seaman was honored with a solo exhibit, The Last Iceberg, at the National Academy of Sciences. She advocates the importance of recognizing the relationship between humans and their natural surroundings.

camilleseaman.com